Iraq

President Obama’s second Oval Office address was carried on the four broadcast networks as well as the cable news networks tonight.

On NBC, Brian Williams anchored. On ABC Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos shared the set. Harry Smith anchored on CBS and Shepard Smith on FOX.

Following the address, FOX and CBS were first out, followed less than 30 seconds later by ABC and finally NBC. Williams had NBC News correspondent Richard Engel on set for a debrief. Engel reported live last week as the final combat convoy left Iraq.

Click continued for cable news notes…

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• MSNBC remained in rolling coverage all night of the final U.S. military convoy as it made its way out of Iraq and in to Kuwait. For much of the night it was a tri-anchor situation with Keith Olbermann in New York, Chris Matthews in Boston and Rachel Maddow in Baghdad. Incoming primetime anchor Lawrence O’Donnell shared the New York set with Olbermann. The network had, in Olbermann’s words, “a world exclusive” with NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel and his cameraman Craig White, live, embedded with the final convoy to leave Iraq. White was David Bloom‘s cameraman in April, 2003, when the NBC News anchor died during the U.S.-led invasion. Seven years later, Engel and White used the so-called Bloom mobile to report the final troop departure.

Said Maddow at the top of the 9pmET hour, “The reason no one else in all of TV and all the world is able to bring you the image that we’ve been able to broadcast … and no one else can show you footage like this is because NBC has technology to do this like no one else has.”

This was the Bloom mobile’s first trip to Iraq since the 2003 invasion. It’s been used in the U.S. for everything from hurricane coverage to following political candidates. In the 10pmET hour Engel interviewed a sergeant who’d served two tours in Iraq: the first was during the invasion. Iraq “is a lot better place for the people,” said the sergeant from the 1st Infantry division. “I’m glad that we were able to do something good for them and come around and close it out on a good note.”

• On CNN, John King‘s 7pmET show was in and out of coverage of the convoy departing. Coverage accelerated during Rick Sanchez‘s 8pmET hour, slowed down during “Larry King Live” and picked up again during AC360 with John Roberts filling in. The anchors checked in with CNN correspondents Arwa Damon in Mosul and Chris Lawrence at the Pentagon.

• Fox News first mentioned the troop movements during “Special Report” at 6:10pmET, led with the story and reported it extensively during FOX Report at 7pmET. No mention was made during “The O’Reilly Factor” which is pre-taped earlier in the evening. Shepard Smith anchored a live update at 8:12pmET during “The Factor.” Coverage was sporadic during “Hannity” at 9pmET and “On the Record” at 10pmET.

As discussed in today’s Media Menu, the New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about the broadcast news networks redeploying full-time correspondents from Iraq to other regions of the Middle East. Joseph Angotti, a former VP of NBC News, says in the article he “could not recall any other time when all three major broadcast networks lacked correspondents in an active war zone that involved United States forces.”

Stelter writes the networks, who would not talk on the record regarding the decision, will “maintain skeleton bureaus in heavily fortified compounds” in Iraq.

But the diminished coverage there means more coverage in other countries. “The television networks are trying to add newspeople in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with expectations that the Obama administration will focus on the conflict there,” he writes.

As for the cablers, “CNN and the Fox News Channel, both cable news channels with 24 hours to fill, each keep one correspondent in Iraq,” writes Stelter.

This morning just after 8amET, President Bush delivered a statement on the progress in Iraq. CNN, FNC and MSNBC all carried the statement, Headline News did not. As for the broadcast networks, only CBS News, during The Early Show, broadcast the speech. ABC stayed with GMA and NBC stayed with the Today show.

Of the business networks, CNBC aired the four-and-a-half minute statement live, FBN did not.

The NYTimes’ Brian Stelter takes Lara Logan’s recent appearance on The Daily Show and gives a deeper look the airtime the networks are giving the Iraq war:

• Lara Logan, CBS News: the Baghdad bureau was “drastically downsized” in the spring, Logan tells Stelter. “The network now keeps a producer in the country, making it less of a bureau and more of an office,” Stelter writes.

• Terry McCarthy, ABC News: “I’ve never met a journalist who hasn’t been frustrated about getting his or her stories on the air.” A decline in the relative amount of violence “is taking the urgency out” of some of the coverage, he told Stelter.

• Anita McNaught, Fox News Channel: “The violence itself is not the story anymore,” she said. She counted eight reports she had filed since arriving in Baghdad six weeks ago.

• Richard Engel, NBC News: says he found his producers “very receptive to stories about Iraq.”

Stelter writes about how Logan “begged for months to be embedded with a group of Navy Seals.” When she came back with the story, a CBS producer said to her, “One guy in uniform looks like any other guy in a uniform.” Logan told Stelter the producer no longer worked at CBS.

The New York Observer has a wide-ranging article about the media coverage of the Iraq War, as told through the eyes of many of the correspondents who have spent significant time in Baghdad.

“As the American press corps gets older, wearier — and simultaneously younger and more untested as the veterans leave — there are truths that some of the reporters of Baghdad have learned about the war in Iraq,” reports the Observer.

CNN correspondent Michael Ware is critical of the lack of focus on reporting from the region. “This is the Vietnam War of our generation. This conflict is going to have repercussions that far exceed that of an Indo-Chinese, essentially, civil war,” he says. “Yet for a litany of reasons, which may or may not be legitimate, from cost to security to audience fatigue, the media has dropped the ball on this conflict. It is a tragic indictment on the Fourth Estate.”

Courtney Kealy of FNC has seen the American public turn on the reporters and turn off the coverage: “People say to me, what’s the real story in Iraq? I say, read the books that have come out and won Pulitzers. Look at my friends’ articles. Look at the stories I’ve done. They’re not looking, and they’re not reading; they don’t want to.”

After the jump, Baghdad correspondents who say part of the reason for the lack of coverage is that good news is coming from the region.

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This morning he was on Today, tonight he’s on Countdown, but in between Scott McClellan gives his first evening newscast interview to Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News.

TVNewser also hears that Fox News Channel may be working up an interview with McClellan that would also include Fox News analyst, and former Bush administration colleague, Karl Rove.

> Update: Martha Raddatz also interviewed McClellan for tonight’s World News.

CNN’s Jessica Yellin is responding to her comments last night on Anderson Cooper 360 in which she talked about “corporate executives” who tried to make sure “that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.”

On the AC360 blog Yellin writes:

…let me clarify what I said and what I experienced.

First, this involved my time on MSNBC where I worked during the lead up to war. I worked as a segment producer, overnight anchor, field reporter, and briefly covered the White House, the Pentagon, and general Washington stories.

Also, let me say: no, senior corporate leadership never asked me to take out a line in a script or re-write an anchor intro. I did not mean to leave the impression that corporate executives were interfering in my daily work; my interaction was with senior producers. What was clear to me is that many people running the broadcasts wanted coverage that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the country at the time. It was clear to me they wanted their coverage to reflect the mood of the country.

And now I’m going back to work covering the Puerto Rico primary from San Juan.

Really? Any MSNBC senior producers care to respond? (wait a minute, I was a senior producer at MSNBC at the time.)

>Update: MSNBC VP of communications Jeremy Gaines responds to TVNewser:

Jessica Yellin was a freelance overnight news reader at MSNBC for one year who was not renewed. She had little to no contact with editorial decision makers, and certainly was not a part of the editorial process on a daily basis. Given how her story has changed so dramatically since her appearance on CNN — her current employer — less than 24 hours ago, we find it hard to believe that anyone would take this disgruntled former employee’s comments seriously.

TVNewser has learned CNN’s Jessica Yellin is writing a blog post that will clarify her controversial comments last night on Anderson Cooper 360.

Politico’s Michael Calderone has the clip in which Yellin talks about “corporate executives” who tried to make sure “that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.” Calderone writes:

…a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, “You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?”

“Not in that exact…. They wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces,” Yellin said. “They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience.”

Yellin worked for MSNBC during the run-up to the Iraq war. She joined ABC News in July 2003.

He’s (almost) all the talk on the cablers today, now you’ll be able to hear from former White House press secretary Scott McClellan himself. McClellan will appear tomorrow on Today to talk about his new book which the White House calls “sad.” Former top Bush adviser Karl Rove, now an analyst for Fox News, says excerpts he’s read sound more like they were written by a “left-wing blogger” than by his former colleague.

ABC’s Good Morning America has no plans to book McClellan at this time, while CBS’s The Early Show tells TVNewser they are “discussing a possible interview.”

> Update: McClellan’s first cable news interview will be tomorrow night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.