Fox News

“The Five” took on “Saturday Night Live” over the NBC show cutting a sketch involving Pres. Obama but including this send-up of “Fox & Friends.” Executive Producer Lorne Michaels explained the show was 27 minutes long, so something had to go, telling the New York Post, “the show’s many things but it is not partisan.”

Greg Gutfeld disagreed saying SNL “is about as edgy as a handball.” He then suggested if SNL were to ever skewer “The Five” Bob Beckel could be played by Joy Behar. Now that’s edgy.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell seemed to surprise even himself last night during his program’s “Rewrite” segment. O’Donnell dedicated the segment to Fox news Channel’s coverage of President Obama’s gay marriage statement. He noted the headline on the Fox Nation website, as well as the comments be Shepard Smith, who he said “has long been the lone voice of reason” on Fox News.

TVNewser has learned Fox News will soon announce that “Special Report” host Bret Baier has signed a new contract that keeps him at the channel through the 2016 elections. Baier’s current deal had another 18 months on it, but FNC wanted to secure him through the next election cycle.

Fox News also recently re-signed Bill O’Reilly and is expected to re-sign Sean Hannity as well through the 2016 elections.

Baier’s “Special Report” is right behind O’Reilly and Hannity in the ratings as the third most-watched cable news show averaging 1.8 million viewers every night.

> Update: Done deal. This from FNC chairman Roger Ailes: “Bret’s tough but fair approach to journalism has made him one of the most trusted news anchors in the industry and an integral part of FNC’s success,” said “I’m proud to have him at the helm of this year’s election coverage and for years to come.”

From Baier: “I am humbled by Roger’s trust and confidence and look forward to carrying out his vision for FNC – a commitment to breaking news, asking tough questions, and doing it in a fair and balanced way.”

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Fox News Channel’s Jenna Lee is featured in the latest installment of AOL’s “You’ve Got…” series. “Live television on a daily basis is a huge adventure,” the “Happening Now” anchor says. “You never know what’s going to be served to you. It’s important to try new things because if you don’t try them, you’re never going to know.”

So how does Lee follow her own advice? By trying some really strange foods, like the grasshopper tacos she eats in this video. Watch:

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” NBC’s Tom Brokaw said it’s “time to rethink” the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, stating the star-studded event “separates the press from the people they’re supposed to serve.” Now Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren, who hosted Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian at last month’s dinner, is responding to Brokaw’s idea:

I am game to give Tom Brokaw’s idea a try next year – no more celebrities for our one big social night in Washington (WHCD) – but here is my request: in exchange, how do we get our colleagues in the media’s attention to such issues as genocide in Sudan?  does he have ideas? and could he help?

Van Susteren traveled to Sudan last month and has been writing of the region’s devastation on Gretawire since she returned.

“I thought it odd that the media had lots of interest in my guest list at the WHCD — but not any interest in the my video and pics showing genocide in Sudan,” she wrote. “Imagine if we could get someone with the star power of Tom Brokaw to be more interested in the genocide going on in the Sudan than the guest list at a social event! I would love that!”

In case you missed it, Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren found herself on the other side yesterday as she was a guest on the ABC “This Week” roundtable. “It is fun to get to answer questions instead of ask, but asking is easier,” Van Susteren tells TVNewser. “I have been a cable news anchor for almost 20 years and I miss being a guest.”

That’s how Van Susteren made her way in TV news, as a legal analyst on CNN, prior to hosting “Burden of Proof” with Roger Cossack in the late ’90s. “It always feels a bit odd being a new guest since you don’t want to be too pushy and you don’t want to be too meek,” says Van Susteren. “If you are a frequent guest you interact more naturally with the others.”

Former New York Times editor Bill Keller has written an op-ed column focused on Fox News Channel. Keller notes that it is a financial juggernaut for News Corp. and discusses a pair of Roger Ailes and Fox News biographies, one written without FNC’s consent by journalist Gabriel Sherman, and another by Ailes himself (along with a co-author).

The issue Keller takes is not financial, but rather with how the network represents itself, and facts. That, he says, is Rupert Murdoch‘s “most toxic legacy”:

I doubt that people at Fox News really believe their programming is “fair and balanced” — that’s just a slogan for the suckers — but they probably are convinced that what they have created is the conservative counterweight to a media elite long marinated in liberal bias. They believe that they are doing exactly what other serious news organizations do; they just do it for an audience that had been left out before Fox came along.

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Jake Tapper, filling in on “This Week” this morning, asked Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren to join the roundtable. Much of the discussion focused on the 2012 presidential race with Van Susteren arguing Pres. Obama has lost much of the voter enthusiasm he enjoyed in 2008. “He spoke to the nation from Afghanistan on Tuesday night,” said Van Susteren. “That was a big deal. And you look at the ratings on cable news, and it was just nothing. Nobody even paid any attention. No one’s even like paying attention to him. It’s extraordinary.”

A quick look at the numbers shows that’s not quite true. While Fox News did not see much of a lift during the president’s address Tuesday night, CNN doubled its regular 7pm average and MSNBC was up 1/3 drawing about 6 million on the cable networks. Nielsen estimates another 16 million also watched on the broadcast networks, with ABC special report leading the way with 6.1 million viewers.

The cold open to last night’s “Saturday Night Live” took aim at Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” and hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson.

Their targets included President Obama, hologram Tupac, and more President Obama. They were also joined by “Rupert Murdoch.”

WATCH:

As we noted this week, the Fox News “mole,” Joe Muto, has been shopping a memoir detailing his eight years at the channel. Our sister blog GalleyCat notes that he has already sold it.

Penguin Group’s Dutton Imprint will publish the book in early 2013.

Muto, “a self described bleeding heart liberal,” wrote An Atheist in the Foxhole to recount his eight years at Fox which includes his time working with political commentator Bill O’Reilly… Executive editor Jill Schwartzman oversaw this acquisition and secured world rights.

No word on how much the advance was, but Gawker pegs it at “low six-figures.”