NBC News is partnering with the publisher of SCOTUSblog to cover the upcoming Supreme Court decisions.

As part of the deal, SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein will become a contributor to NBC News, appearing on-air and writing for NBCNews.com and MSNBC.com through the end of the current term. The network is quick to point out that justice correspondent Pete Williams won’t be going anywhere.

“It is an honor to work so closely with NBC News and Pete Williams during such a historic time at the Supreme Court,” said Goldstein in a statement. “Bringing SCOTUSblog to the attention of the network’s huge and well-informed audience is a tremendous opportunity for us.”

SCOTUSblog has quickly earned a name for itself as one of the fastest and most reliable sources of news and analysis when it comes to the Supreme Court. Last year, when CNN and Fox News incorrectly reported the outcome of the healthcare decision, FNC’s Megyn Kelly saw SCOTUSblog’s take, prompting a correction. It also wrote the definitive story on what happened that day.

As it happens, SCOTUSblog is sponsored by NBC competitor Bloomberg, which has a long and complicated history with its parent company Comcast.

More information below.
Read more

The Bloom Mobile, NBC’s mobile transmission vehicle which has been to Iraq and back, sustained damaged in last night’s series of tornados in Oklahoma. The truck was part of the Weather Channel’s Tornado Hunt 2013 entourage. As we told you last night, another truck was destroyed and the three people inside, including meteorologist Mike Bettes suffered minor injuries. Brad Reynolds, a Chicago-based freelance cameraman tweeted the image, left, of the damage to the rear of the Bloom Mobile which is named for the late NBC News anchor David Bloom who rode aboard a similar mobile unit during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 reporting live as the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division made its way to Baghdad.

NBC’s Anthony Quintano also Tweeted this before and after shot of the Bloom Mobile.

.@nbcnews Bloom Mobile before and after photo. This vehicle also part of #TornadoHunt chase team. via @hdcameradude twitter.com/AnthonyQuintan…

— Anthony Quintano (@AnthonyQuintano) June 1, 2013

The anchor team at NBC’s “Today” got down and dirty–quite literally–this week, as they tackled an abbreviated version of the infamous “Tough Mudder” obstacle course. The course makes for great TV, which might explain why the team from “Fox & Friends” ran through a similar version just two weeks ago, but that didn’t make “Today”‘s segment any less fun.

Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Natalie Morales, Willie Geist and Al Roker ran the course, with Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford providing color commentary.

WATCH:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Longtime NBC News correspondent Don Oliver has died. Oliver, who spent 25 years at NBC News, got his first job in TV at KXLJ in his native Montanta. He got a scholarship from NBC News to attend Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism before joining NBC’s Cleveland bureau in 1966. He retired from NBC in 1991, but returned for a four-month stint in the early days of MSNBC. Brian Williams reported the news last night:

Former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw stepped down from the anchor chair in 2004, after more than three decades in high-profile roles at the network. Of course, his “retirement” has been anything but quiet.

He remains a regular analyst on NBC News programming and he also produces long-form programming, the latest of which, “The Brokaw Files,” will debut on Military Channel Thursday at 10 PM. “The Brokaw Files”–produced by NBC’s Peacock Productions–features some of Brokaw’s classic interviews and reports, updated with new information and reflections. For example, Brokaw’s interview with President Reagan, conducted just a few days before he left office.

“I honestly believe that in this age of warp speed communication and everybody looking at the next nanosecond, that there is real value in going back and examining, for example, the kind of person Ronald Reagan was,” Brokaw tells TVNewser. “I think that broadcast, it was his last interview he gave while in office, is instructive of what it was like to come up from the heart of America and become the President of the United States for two terms, during the heart of the cold war.”

For Brokaw and his production team, the Military Channel show is a chance to go back and find not only well-watched pieces, like the Reagan interview, but also pieces that fell through the cracks, like a story about the USS John C. Stennis.

“One of the things that happens with television, and it has been frustrating for 50 years, one of my producers used to say that we work very hard on these projects and the signal goes to Venus and we never see it again,” Brokaw said. “This gives both NBC and me an opportunity to go back and pull up stuff that we have done that has — I hope — a kind of enduring quality about it.”

Read more

As “Rock Center” prepares for its final broadcast next month, NBC News is in the process of laying off some of the show’s production staff, an NBC spokesperson confirms to TVNewser.

The layoffs are expected to affect only “Rock Center” staffers, who were notified of the cuts Thursday. NBC News is attempting to place as many employees as possible elsewhere at the network. 60 percent of “Rock Center” staffers have already been offered other positions within NBC.

The layoffs will go into effect after the show’s final broadcast on June 21.

When Comcast acquired all of NBCUniversal from General Electric in February, it also acquired the naming rights to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, currently known as the GE Building.

So far, Comcast and NBC have been mum about a new name, and the GE logo still adorns the side of the tower.

A trailer for a new show, however, suggests that an NBC Peacock may be coming soon to the top of “30 Rock.” The peacock is now also on Comcast’s corporate logo.

The show is the “Million Second Quiz,” a competition show that will air live from New York City for 12 consecutive days later this Fall. The trailer shows a helicopter flying over the top of a building that looks somewhat like 30 Rock, with an NBC peacock prominently placed, and no GE logo to be seen. It is computer generated, but still certainly has an air of legitimacy to it.

Update: It is not computer generated, but rather a shot of the NBC tower in Chicago, which does have the peacock on it, cleverly cut into shots of New York City. Still, would make some sense wouldn’t it?

Read more

Tom Mazzarelli (left) has been named Co-Executive Producer of the first two hours of NBC’s “Today” show, TVNewser has learned. At the same time, Tammy Filler has been named Co-EP of the third and fourth hours of the show. Both will report to show EP Don Nash.

Mazzarelli is a “Today” veteran, having served as a senior producer on the show from 2003-2006. He left NBC for CBS where, most recently, he was senior broadcast producer of “CBS This Morning,” a job he left in January. Nash took the top spot at “Today” in November. He reports to Alex Wallace who is executive-in-charge of the show.

“It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen up close.”

That’s Willie Geist‘s assessment of a day of reporting on the aftermath of Monday’s EF5 tornado in Moore, OK. “I think what you can’t convey is the scope of the damage.” Which is why people like Geist go to places like this — to try and describe it for us all.

Late Tuesday, Geist caught a flight to Chicago, where TVNewser caught up with him and his third hour co-host Natalie Morales. With Matt Lauer and Al Roker remaining in Oklahoma, and Savannah Guthrie back in New York, the Chicago remote was a remnant of an interrupted, week-long cross-country trip which began Monday in Hawaii.

Today will close out the week with a live broadcast from the Jersey shore where residents there continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy.

Morales surveyed the Oklahoma devastation via helicopter Tuesday. “It was like a bowling ball, that was a mile-and-a-half wide, rolled through and completely devastated neighborhoods,” she says. “It sort of ties it all together, to talk about the Jersey Shore rebuilding.”

Along with special co-host, Gov. Chris Christie, Lauer, Guthrie, Roker, Morales, and Geist will all be on hand. Morales says the group is feeling “new energy” after a turbulent year in the morning show wars.

“We’re a much stronger team now for that. That’s where our true grit and our character have come through,” she says.

“I’m hoping that the past is the past. We just want to carry on and continue to do what we want to do best, which is, when a big story is breaking, like you saw in Oklahoma, we rally. We’re all there. We’re all about making sure people are getting the stories they want to hear and see.”

The broadcast networks are planning to give their news organizations extra space tonight to update viewers on the aftermath of the devastating tornado that ripped through a suburb of Oklahoma City. In addition to expanded evening newscasts, NBC and ABC will have dedicated programming to coverage of the devastation and recovery.

NBC: NBC News will have a special from 8-9 PM live from Oklahoma, anchored by Brian Williams. Lester Holt, Ann Curry, Harry Smith and Kate Snow will be among the contributors. “NBC Nightly News” will also offer an hour-long newscast to affiliates this evening.

CBS: CBS News will not have a primetime special, however Scott Pelley will host a special edition of the “CBS Evening News” from 6:30 PM until 8 PM, offered to affiliates.

ABC: ABC News will be offering a one hour edition of “ABC World News” to affiliates. Diane Sawyer will be in New York, with David Muir in Moore. In addition at 12:35 AM “Nightline” will be special edition dedicated to Oklahoma.

Also: Muir, Ginger Zee and Mike Boettcher will reportfrom Oklahoma this afternoon on “Katie.”