Attorney General Eric Holder personally gave the OK for the Department of Justice to search Fox News correspondent James Rosen‘s emails and phone records, NBC News reports. The FBI pursued Rosen’s information as though he were a “co-conspirator” in the leak investigation.

The law enforcement official said Holder’s approval of the Rosen search, in the spring of 2010, came after senior Justice officials concluded there was “probable cause” that Rosen’s communications with his source, identified as intelligence analyst Stephen Kim, met the legal burden for such searches. “It was approved at the highest levels– and I mean the highest,” said the law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that explicitly included Holder.

Holder had recused himself in the AP leak investigation because he was interviewed as part of the process. The news comes as Fox News CEO Roger Ailes sent a memo to staff accusing the administration of trying to “intimidate” Fox News.

Just to give you a sense of what the Jodi Arias trial has meant for cable news viewership, take a look at Tuesday’s 2pm hour. As the devastation in Moore, OK was still settling in, 1,000 miles to the west Arias was asking a jury to spare her life. While Fox News and MSNBC remained with storm coverage, HLN and CNN both carried Arias’ comments which began at 1:56pmET. Arias spoke for about 20 minutes. HLN won the 2pm hour Tuesday. In fact the network beat the combined averages of Fox News and MSNBC in both total viewers and the demo. Now you know why HLN has become the new CourtTV.

• 2pm hour, Tuesday May 21 (Total Viewers / A25-54)

HLN:  2,227,000 / 620,000
CNN:  964,000 / 332,000
Fox News:  1,488,000 / 270,000
MSNBC:  337,000 / 111,000

Photo via

The Department of Justice says that it is unlikely to bring charges against Fox News correspondent James Rosen, who had his email searched by the FBI in relation to a leak investigation.

A warrant was executed against Rosen’s email, accusing him of being a “co-conspirator” to the individual accused of leaking information related to North Korea.

The implication that Rosen was complicit, as well as the apparent breach of a free press, drew a sharply worded critique from Fox News yesterday.

The Washington Post has more on the DOJ decision:

In response to questions about how Rosen was characterized in the affidavit, the Justice Department said in a statement Monday: “Saying that there is probable cause to believe that someone has committed a crime and charging the person with that crime are two different things.”

“No reporter has been charged in this case,” the statement added. “And, at this time we do not anticipate bringing additional charges against anyone.”

A Philadelphia jury has found former abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies born alive. He was found not guilty on a fourth count.

Fox News was the first to report the verdict at 3:18pmET. Shannon Bream was outside the courthouse discussing how the judge was threatening to hold anyone in contempt for using cellphones in court as a means to deliver the verdict when her producer Kristin Brown ran to the live position with the news. Rehema Ellis, from the NBC newsroom, reported the guilty verdicts during MSNBC’s “The Cycle” at 3:19pmET. CNN’s Sunny Hostin reported the verdicts from outside the courthouse at 3:22.

Compared to this month’s other high-profile trial, the Gosnell case has seen relatively little coverage. Unlike Arizona, Pennsylvania does not allow cameras in the courtroom; additionally, the judge in the trial issued a gag order banning prosecution and defense lawyers from talking to reporters. And as Howard Kurtz said on “Reliable Sources” last month: “This is a gruesome case that journalists on both sides of the abortion question have told me is hard to stomach. That is especially true on television.”

Meanwhile, HLN, which has ramped up its trial coverage, reported the Gosnell verdict, while keeping cameras trained on another courtroom where another high-profile defendant was in front of a judge: OJ Simpson was in a Las Vegas courtroom today seeking a new trial in his 2008 robbery conviction.

Fox News mole Joe Muto entered a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs this afternoon, pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges.

A source inside the courtroom tells TVNewser two detectives escorted a cuffed Muto into the courtroom, sat him on a back bench and about 5 minutes later removed the handcuffs as he moved to the front of the courtroom to hear the judge read out the plea agreement. That part of the proceedings took about 20 minutes.

In April 2012, while still a Fox News employee, Muto began writing stories for Gawker about life inside Fox News. He became known as the Fox News mole. After his identity was revealed, he was fired from Fox.

Muto must pay a $1,000 fine, the $5,000 he earned from Gawker which goes to a good cause, serve 10 days of community service assigned by the court, then 200 hours of community service at a nonprofit organization. He’s also not getting back is laptop taken during an early morning police search. Muto had worked at Fox News for 8 years, most recently as an AP on “O’Reilly Factor.”

He’s since written a book about the experience, which comes out in a few weeks. One of the conditions of the agreement: if he is found to be in possession of any Fox News item, whether it be a key chain or an 80′s era image of Bill O’Reilly, Muto could be sent to jail for a year.

A Fox News spokesperson tells TVNewser, “We are very grateful to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for their dogged pursuit of this case and for obtaining justice in this matter.”

See the plea agreement after the jump…

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The jury has reached a verdict in the trial of Jodi Arias, and it will be read at 4:30pmET  today.

For HLN, it will be the biggest story since the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial in July 2011. That day delivered the highest ratings in HLN’s history.

Arias has already propelled HLN to strong ratings over the last few months, often topping both sister network CNN and MSNBC, and even occasionally Fox News in some hours. HLN also became a part of the trial, with correspondent Jean Casarez taking the stand to be quizzed about a scene she saw outside the courthouse. Then there is the Twitter account in Jodi Arias’ name, managed by her friend. The account criticized HLN and Nancy Grace for its coverage.

Expect live coverage on the cable news channels, particularly HLN (control room shot from just before the verdict, below) and CNN, which have covered the trial extensively in primetime on both channels. Fox News and MSNBC will also cover the verdict live.

Update: At 4:32, Nancy Grace says that there is “a fly in the ointment,” as things are running two minutes late.

“Justice is a couple of minutes late, six minutes to be exact”– Grace at 4:36.

THE VERDICT: At 4:49pmET, Arias is found guilty of first degree murder.

“There is a verdict, guilty on murder one,” Grace says, tearing up on camera. “What a dichotomy, I can hear in my ear the quietness in the courtroom as the verdict is read and I can hear the cheers of the crowd behind me as the verdict is read.”

The jury in the Jodi Arias trial will begin its second full day of deliberations today. Meanwhile, the sensational Arizona murder case is continuing to draw big viewership for HLN, which has given the most courtroom and analysis coverage of the cable news networks.

Arias, who spent 19 days on the witness stand, has confessed to fatally shooting her boyfriend Travis Alexander in June, 2008, but she says she doesn’t remember much after that, including how Alexander ended up with 27 stab wounds.

All of this has made for compelling TV for trial junkies. As the case made its way to the jury late last week, HLN was the number one cable news network in both Total Day and Primetime among younger viewers Thursday and Friday. (HLN and FNC tied for the day Thursday each drawing an average of 254,000 viewers).

While much has been made of the mistakes that were reported during the aftermath of the Boston bombings, the general consensus among media watchers has been that two journalists stood out for their accuracy and informative reports: NBC’s Pete Williams and CBS’ John Miller.

Miller gets a lengthy profile from the AP on how he got so much right. The short version: experience working for law enforcement agencies, and exceptional sources.

“Sources are people you meet on other stories and you develop them into sources of information,” he said. “I’m calling friends, and I’m asking them, ‘What’s happening here?

For his part, Miller said, “I am reluctant to criticize authorities.”

“My interpretation of when they need to be (criticized) and somebody else’s might be different,” he said. “If you’ve been there and you know how that works and what it’s like, and how easy it is to take potshots from the outside, your criticism is more measured, your analysis of what is worthy of criticism and what isn’t is slightly different.”

NBC Sportscaster Al Michaels, who has spent decades calling “Sunday Night Football” and “Monday Night Football” NFL games for NBC Sports and ABC Sports, was arrested Sunday for driving under the influence. He also called the legendary “Miracle On Ice” hockey game between the U.S. and Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

ESPN has more details on the arrest:

He was booked for suspicion of DUI and held for about five hours before being released on his own recognizance, Lewis said.

“We are aware of the situation and we’ve been in contact with Al,” said Greg Hughes, a spokesman for NBC Sports. “We have no further comment at this time.”

The trial of abortion provider Dr. Kermit Gosnell continues in Philadelphia today, and so too does increased coverage of it. Fox News host and attorney Kimberly Guilfoyle is in the courtroom and will provide coverage on “The Five” this afternoon. “CBS This Morning” had a story on it this morning and it was discussed several times on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today.

Late last week, there was much discussion about the lack of coverage. CNN’s Howard Kurtz talked about it at the close of his “Reliable Sources” yesterday. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have done “a few stories,” Kurtz said, with CBS and ABC airing segments in January. Kurtz:

But there hasn’t been nearly enough on the trial. Perhaps the mainstream press is less attuned to a story that casts a shadow on abortion but the conservative media didn’t do much either. And it’s not like the staunchest pro-choice advocate would defend what Gosnell is alleged to have done. This is a gruesome case that journalists on both sides of the abortion question have told me is hard to stomach. That is especially true on television.

Kurtz also pointed out that coverage “is quickly picking up” after Fox News’s Kirsten Powers wrote this op-ed in the USA Today.