“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough has an obsession with Kate Upton, and he’s not shy about it.

Scarborough mentioned the name of the model (and niece of Rep. Fred Upton (R-Fla.), with whom Scarborough served in Congress) multiple times throughout this morning’s show on MSNBC. As the guests were being introduced, which included GQ’s Michael Hainey, Scarborough excitedly hoped for photos of Upton.

“I bet he has pictures of Kate Upton in there,” Scarborough said, referencing Hainey.

Shortly after, he added “I’m actually searching for those photos as we speak.”

It didn’t end there.

Read more

As they showcased the upcoming issue of GQ on this morning’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, Co-host Mika Brzezinski wondered about all the boobage in the magazine. We’re talking full-on breast shots that she flashed for the TV screen.

The story with the naked breasts concerned five-day cruises with Kid Rock.

The hosts were appropriately disgusted and outraged and quickly crumpled the magazine so the boobs were hidden. But not before Brzezinski flashed viewers with this bold shot. Those are Joe Scarborough‘s fingers at the top crease of the magazine.

One question. If nudity isn’t allowed on national cable TV, are pictures of naked breasts acceptable?

See the other shots and chyron that helped hide the picture of the guest holding up the nudy feature. Read more

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) changed out of his usual bow-tie this morning for a complete nerd ensemble for Current TV’s “Full Court Press.”

Seriously. A member of Congress shows up for TV in a dorky “Back to the Future” T-shirt and running shorts? “F–king gold,” one observer remarked to us.

It’s just after 7 a.m. and no doubt HuffPost‘s Howard Fineman is really glad he woke up at the ass crack of dawn to appear on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” from Washington only to be told that he’s boring the host, Mika Brzezinksi.

“Well Mika, I agree with you and even though the administration might want to cite civil service rules as it relates to some of those people. I mean, last night they fired the one guy they could fire — Steve Miller, who is a political appointee — so they could just summarily fire him. There are rules down there in the thick of the bureaucracy, but if I were the President, I would I would I would [sic] ignore them and try to move quickly, very quickly, to that source. To answer your earlier question about whether we’re going to look back on this as a fool’s errand or something that changes the nature of the historical view and accomplishments of the Obama administration, I think unfortunately for the Obama people we’re now in the situation where the situation is what did they know and when did they know it?”

Mika interrupting Fineman, saying, “But see, I just got bored. I just got bored. I’m just, I’m telling you.”

How does a guest recover from that? In Fineman’s case, he continues being toothpick prop your eyes up boring.

“Okay,” he continued, a little flustered, “but, but if it’s true as it said that both the IRS story and actions and the AP story and actions were down there in the bureaucracy and had absolutely nothing to do with and were not known by or managed by or shaped by the White House staff and the President … if that, in fact, is true,then this is going, in history, is going to seem like a wasted summer and a wasted year.”

Mika proceeded to awkwardly explain her boredom. Translation: It’s not you Howard Fineman, it’s me. Read more

In a recent blog post, U.S. News & World Report‘s Susan Milligan blasts CNN’s Chris Cuomo for what she perceives was a cheap and tawdry interview with Amanda Knox. As Milligan observes, he comes across like he’s the deviant that she’s accused of being.

Sentence by sentence, she rips him to pieces, saying Cuomo refused to believe that Knox was not a “deviant, sex-crazed, freak.” Gawker‘s Caity Weaver also thought Cuomo harassed Knox in the interview. She parodies the interview, writing, “Were you doin’ some sex stuff? Some kinda freaky sex stuff? Some freaky sex stuff like everybody says you like? ‘Zat what gets you off? Sex? You like doing sex?” The Daily Caller‘s TV reporter Jeff Poor called Cuomo’s style “aggressive” and listed highlights of the sexual and drug-related questions he asked.

A particularly damning excerpt from Milligan:

“The irony here is overwhelming. Knox is accused of being a murderer motivated by sexual ‘deviancy’ (never mind who decides what is ‘deviant’). And yet it is Cuomo who seems to have created some adolescent fantasy about the slutty girl and her uptight, English friend. Is this journalism or the working script for a bad porn movie?”

Read the full story.

Last week Daniel Burke joined CNN as co-editor of the site’s Belief Blog. He comes to CNN from Religion News Service, where for the past seven years he covered everything from Amish funerals to the Zen of Steve Jobs. His work has appeared in WaPo, USA Today and NYT, and he has been recognized by the American Academy of Religion and the Religion Newswriters Association. He’s based out of the network’s DC bureau and reports to Meredith Artley, VP and managing editor of CNN Digital.

ABC Host of “The View” Barbara Walters is scheduled to announce on this morning’s program that she will retire next summer. She will remain executive producer of the show she created in 1997.

“I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain,” she said in a release from the network. “I want instead to sit on a sunny field and admire the very gifted women—and okay, some men too—who will be taking my place.”

“The View” airs at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.

This just in from CNN President Jeff Zucker to CNN staff — a feel-good memo in which he cites numbers showing that the network is on the up and up:

April 30, 2013

It’s a new day at CNN…and a busy one as well.

We have just announced that our new morning program will launch on June 10th, and will be called New Day. Hosted by Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan, along with Michaela Pereira, we think the show will live up to its name in a couple of ways. So mark your calendars and start the countdown clock.

In addition, end of month ratings are now in and I wanted to share with you some highlights. For the month of April, CNN posted its best ratings since the November election, and we also topped MSNBC for the first time in more than a year. Year-to-date, CNN is now the #2 cable news network in America. In fact, not only did CNN top MSNBC, but HLN did as well. In addition, CNN digital is having its best month ever, in its history.

We value the fact that our audience comes to us for breaking news coverage and clearly they stayed with us throughout this news cycle. We also saw the successful launch of Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown this month, and that was another big draw for our audience. As we continue to expand our offerings beyond breaking news, we are reminded of how important it is that CNN remains essential.

None of this happens without all of you. Thank you, and congratulations.

JEFF

CNN filled the world in on new details about its morning show today. The show will be called “New Day” and, as already announced, it’ll be hosted by Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan with Michaela Pereira.

The program will launch June 10. It’ll broadcast live from CNN in New York City from 6 – 9 a.m.

Jim Murphy is the senior executive producer and Matt Frucci is the executive producer. CNN’s John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin will continue to anchor “Early Start” from 5-6 am ET.

Bolduan most recently… Read more

How did an 18-year-old college student in Maryland gain the trust of and get access to TV executives and anchors in New York? “By posting 10 or 15 posts a day meant that the industry knew it was a reliable consistent source,” says Brian Stelter, creator of this site and now a media reporter for the New York Times and author of the just released “Top of the Morning.”

As he neared graduation, Stelter had to make a choice: work in TV news, or cover it.

• Part I: Stelter on Being Matt Lauer’s “nemesis”