The AP says CBS faced a "cascade of viewer complaints" when the end of CSI was cut off. (My best friend was angry -- I've been hearing him complain all day.) "ABC and NBC waited until the local news to break the story; in the West, NBC ran a 'crawl' with the news at the bottom of the screen," the wire says...

> "The broadcaster said news of Arafat's death did not warrant preemption...A network insider said the fact that Arafat had already been reported gravely ill and near death for several days was a factor in the network's judgment that it had erred," Reuters adds.

Some of today's e-mails about this post:

> Anonymous: "A world leader dies. A very controversial world leader who earlier had been mistakenly reported as dead, dies. And CBS apologizes for interrupting regularly scheduled programming to announce his death? What's wrong with this picture? verything I've been reading about broadcast network television news is right - it's over. I'll stick to cable news where real news matters most."

> An industry insider: "Is it a wonder why CBS News is mired in last place? It's clear Andrew Heyward doesn't wear the pants over there -- getting dictated to by entertainment on a breaking news story -- how embarrassing!"

> Ed: "So you're telling me that a report on the death of a major international figure is less important than running five minutes of a procedural drama? CBS News really is screwed up!"

> Geoffrey: "CBS should apologize for apologizing...Whatever happened to the days of competing to be first with news and being proud of breaking the story?"

Not a step in the right direction: "Iraq's media regulator warned news organizations on Thursday to stick to the government line on the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action," MSNBC.com reports. "Invoking a 60-day state of emergency declared ahead of the Fallujah assault, Iraq's Media High Commission urged media to distinguish between insurgents and ordinary residents of the Sunni Muslim city. The authority, set up by the former U.S. governor of Iraq, is intended to be independent of the government and deter state meddling after decades of strict control under Saddam Hussein."

A Halloween spoof in the Phoenix New Times caught the attention of ABC News a couple weeks ago. "Producers for two ABC news shows, Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer, and 20/20, separately contacted Preserve A Life's voice mail, interested in doing stories on the company's creepy services. Both shows were disappointed to discover that it was all a prank, but 20/20 at least had a sense of humor about it. Not so Primetime Live drone Emily Just, who left two messages for PAL CEO Bryce Cunningham..." Here's the rest of the story.

CBS is apologizing for interrupting the end of CSI to break the news that Yasser Arafat had died. "An overly aggressive CBS News producer jumped the gun with a report that should have been offered to local stations for their late news," a CBS statement said. "We sincerely regret the error."

The program will re-air Friday at 10pm, according to this post on CBSNews.com.

Should CBS be APOLOGIZING for reporting breaking news?
> Update: The re-air time is 10pm, not 11am as I wrote earlier.

An interesting blog from Greta Van Susteren today: "In what is perhaps the most awkward moment for me in my many years on television, I was told in my ear AS WE WERE COMING OUT OF BREAK AND STARTING THE LAST SEGMENT, "Arafat died. You have to announce it. We are doing a FOX News Alert." Immediately I heard the animation sound for FOX News Alerts. I then immediately made the announcement of Arafat's death, but I had no more information and had no idea if we had a guest to discuss Arafat, etc. I did not know our plan — more on the Peterson case, or switch to Arafat? And if we are switching to Arafat, what are we doing? Guests? Phoners?...Of course, I could not ask my producer what we were doing since we were immediately on the air and you would have heard our conversation." More...

"We're all apprehensive," CBS's Bob Schieffer tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Nobody knows what this commission is going to find. Look, we made a terrible mistake. CBS has admitted it made a terrible mistake, and Dan has apologized. We take this very seriously, and some serious steps are going to have to be taken."

"The most common scenario making the rounds at CBS has Rather, 73, stepping down as CBS Evening News anchor no later than spring and joining 60 Minutes as a full-time correspondent," Gail Shister says...

"If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be the undisputed king of the red cultural elite, Rupert Murdoch," NYT's Frank Rich says in his weekend column. "Fox News is a rising profit center within his News Corporation, and each red-state dollar that it makes can be plowed back into the rest of Fox's very blue entertainment portfolio." He notes that FNC frequently promotes books from Murdoch's "cultural stable," like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star"...

> Send your observations to tvnewser@mediabistro.com.
> Via FR: CBS aired a special report at 10:55pm. (They cut off the end of CSI to report the news, to the chagrin of some viewers.) FNC reported it around the same time.
> On MSNBC, Preston Mendenhall reported from Ramallah. CNN's Jon Vause stood nearby. FNC's Amy Kellogg is reporting from the city as well.
> FNC aired a Rita Cosby interview from December 2001 with Arafat, an e-mailer says: "Arafat almost declined the interview after Cosby spent many hors to travel to the location."
> CNN's Bed Wedeman has been reporting via videophone from Cairo. I haven't seen any other reports from Egypt...
> Charlene Gubash is going to be pretty busy!
> At 1:20am Laurie Dhue said FNC's coverage would "take a break." A repeat of Your World followed at 1:23am...
> Just after midnight ET, Aaron Brown turned it over to CNN International in London. At 1:30am, they're still on...