10 years ago, “Shock and Awe” kicked off the Iraq War. It was a made-for-TV war, with explosions rocking the skies above Baghdad, and correspondents reporting live on cable news from their hotel balconies.

TV news not only covered the war, but promoted it as well, regularly featuring guests who beat the war drum, and ignoring those that had opposing views. Sometimes, as The Huffington Post’s Jack Mirkinson notes, it was a vicious circle:

Perhaps the most notorious example of the Washington-media nexus over Iraq came when Dick Cheney appeared on “Meet the Press” in September of 2002. He cited the lead story in that morning’s Times as he talked to Tim Russert (“I want to attribute it to the Times,” he memorably said). The story, by Miller and her colleague Michael Gordon, said that Hussein was busy using aluminum tubes to help build nuclear weapons. The Bush administration had leaked that story to Miller. The circle was complete.

The war has not been forgotten. With the President making his first mideast trip of his second term, cable news is finding time to look back at Iraq. Throughout the week a number of segments about the war are on tap at the “big three” cable news channels, nestled in between the other day’s coverage.

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Typically, when cable news anchors or hosts talk about their competition, they are talking about other anchors or hosts on competing networks. Over the last 24 hours however, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes has been the subject of a number of segments, mostly on CNN, with at least one on MSNBC as well.

The basis for the segments was the excerpt from the upcoming biography about the Fox News CEO , written with his cooperation. Among other things, Ailes commented about President Obama, Newt Gingrich and other prominent figures. On CNN, no fewer than five different shows had segments on Ailes, including “CNN Newsroom,” “The Situation Room,” “Erin Burnett Outfront,” “Piers Morgan Tonight” and “Starting Point.” On MSNBC his comments were mentioned on “First look.”

It is an insidery topic, to be sure, which made all the coverage seem somewhat out of place. Piers Morgan asked boxing promoter Don King what Ailes’ legacy was:

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The Hollywood Reporter‘s Michael O’Connell reports that Fox News Channel will be expanding “Fox & Friends” by one hour, starting at 5 AM instead of 6 AM. A number of rotating personalities will fill-in on the hour, which is being called “Fox & Friends First.”

Over the last year or so, the 5-6 AM hour has become a new battleground for cable news. Once the home of reruns and infomercials, now CNN, MSNBC and Fox News will all have live, original programming daily during that hour.

MSNBC has “First Look” at 5 AM and “Way Too Early” with Willie Geist at 5:30 AM leading into “Morning Joe,” while CNN has “Early Start” running from 5-7 AM. Now “Fox & Friends” will be joining the fray.

The move into the early hours was actually spurred on by local newscasts.

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Yesterday we told you what the network Sunday morning shows were up to this weekend, now it is the cablers turn to put their focus on Iowa. With the Iowa Straw Poll slated for Saturday, the cable channels are sending some of their top talent to the state, and planning special coverage on Saturday.

Details after the jump.

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When the markets opened at 9:30 AM ET, all of the cable news channels turned to Wall Street, where they were greeted with a Dow that was down more than 200 points.

The three business news channels were joined by the three general news channels in their coverage:

Tomorrow morning Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks will appear before Parliament in London and testify on the hacking scandal there. Nearly all of the cable news channels will be carrying at least parts of the testimony, which start after 9 AM ET.

Fox News Channel will be carrying the hearings live, while CNN will be simulcasting CNN International’s coverage. MSNBC will be carrying portions of the testimony, while C-SPAN will be televising it live on C-SPAN3. As we reported over the weekend, even Current TV is getting into the game, with Keith Olbermann anchoring special coverage.

Among the business channels, Fox Business Network  and CNBC will be carrying it live, as will Bloomberg TV

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The state of cable news was one of the topics of discussion at the Promax/BDA conference in New York Wednesday. Former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker talked with CNN anchor and business correspondent Ali Velshi about the origins of MSNBC’s partisan primetime slant, whether viewers get it, and whether it hurts the NBC News brand. Later, CNN’s Anderson Cooper spoke to “The Early Show’”‘s Erica Hill about his thoughts on Fox News and MSNBC.

“There was not a secret meeting that happened where we said ‘hey let’s go left!’ at MSNBC,” Zucker quipped. “I am sorry to disappoint. What happened, and I think this is pretty well documented now, is that Keith Olbermann emerged, principally with his anti-war viewpoint, and we couldn’t help but notice that. We put a program behind it, and we said ‘wow, flow still works.’ And it all started to work. It was a business decision.”

Zucker said that MSNBC’s primetime lineup does not have any effect on the NBC News brand as a whole, which includes the top broadcast morning show, evening newscast and Sunday show.

“My argument to that is, if it was hurting the brand “Today” wouldn’t continue to be in first place in its 15^th year, Brian Williams wouldn’t continue to be in first place, “Meet the Press” would not continue to be the number one Sunday morning program,” Zucker said.

He went on to say that viewers, as a whole “get it,” and know what is news and what is commentary:

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Fox News Chairman & CEO Roger Ailes is responding to a shot Chris Matthews fired his way on his show last night.

After playing a clip of Sarah Palin discussing Newt Gingrich on Fox News, Matthews said, “This is so pathetic, watching her on television. It’s so pathetic that Roger Ailes has put her on television.”

This morning, Ailes quips, “People tell me all the time it was truly pathetic that I was the one who gave Chris Matthews his start on television.”

Ailes gave Matthews his first show “Politics with Chris Matthews” in 1994 on the old America’s Talking network.

“Hardball” clip after the jump…

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Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom and MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews continued to wrestle for third place on Experian Hitwise’s list of cable-news-show websites, with America’s Newsroom claiming the spot for the week ending April 30. The top two were unchanged for the third consecutive week: Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, and MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show.

The top two late-night talk-show sites were also unchanged from the week ending April 23 — Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report — but TBS’ Conan surged into third place, bumping NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

As usual, there was no change in the morning-news-show rankings: NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning America, and CBS’ The Early Show.

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CBS News Artwork

Updated: The broadcast news divisions and cable news channels are planning special programming and coverage today, part of their continuing coverage of the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan.

CBS News is planning a special one-hour edition of the “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” tonight. Couric will anchor from Ground Zero in New York, with CBS news correspondents reporting from across the U.S. and the globe. CBS News chairman Jeff Fager says they will also consider expanded coverage tomorrow and later in the week, and the networks is planning reports for next Sunday’s “60 Minutes.”

ABC News is planning a one-hour edition of “ABC World news with Diane Sawyer” tonight. In addition, “Nightline” will be one-hour tonight.

NBC News will also have a one-hour evening newscast tonight, with Brian Williams anchoring “NBC Nightly News” from Ground Zero.

On Fox News, Shepard Smith is en route back to New York, where he will anchor from Ground Zero at 7 Pm ET tonight. Smith had been on a vacation overseas. Bill Hemmer will anchor the 3 PM hour, while Smith is en route. Greta Van Susteren will anchor her program from the Pantagon memorial in Arlington, VA.

On CNN, Anderson Cooper will anchor from Ground Zero from 3-5 PM ET, joined by Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Blitzer will take over as solo anchor at 5 PM. On “Piers Morgan Tonight,” guests will include the former sister-in-law of Bin Laden, Bob Woodward, Tom Ridge, Rudolph Giuliani and John Kerry, among others. Like wise 8 PM’s “In the Arena” will originate from 4 World trade Center.

On HLN, Jane Velez-Michell will anchor her program from Ground Zero as well.

“BBC World News America” will also originate from Ground Zero tonight.

We will update this story when we have coverage plans from the other networks.