Jeff Jarvis offered advice to network news orgs today on his blog: "Recognize that anyone can be a reporter. Anyone who sees and reports news is a reporter. So widen your world. Listen. Quote. Make your public a star alongside your anchors."

MSNBC took a step in that direction yesterday by reviving the Citizen Journalists. "During this year's election, MSNBC tried something different. We accepted real reports from Citizen Journalists," Joe Trippi writes on MSNBC.com. "We want to continue this experiment...We are giving Citizen Journalists a regular home for coverage on events large and small. We will post some stories you file up on our Citizen Journalist blog, and take the best reports and put them on the air."

Trippi offers three "assignments:" The war in Iraq, travel safety and security, and your Thanksgiving visit home. Here's how to submit CJ reports...

Alessandra Stanley cast doubt on Peter Jennings' long-term anchor prospects in the New York Times today. She said Peter "must be feeling an icy breeze on the back of his neck: if his ratings do not rise after rookies replace his longtime rivals, he may well find ABC executives pushing him toward the door."

But isn't it a bit early to suggest that? "Peter Jennings is going nowhere," an ABC News source stressed today. "Everyone is excited. This is an opportunity to expand our audience. We've known this was going to happen for a while." The source pointed to the Peter Jennings/"trust is earned" promos that have been airing for a while: "That's part of the same post Tom (now post Dan and Tom) strategy."

"The Dan Rather story has so far been reported from two angles: The mainstream media views his retirement as the first nail in the coffin of network news; the blogosphere views it as the crowning triumph of the "Pajamahadeen" -- the conservative bloggers who helped blow up the story of the fake 60 Minutes memos into a full-fledged media scandal. Neither, it seems to me, quite gets it right," Dana Stevens writes on Slate. It's all about the new wave of "personality journalism."

More: "In the generation since Rather took over Walter Cronkite's chair, there's been a sea change in the way we experience the flow of information. But precisely because of that shift, whenever I try to imagine the future voice of news on television, it comes out sounding an awful lot like Dan Rather's: folksy, personal, and partisan to a fault." Here's the rest...

MSNBC had planned to air "Unwrapped," a holiday special featuring cool gift ideas, on Friday, Dec. 5. It was scrapped last week, but the taped segments will still air next month...

> MSNBC zapped the third and final year of Sam Shane's contract: "I don't, frankly, know why, but I accept their decision," he tells the Sacramento Bee. Shane says he isn't coming back to TV in the immediate future, but he doesn't rule it out long-term.

> mb EIC Elizabeth Spiers says "appointing a digital guy to head up CNN News blurs the line between old and new media even further."

> On Monday night Keith Olbermann offered "a Countdown welcome to Jonathan Klein... today appointed this month's president at CNN."

"Dan had hung on for years and the National Guard story gave management the opportunity they needed," a CBS executive says in the NY Sun this morning. The story quotes David Blum on Fox News: "CBS always wanted, at least in recent years, to move Rather out, bring in a successor, and shore up the ratings. They've been in the third position for a while now. Nothing really happened that wasn't anticipated."

USA Today calls Rather "a network news survivor of the highest order: He lasted a record 24 years despite repeated attempts to unseat him by people inside and outside CBS."

This morning's USA Today editorial, entitled "End of an era," frames today's discussion perfectly:

"Network anchors don't command the stage the way they once did. The segmentation of news to myriad cable outlets and Web sites has cut their audience. Viewers now take their news how they want it, when they want it. They [choose] outlets that focus on their issues and, in some cases, reflect their biases."

It concludes: "It's hard to imagine that the next generation of anchors will have anywhere near Rather's cachet, clout -- or controversy. For better or worse, the news will never be the same."

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"CBS was Walter Cronkite, then Dan Rather, and now there's nobody next," Quinnipiac University professor Rich Hanley tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "That's also a metaphor for broadcast news as a whole. Maybe 'who's next' doesn't matter anymore."

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LA Times critic Paul Brownfield says network news is facing its own obit: "Why...would the networks want to continue to compete for eyeballs when television has trained viewers to seek out the instant visual and/or opinion 24 hours a day?"

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Even Leslie Moonves talked about it yesterday: "It's a different era now, with both Brokaw and Rather leaving. When they came in, there was no CNN, no Fox News. People didn't get their news on the Internet."

"The word around CBS is that Dan wanted a nice, round 25 and the retirement year he wanted was '06 and not '05. So was he pushed or did he jump and is it because of 'the report?' Those are the questions in the hallways at CBS right now," an insider says.

Does anyone have any answers?

> The NYT says that discussions began last summer, but that "the most intense round of conversations...began about 10 days ago at Mr. Moonves's office at Viacom's headquarters in Times Square." Rather says he called Moonves Monday afternoon and confirmed the decision.

> "Dan was just canned from his job, there's no question about that, no matter what the network statement says," Bernard Goldberg tells the Miami Herald this morning...

> "I hope it'll be somebody from the inside," Rather tells the AP. "But whoever it is will have my complete, unadulterated support and encouragement. Probably the best way I can help is to stay out of the way."

> "We will look outside and inside...for the best person," Andrew Heyward tells the Hollywood Reporter.

> "Two CBS executives said that the front-runner was John Roberts," the NYT says. John Roberts and Scott Pelley both tell Howard Kurtz that they have not been contacted about the succession issue.

> "Moonves said CBS would not choose a successor until after New Year's Day," the LA Times reports. "He would not elaborate on whether CBS was looking for young stars or celebrity names."

> The LA Times is the only paper to mention Lester Holt and Russ Mitchell as possibilities. A TVSpyer suggests "Russ Mitchell and Julie Chen. They [can market it] as the only duo in evening news, skew younger, and cover broad demos."

On the front page of Tuesday morning's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz turns in the definitive morning-after story about Dan Rather's announcement. But here are some other print highlights:

> Best quote from agent Richard Leibner: Newsday: "He would never have been happy on the day he said he was coming off the air, and I don't care if it was the 24th, 25th, 27th, or 28th anniversary. He had such a passion for what he does, so whenever it happened it would be bittersweet. Today isn't a sad day [for Rather] but I think the sad day will be the day of the last broadcast."

> Best quote about the timing: Andrew Tyndall in the Boston Globe: "This was obviously rushed. If they'd planned this they would have had a successor in line. You don't announce Colin Powell's resignation without having Condoleezza Rice lined up."

> Best reference to the changing demographic of CBS viewers: Los Angeles Times: "The improving fortunes of CBS could also play a role in the deliberations [regarding the new anchor]...The network has historically reached the oldest audience in television, but...CBS is now No. 1 in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic that's closely watched by advertisers."

> Best compilation of "folksy sayings:" Dallas Morning News: Offers a "from the mouth of Rather" sidebar.

> The only quote from Kim Akhtar: New York Times: "I think initially [Dan] always felt that filling Cronkite's shoes was a very hard job. But I think he finally realized that he couldn't be Walter Cronkite, and therefore he really had to be the best Dan Rather he could be."