ABC Attempting To Authenticate Al Qaeda Tape

ABC News is "working around the clock in an effort to authenticate" a tape of an English-speaking man threatening a massive attack on the United States, Reuters reports. "We have worked with the CIA and the FBI, neither of whom have authenticated the tape," Jeffrey Schneider says. "Obviously, it would be beyond irresponsible to broadcast this tape without first authenticating it." Drudge first reported on it today, and says ABC obtained it over the weekend in Waziristan...

MSNBC's Nov. 2 Plans Include "Blogger's Cafe"

MSNBC isn't going to sleep until Nov. 4. The network announced its election night plans in a press release today. Chris Matthews will anchor coverage from Democracy Plaza from 6pm to 3am. Highlights:

> Keith Olbermann will analyze election returns. Brian Williams will report on exit poll results. Lester Holt will be at the NBC News decision desk, "explaining to viewers how the network makes the decision to call states." Deborah Norville will apparently not appear on MSNBC until Thursday, at the earliest.

> Joe Trippi, Ana Marie Cox and Powerline's John Hinderaker will report from "Blogger's Cafe." MSNBC's blogging team will produce four live blogs for MSNBC.com, featuring reports from "Citizen Journalists."

> After Hours will air on Monday and Wednesday from 11pm to 1am.

> Rick Kaplan's new title: "executive producer, MSNBC's 2004 Presidential Election coverage."

The press release has the individual night-by-night schedules...

Conan Repeats To Replace CNBC's 'Capital Report'

First on TVNewser: Later today CNBC will announce that repeats of 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien' will replace 'Capital Report' at 7pm. The DC-based political show will end its run on Nov. 12, and Conan will begin on the 15th. An advance copy of a press release quotes Bob Meyers: "Earlier this year, we embarked on creating a new, entertaining destination at night and 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien' is an ideal program to be a part of that."

Last week TVGuide.com reported CNBC was considering replacing John McEnroe's 10pm program with Conan. "My feeling is, they'll do it at 7, and pretty soon they'll get rid of McEnroe and air at 10 too," an insider said this afternoon.

> Update: 3:50pm: The press release is now online.

> Update: 4:49pm: "Considering Capitol Report wasn't doing that well at 7pm, CNBC will attempt to spin any minor ratings improvement as an immediate victory," an industry source notes. "However, in order for this show to be financially viable for CNBC, anything less than a .6 will be another failure." As TVNewser noted last month, CNBC will still have to pay for rights to the Conan repeats...

CNN's "On The Road" Ratings Boost

PR Week reports on the networks' efforts to attract viewers to its election night coverage. CNN says its On The Road strategy has paid off: "We've put many of our shows on the road for several weeks from American Morning, Anderson Cooper 360, and Lou Dobbs," Matthew Furman says. "Our ratings have improved significantly; it resonates with the viewer."

MSNBC Hiring For "Entertainment News Show"

GE's web site has listed two staff positions for a "new Entertainment News show" on MSNBC. Qualified candidates for the segment producer and line producer roles will possess the "ability to recognize entertainment stories with high potential for fun, exciting and compelling television," along with "expert knowledge of entertainment industry including trends in movies, music and television." Entertainment News show??...

Some Of These Are Almost Accurate...

Mr. Sun "predicts" next week's network election night coverage today. Hardball will offer "continuous live coverage of every thought, whim, or fancy which enters Chris Matthews' mind -- no matter how irrelevant or who else is talking at the moment." On CBS, "Mary Mapes produces a segment calling into question George Bush's Midland Elementary School third grade report card -- with harsh evaluations written in Quark desktop publising system." More satire here... (Hat tip: Lost Remote)

Will Carlos Watson Go 'Off Topic' Again?

Carlos Watson's CNN pilot earned about 400,000 viewers on Sunday night. (Here are Friday and Sunday's posts about the show.) "Off Topic" averaged 407,000 viewers. (CNN's 10pm October-to-date average is 569,000.)

"Carlos Watson knows nothing about politics," a CNN insider says. "He's CONSTANTLY on the phone with our political unit. He's a great guy, and a smart guy -- just not in the world of politics." Other e-mailers have suggested that the "rank-and-file" at CNN aren't all that impressed with him.
> "Off Topic killed FNC and MSNBC among P25-54 viewers Sunday night - that's the demo that matters, i.e., the one advertisers pay for," an e-mailer says. "The show did great!"

Dan & Joe Begin Blogging On MSNBC.com

Deborah Norville is now the only MSNBC primetime anchor without a blog. With this week's introduction of Congressman Joe and Dan Abrams' Sidebar, MSNBC seems to be the most blog-friendly network.

> "2004 could make 2000 look like an argument over a parking spot," Keith Olbermann writes. "There's a lot of people here with vacations scheduled for November and I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of flight reservations cancelled."

> Hardblogger is "blogging the final days of the election."

The Ticker: Mackris...O'Reilly/Woodward...Big Media...

> The NY Observer features Keith Olbermann's offer to Andrea Mackris, and interviews "women in television" who say that "sexist, hostile work environments exist in TV news."

> "The Big Media...have been "voting" for the next president for much of the last two years," FNC's Cal Thomas says.

> Bill O'Reilly's "almost Kerry interview" with Bob Woodward gets a bit of U.K. press attention.

> The Washington Times plays to its readership base: "CBS News apparently had an October surprise of its own for President Bush."

New PEJ Study Surveys Debate Coverage

A Project for Excellence in Journalism study during the two-week debate period shows that 59% percent of the stories mainly about Bush were negative, while only 25% of Kerry stories were. FNC's 'Special Report' and CNN's 'NewsNight' were included in the study. Hume's show seemed to favor Bush, the study says, while Brown's show was "mostly neutral." 28% of network news stories and 30% of cable news stories were negative.

> "Media coverage is all about interpretation these days," WP notes.

> "While bias could be a factor, there are other possible explanations," Editor & Publisher says.

> Update: 8:20am: "The project found that Fox News (or at least its main news show, anchored by Brit Hume) may not be as biased as liberals -- and media members -- have imagined," the SF Chronicle says.

Does Howard Kurtz Need A Fact-Checker?

Last week readers pointed out Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz's IFilm.com mistake. Now an e-mailer notices a problem with his story from Saturday: "There's a big fat whopping problem with his story on Brian Williams. It said BW was in the chair when Challenger exploded. Except that was in 1986," when Brian was at a CBS affiliate. "Kurtz meant to say 'Columbia,' which was last year. That's a dumb mistake to make." Here's the story. Kurtz's story, and mistake, were picked up by several other papers...