Alissa Krinsky
TVNewser Contributor

Carol Lin is “entering a universe I’ve never been in before.”

A post-CNN career. “I really have discovered what’s possible. There’ve been bits and pieces of my story out there, but not the complete story. How do you transition from a network career to the great beyond?”

You start with CarolLinReporting.com.

The site officially goes ‘live’ Monday. “It’s my way,” Lin says, “of connecting with my audience, of getting feedback from people.”

People in the “cancer community,” as she calls it — who, like her, have had their lives affected by the disease. Lin’s mother is battling lymphoma. Her beloved husband, Will Robinson, a former CNN producer, died in 2003 of sinus cancer.

The site will feature excerpts of a journal Lin kept while Will was sick, as well as news reports from Lin and from other contributors. The goal is to provide cancer patients, their families, and caregivers with “solutions”, she says, so people can “ask questions and get answers that they aren’t necessarily going to find on traditional networks.”

(photo courtesy of Carol Lin)

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For the 40th consecutive quarter, NBC’s Meet the Press is tops in the Sunday morning ratings race. NBC says that’s “the best winning streak among public affairs programs since at least 1980, as far back at NBC News research extends.”

Tim Russert and his guests brought in an average of 3,090,000 million total viewers during the quarter. A 32% lead over ABC’s This Week, 38% more than CBS’ Face the Nation and a 175% lead over FOX News Sunday.

This was a strong quarter for This Week with George Stephanopoulos as well. ABC says their win over CBS “marks the first time that This Week beat Face the Nation since 3Q 2002.”

For the 3rd quarter of 2007:

Total viewers: NBC: 3,090,000 / ABC: 2,350,000 / CBS: 2,240,000 / FOX: 1,120,000

A25-54 demo: NBC: 990,000 / ABC: 790,000 / CBS: 810,000 / FOX: 490,000

Juan Williams, whose conversation with Bill O’Reilly on The Radio Factor has been the subject of a week’s worth of cable and print stories, has written about being brought into the fray, and being labeled a “happy negro.” He writes in Time magazine that he was “astounded” to hear O’Reilly was being attacked “on the basis of that radio conversation as a ‘racist’”

That twisted assumption led me to say publicly that the attacks on O’Reilly amounted to an effort to take what he said totally out of context in an attempt to brand him a racist by a liberal group that disagrees with much of his politics. But the out-of-context attacks on O’Reilly picked up speed and ended up on CNN, where one commentator branded me a “Happy Negro” for allowing O’Reilly to get by with making racist comments without objection.

This is so far from the truth of the conversation on the radio that it is beyond a matter of words being taken out of context. This is a pathetic cowardly, personal attack against me intended to damage my credibility and invalidate any support I offer to O’Reilly against the charges that he is a racist.

Dan Senor will be hosting a special tonight on Fox News Channel. Iran: The Ticking Bomb premieres at 9pmET and re-airs tomorrow at 3pmET. Senor, the husband of CNN’s Campbell Brown, is the former Coalition Provisional Authority adviser in Iraq and a current Fox News analyst. Brown is expected to debut on CNN in November, with her primetime show premiering early next year, after the couple’s first child is born in late December. Do you think Campbell gave Dan some hosting tips?

TVNewser has learned Fox News correspondent Kim McIntyre is leaving the network. Insiders tell us McIntyre is being let go because of a “personality conflict” within the Dallas bureau, where she was assigned. This insider says others “are trying to point to her reporting as the reason for her impending resignation, but that wasn’t the case.” I digress: if she’s a good reporter, why wasn’t she just moved to another bureau?

McIntyre joined FNC last year after stints in Tampa, Green Bay, El Paso, and Hagerstown, MD. She had also previously been a freelance producer at Fox News Channel’s DC bureau.

>More, from an emailer: “Kim McIntyre hasn’t been in the Dallas buro for FNC for months — she’s been working for the Fox News Edge based in Washington.”

Gail Shister
TVNewser Columnist

No matter what happens, there will be no winners in Dan Rather v. CBS.

So says Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s senior legal analyst and a former assistant U.S. attorney.

“Civil litigation is a nightmare. It’s a soul-killing experience, even if you win. The tediousness, the anger, the pettiness. It’s horrible to be in a lawsuit. They make everyone miserable.”

In Toobin’s view, plaintiffs expect vindication; defendants, absolution. Both fall short. It’s a lose-lose.

“Even when plaintiffs win, they are often horribly disheartened. The Rather lawsuit is likely to end in crushing disappointment, regardless of outcome. The legal system is messy, time consuming and expensive.”

Toobin labels Rather’s odds of winning his $70 million breach-of-contract claim as “an extreme longshot.”

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How many times have you heard an anchor say, “that is not the right video…” Add one more.

ABC News weatherman Sam Champion filled in for Nancy Grace tonight. And here’s something you’ll never hear from Sam on GMA: “breaking news tonight, they’ve found little Madison.” Champion closed the show by thanking Grace, “Nancy it’s been a real pleasure to sit here in your chair.”

When ABC’s senior foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto crossed into Myanmar today from neighboring Thailand the authorities took away his camera. So he filed his report for World News and the webcast, with the next best thing, his cell phone.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez will be guesting on Reliable Sources this Sunday. No word on whether the Kurtz clan put in a call to Bill O’Reilly.