Media Beat

Columnist and New York magazine editor-at-large  Frank Rich has strong feelings about a lot of things. TV news is one of them. In this week’s Media Beat interview, Rich tells PRNewser editor Tonya Garcia, “I think the worst influence can be cable news, particularly cable news getting obsessed, not with political stories, but with natural disaster, missing children, and driving all coverage of the national story off the air.”

After the jump, part I of the interview in which Rich talks about his role as executive producer of the HBO comedy “Veep.” “I think comedy, satire, and farce, which is also a little bit of Veep, heightens everything,” Rich says.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

HLN’s Robin Meade isn’t always tied to the anchor desk. In fact, Meade was back in Nashville this week working on a new album, a follow-up to “Brand New Day.” And then there was the time she jumped out of an airplane with a former president. How that all came about, in Part III of our Media Interview.

This and all mediabistroTV productions can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel.

• Part I | Monday: Robin Meade Triple Threat: Anchor, Singer, Songwriter

• Part II | Tuesday: “I Won’t Even Make a Face Twitch that Someone Might Interpret as Having an Opinion”

Robin Meade works for a channel that bills itself as the “News & Views” network. And while the HLN anchor keeps her opinions to herself, you just might hear her give her take on some of the odd stories in the news. Like the time a woman went through airport security with an “adult toy.” In Part II of our Media Beat interview, we talk about that as well as the news/opinion divide and her first day on the air at CNN Headline News: 9/11/01.

This and all mediabistroTV productions can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel.

• Part I | Monday: Robin Meade Triple Threat: Anchor, Singer, Songwriter

• Part III | Tomorrow: Robin Meade Cleans Up the “Dirty Laundry”

HLN anchor Robin Meade has been a performer all her life. From school concerts to beauty pageants, Meade has turned a passion for performing into an award-winning news career. The former Miss Ohio, who’s hosted HLN’s morning show since 2001, has returned to the stage performing songs from her album “Brand New Day.” In the first part of our Media Beat interview, Meade tells us how songwriting and news writing are not all that different.

This and all mediabistroTV productions can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel.

• Part II | Tomorrow: How “News and Views” Doesn’t Always Mean Opinion

• Part III | Wednesday: Robin Meade Cleans Up the “Dirty Laundry”

While her LSU Tigers may have lost the BCS National Championship the other night, FBN reporter Sandra Smith says her time as a Tiger — on the Track & Field team — was invaluable. “It challenges you, it makes you smarter, it makes you more aggressive,” says Smith in Part III of our Media Beat interview. Smith also tells us why she’s shunning social media, for now: no Twitter, no Facebook. “I would only want to do that if I could give it my all.”

Part I: Monday, From the Windy City to Wall Street, FBN’s Sandra Smith Follows the Money
Part II: Tuesday, Sandra Smith Goes from Trader to Reporter

• This, and all our videos, can also be viewed on our YouTube Channel.

For Sandra Smith the trading floor is like a second home. “That’s really the environment I grew up in,” says the Fox Business Network correspondent. Following in her father’s footsteps, she worked her way on to the floor of Chicago’s CME. But instead of trading on the action, she’s covering it for FBN. And for Smith, the road from trader to reporter doesn’t end there. Here’s part II of our Media Beat interview:

Part I: Yesterday, From the Windy City to Wall Street, FBN’s Sandra Smith Follows the Money
Part III: Tomorrow, How being an LSU Athlete Prepared Sandra Smith for the Real World

We know where Fox Business Network correspondent Sandra Smith will be tonight. The LSU grad will be watching her Tigers play for the National Championship against Alabama. And tomorrow morning, she’ll be back at the iconic Chicago Board of Trade building, with her picks for The Trade, her daily segment. As we found out in the first part of our Media Beat interview, the Chicago native is a rare breed of business correspondents who splits her time between the Chicago pits and Wall Street.

Part II, tomorrow: Making the move from trader to reporter
Part III, Wednesday: How being an LSU athlete prepared Sandra Smith for the real world

• This video can also be viewed on the mediabistro YouTube Channel.

In the just released November 2011 ratings, CNBC’s Business Day programming (9am-5pm) is up +31% in A25-54 viewers. The network’s midday show, “Street Signs” up +29% in younger viewers. Last November the show was anchored by Erin Burnett, now with CNN. This year, it’s an ensemble of Mandy Drury, Brian Sullivan, Herb Greenberg and the occasional drop-in by Jim Cramer.

Drury calls what she’s doing now her dream job. “It was my dream to come to New York,” says the Australian native Drury in part III of our Media Beat interview. “As a business journalist, there’s probably only a few cities in the world where you can get as much of a stimulating challenge as I have now.” WATCH:

• Part I Monday: Mandy Drury on the “Big Personalities” at CNBC

• Part II Tuesday: Mandy Drury has No Time for Nicknames

This, and all our videos, can also be viewed on our YouTube page.

“I hate that,” says CNBC’s Mandy Drury of the latest nickname placed upon her: Mandy Candy. In part II of our Media Beat interview, the “Street Signs” co-anchor tells us what she really thinks of those nicknames, plus her take on American politics and how she broke in to business news: “I almost fell into it by accident.”

• Part I Yesterday: Mandy Drury on the “Big Personalities” at CNBC

• Part III Tomorrow: Mandy Drury on Balancing Moneytalk and Motherhood

CNBC in the U.S. took a little getting used to for Mandy Drury. After working for nearly a decade in the relatively staid newsrooms in Singapore and Sydney, Drury says her arrival at CNBC’s World Headquarters in New Jersey was a bit intimidating at first. In this week’s Media Beat Drury tells us about the “big personalities with big voices” and how she’s settling in to “Street Signs.”

• Part II Tuesday: Mandy Drury has no time for nicknames

• Part III Wednesday: Mandy Drury on balancing moneytalk and motherhood

This, and all our videos, can also be seen on our YouTube channel.