CBS

On the next installment of the mediabistroTV series “My First Big Break” (Look for it Thursday afternoon!), we speak to “Dan Rather Reports” anchor and former “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather about the moment that brought him to national attention. In the preview below, Rather talks about the challenges of getting a break in today’s crowded media marketplace.

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Former Variety editor (and now editorial director) Peter Bart wrote a column in the Hollywood trade newspaper focusing on how informed the electorate is, and how TV news plays into what is popular versus what is important. It is an age-old argument, but one that has recently seen new life given the divergent focuses of the network morning programs, as well as the ideologically divided world of cable news.

On the network side, Bart has a clear favorite:

While both NBC and ABC stress lifestyle angles, CBS is focusing more intently on hard news, with its “Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley fulfilling the profile of the more traditional anchor, formal in approach and elocution. Pelley led with news from Syria the same day others led with Whitney Houston.

The chairman of CBS News, Jeff Fager, has shrewdly implanted the “60 Minutes” brand over all of the network’s news coverage (Fager still oversees “60 Minutes,” and Pelley remains one of its anchors). So when “60 Minutes” breaks a hot interview, such as its recent session with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, its insights were sprinkled across the CBS spectrum of news shows. (“60 Minutes” is up 8% this year in the 25 – 54 demo).

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CBS News correspondent Lara Logan gets profiled by the New York Times’ T Magazine. Logan has been very private over the least year, following her brutal attack in Egypt. She gave one interview to “60 Minutes,” and has mostly stayed out of the public eye.

Now she is co-hosting the primetime CBS “Person to Person” specials with Charlie Rose. While Logan was understandably reticent to discuss the attack again, she and her husband, Joseph Burkett, talked about what happened when she finally came home:

“Joe and I sat here,” Logan tells me, pushing her palms into the leather sofa, “six weeks after Egypt, and it was the first time he talked about how it affected him. He said, ‘I sat here one week when you went into radio silence and I knew you were in the custody of the Egyptians, and I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again. And a week later I sat here and answered the phone and I didn’t even recognize the person on the other end of the line. I had no idea if my wife was coming home.’ He said, ‘That is twice in a week. I would rather be the person on the other end. I would rather be dead than be the one raising the children without you. Don’t do this to me again. Please. I am begging you not to do this to me again.’ ”

You can read the entire piece here.

How much did CBS spend to cancel “The Early Show”? Somewhere in the ballpark of $40 million. The network announced its Q4 earnings last week, and it included $46 million in restructuring charges, with most of that from the network morning show.

While it may seem like a substantial loss, the network said it expected to recoup that loss in about a year and a half. As the New York Times notes:

The network laid off nearly two dozen staff members and moved out of a street-side studio on Fifth Avenue in New York City; the replacement for “The Early Show,” called “CBS This Morning,” started in early January inside a new studio at the CBS News headquarters a mile away. CBS Corporation’s chief financial officer, Joseph Ianniello, said the company would recoup the costs in 12 to 18 months.

Last week CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward found herself sneaking out of Syria. The weather wasn’t helping.

“We had a tough crossing because it had been raining all week, the ground was literally just mud, and we were wading through canals and trudging through this mud in the middle of the night,” Ward told TVNewser.

The crisis in Syria continues to escalate, but the government there has been clamping down on journalists, forcing any western news organizations to sneak into the country in order to report on it. The journey into the country is almost as dangerous as the situation itself.

“There are several ways to do it, and several borders to do it through,” Ward recalls. “We went in through Turkey, we were relying heavily on a network of activists willing to risk their lives to make sure that their story gets out there to the world. We actually went in across the border with smugglers, it is a dangerous undertaking.”

The government has opted not to grant any journalism visas, keeping most foreign reporters out. Only those willing to take serious and very real risks are sneaking in. Yesterday the New York Times announced that one of its star reporters, Anthony Shadid, passed away in Syria. Shadid died of an apparent asthma attack. Due to the underground nature of reporting there, quality medical care–or often any medical care–is not easily accessible.

“The Assad regime has been very calculated and cynical in refusing to grant visas to journalists to report independently from inside the country, because they are aware of the fact that if there isn’t information coming out, and if there aren’t impartial observers, journalists on the ground getting information out about many of the atrocities, they will go undocumented,” Ward says. “Journalists will have a very tough time covering the story because they will be relying so much on second or even third hand information.”

The regime briefly granted journalism visas earlier this year, but as Ward notes, any journalists in the country at the time were not getting an accurate picture of the situation there.

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Typically it is primetime entertainment programs that have crossover episodes (remember when Laurence Fishburne appeared on all three CSI’s in one week???). This weekend however, CBS News and CBS TV Distribution are doing a crossover of their own.

On “Dr. Phil” today, host Phil McGraw will examine the odd tale of the Bay Area “P.I. Moms,” with special guest “48 Hours Mystery” correspondent Maureen Maher.

Then, on Saturday night, “48 Hours Mystery” will look into the case, featuring a special guest appearance by Dr. Phil McGraw.

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This week marks the 50th anniversary of Jackie Kennedy’s famous televised tour of a newly-restored White House, which was broadcast on three networks and drew 50 million viewers. The broadcast was produced by CBS producer Perry Wolff, who is now 90 years old. Scott Pelley caught up with Wolff last night on “Evening News”:

Sandy Gleysteen will join “CBS This Morning” next month as senior producer for the show’s Los Angeles unit, executive producer Chris Licht announced today.

Gleysteen, who will oversee all of the west coast editorial planning for “This Morning,” is a longtime veteran of NBC News, where she spent more than 20 years in various production roles. From 1995-2007, she was the west coast producer for “Dateline.” Most recently, she was an independent producer in Los Angeles.

“This is a hugely important position as we continue to grow the quality of this broadcast,” Licht wrote in a memo to staffers. “We really took our time finding the right fit.”

Read the full memo after the jump.

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“Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer did something on his show today that he admits he doesn’t do often: trumpet the work of one of his CBS News colleagues. “We don’t spend a lot of time here bragging about our work and our reporters,” said Schieffer, adding, “We don’t even use the word exclusive very much.” Schieffer then closed his show talking with foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward who, along with her producer Ben Plesser, snuck into and back out of Syria last week, reporting on the deteriorating situation there.

A year ago this month, Plesser was the first Western journalist to report out of Libya at the start of the civil war there.

Tonight CBS will televise the Grammy Awards, which will feature a tribute to Whitney Houston, a new song from Bruce Springsteen and  the long-awaited return of Adele, who hasn’t sung since the Fall due to vocal chord surgery. Right before the Grammys CBS will air a new episode of “60 Minutes,” in which Anderson Cooper profiles the singer.

Friday morning “CBS This Morning” previewed the piece, and ended up scooping itself, as Adele sang “Rolling in the Deep” a capella for Cooper. In other words, Adele’s first public song was not on the Grammys, or even “60 Minutes,” but “CBS This Morning.”

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