At the end of a CBS Evening News story about where he got his start, it was announced that CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston would be leaving the network. Pinkston, 63, joined CBS in 1980. He spent 10 years as a reporter at WCBS and, since 1990, has been a correspondent for CBS News, including a stint at the White House.

Pinkston’s final story was about where he got his start — at WLBT in Jackson, MS in 1971 — and why. It was due, in part, to the fact that 50 years ago tomorrow civil rights leader Medgar Evers asked for, and received equal time — unheard of at the time for a black man to appear on TV in the segregated South. Less than month later, Evers was assassinated.

At the end of that story, anchor Jim Axelrod announced Pinkston is leaving CBS. “He’s always been one of the true gentleman in this business and we will miss his warmth, his grace and his class,” said Axelrod. It’s not known if Pinkston is leaving for another opportunity or leaving the business.

After the jump, watch Pinkston’s last story for CBS News, which focused on civil rights leader and broadcaster Medgar Evers.
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Kurt Davis is joining CBS News as vice president of news services. In his new role, he will oversee CBS’ satellite newsgathering organization, which provides content to the network’s 200 affiliates.

Davis comes to CBS from San Antonio, where he has been executive director of CBS-affiliated KENS for 10 years. He has also worked at local stations in Atlanta, New Orleans and Dallas.

His appointment is effective immediately. He will be based in New York. More in CBS’ official announcement, after the jump. Read more

There is a reason why at the CBS upfront in New York yesterday, the first CBS News correspondent mentioned by name was John Miller (the only other two mentioned by name were David Martin and Clarissa Ward).

Following the Boston bombing, the Benghazi investigation and other issues that involve law enforcement, Miller has proven to have impeccable sources in the law enforcement community. That was proven again this morning as he sent other networks scrambling to confirm another scoop: that Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scribbled a note appearing to confess to the crimes on the inside of the boat he was hiding in.

WATCH:

CBS is delivering its upfront presentation to advertisers, media buyers and the press this afternoon, and CEO Les Moonves took aim squarely at NBC and “Today” in his opening statement.

“We believe that great drama belongs in primetime between 8-11 PM, not at 7 in the morning,” Moonves quipped, as a photo of Ann Curry and Matt Lauer from Curry’s departure from “Today” appeared on stage behind him (see the photo to the left).

Of course, “CBS This Morning” also had a talent change in the last year, as Erica Hill left (eventually joining NBC) and Norah O’Donnell came on board. That said, the transition was free of drama in front of the cameras.

CBS News was given prime placement at the upfront, with Moonves introducing the division. The CBS CEO said that “under the leadership of Jeff Fager and David Rhodes there is a renaissance going on,” before introducing a clip reel with news from the last year. Scott Pelley and O’Donnell then appeared on stage to talk about CBS News.

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CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has been one of the more aggressive reporters covering the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last September. But the veteran CBS News reporter feels the story’s she’s pitched lately are getting picked up on the TV network. Attkisson tells CBN‘s David Brody, “I’ve received a lot of encouragement from the top executives… Jeff Fager, who is our CEO and David Rhodes who is our president who have certainly never said anything to try and interfere with the coverage. They’ve complimented a lot of my work and strongly supported it. On the other hand … there hasn’t been an appetite for the stories that I’ve offered on Benghazi so I’ve published a lot online because there’s unlimited content space and I’ve done a lot of my reporting there.”

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CBS News “60 Minutes Sports” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi gave the commencement address at Meek School of Journalism and New Media at Ole Miss. It’s being called inspiring, hilarious and a brutally honest look at the TV news business.

Alfonsi, a 1994 Ole Miss grad, began with a joke about another alum. “I know the one and only reason I am here is because Shepard Smith was clearly not available.”

With changes all around for journalism and what it means to be a journalist, Alfonsi’s thesis was this: “Do NOT take no for an answer.”

You are applying for work in journalism, not trying to get hired as a social secretary. The people who may hire you respect grit. They respect tenacity, and in my experience, I have found they are generally unlikely to issue a restraining order. Prove that you want it. The food court at the mall is littered with journalism students who didn’t fight for it. Fight for it.

Watch after the jump…

> Related: TVNewser’s 2013 Guide to Commencement Speakers

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Former CBS News foreign correspondent Jan Petersen has died at age 63, after an eight-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. CBS News has more on her life in an obituary posted to CBSNews.com.

Petersen–then using her maiden name Jan Chorlton–began her career at KIRO in Seattle, and would go on to work for CNN, ABC News and CBS News, where she met her husband, CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen.

Petersen’s struggle with the disease was chronicled by her husband in his book Jan’s Story: Love Lost to the Long Goodbye of Alzheimer’s. You can hear an interview we conducted with Barry Petersen here, and watch the report he filed for “CBS Sunday Morning” after the jump.
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Accepting his Fred Friendly First Amendment award this afternoon at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Club, CBS News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley delivered an impassioned speech about the sorry state of journalism in 2013.

“Our house is on fire,” Pelley said of the business at large. “Never before in human history has more information been available to more people. But at the same time never before in human history has more bad information been available to more people.”

Pelley took “the first arrow,” recalling his own mistake over some of the early reporting out of Sandy Hook Elementary in December. Then he recounted early errors after the Boston Marathon was bombed. “We were attacked by terrorists on that day, and amateur journalists became digital vigilantes.”

Pelley joins 19 other TV journalists including Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, and, last year, Martha Raddatz, as Fred Friendly honorees. He told the crowd, which included his CBS News colleagues past and present, that “disruptive technologies” are partly to blame.

“Twitter, Facebook and Reddit: that’s not journalism. That’s gossip. Journalism was invented as an antidote to gossip.”

Pelley also took on the chest thumping that goes on in local and national newsrooms around the nation every day.

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The Cleveland kidnapping, the Boston bombing, The Benghazi hearing, the Jodi Arias verdict.

It is a big week for TV news, and as a result some big scoops are at risk of falling through the cracks.

This morning “CBS This Morning” had a pair of scoops: an interview with a Secret Service agent suspended after the now-infamous outing in Cartegena, Colombia (watch below). “CTM” also had a story about a $45 million bank heist executed by hackers.

NBC News meanwhile is touting an interview Ann Curry conducted with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime Minister of Turkey, who insists that their intelligence indicates that Syria has used chemical weapons on its own people. The interview was conducted this afternoon, and it made news in Turkey. Whether it gets substantial coverage stateside remains to be seen.

CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan made quite the impression on South Korean news anchors for her recent interview with President Park Geun-hye. On ChosunTV, the anchors praised the “famous American news reporter” for familiarity with all things Korean, including knowing the proper way to shake the President’s hand, which Bill Gates doesn’t know, apparently. Watch (at about the 1:25 mark):