President Obama spoke this afternoon at the National Defense University. The bulk of the speech was focused on national security, but for a few minutes, the President weighed in on the investigations the Justice Department has conducted involving journalists, including Fox News correspondent James Rosen and the Associated Press.

Obama says that Attorney General Holder has agreed to review the guidelines and talk to media outlets, and will report back to the President in July.

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said, adding that “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

The full text of his comments on the press are after the jump.
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On “CBS This Morning” co-hosts Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell were talking about the falling price of gold with contributor Melody Hobson. The discussion turned to how gold has been sold over the years, on radio and TV. Those tactics even came under congressional scrutiny (by, as it turns out, the guy now running for NYC mayor). That led Rose to chime in: “I tend not to take stock advice from television.” Rose not only hosts a show on CBS, but also on business news channel Bloomberg.

Just to give you a sense of what the Jodi Arias trial has meant for cable news viewership, take a look at Tuesday’s 2pm hour. As the devastation in Moore, OK was still settling in, 1,000 miles to the west Arias was asking a jury to spare her life. While Fox News and MSNBC remained with storm coverage, HLN and CNN both carried Arias’ comments which began at 1:56pmET. Arias spoke for about 20 minutes. HLN won the 2pm hour Tuesday. In fact the network beat the combined averages of Fox News and MSNBC in both total viewers and the demo. Now you know why HLN has become the new CourtTV.

• 2pm hour, Tuesday May 21 (Total Viewers / A25-54)

HLN:  2,227,000 / 620,000
CNN:  964,000 / 332,000
Fox News:  1,488,000 / 270,000
MSNBC:  337,000 / 111,000

• “Good Morning America” had 6.1 million viewers Wednesday, the morning after the “Dancing with the Stars” finale, according to Nielsen fast affiliate data. The early numbers indicate it was “GMA”‘s largest Total Viewer advantage ever over the “Today” show, which drew 4.5 million.

• Kevin Brockman, the EVP of Global Communications for Disney/ABC Television Group, has been elected Chairman of the Board of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, an organization focused on school safety. He’s been on the Board of Trustees since 2007.

• A first for Fox Business this week: the network scored its first primetime wins against CNBC (excluding Election coverage) Tuesday night. At 8pmET, “Cavuto” beat “Crowd Rules” by +88,000 Total Viewers and +1,000 demo viewers. At 9pmET, a re-air of “The Willis Report” beat the second hour of “Crowd Rules” by +34,000 Total Viewers and +2,000 A25-54 viewers.

“Good Morning America” makes it 39 weeks straight as the most-watched morning show. Compared to the same week last year “GMA” is up +9% in viewers and up +1% in the demo, where it experienced the largest A25-54 advantage over “Today” in more than 2 months

The big gainer for the week is “CBS This Morning” which is up +19% in viewers and up +8 in the demo. NBC’s “Today” is down -9% / -14%, respectively.

Even more encouraging news for CBS: the younger viewer gap between “Today” and “CTM” last year stood at 1.302 million viewers; last week it was 902,000.

The averages for the week of May 13, 2013:

• Total Viewers: ABC: 5.589M / NBC: 4.712M / CBS: 2.859M

• A25-54 viewers: ABC: 2.107M / NBC: 1.918M / CBS: 1.016M

Following the devastating tornado in Oklahoma this week, Fox News put one of its new assets to work: a “quick response” vehicle designed specifically to cover the aftermath of disasters, where cell service is often spotty or nonexistent. While every news organization has some sort of vehicle-based mobile transmission system, the technology that distinguishes FNC’s truck from its competition is its Raysat Satellite Antenna.

Backpack-based systems like LiveU are tremendously useful, but in places like Moore, OK where there is limited or no cell service, they become much more challenging to use. BGAN satellite antennas have become the standard for these sorts of vehicles, though FNC and RaySat say their antenna can carry 10 times the bandwidth of a BGAN, resulting in substantially higher picture quality (see video shot from the vehicle, after the jump).
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Bill O’Reilly went on “The Daily Show” last night to publicize his new book “Keep it Pithy.” The conversation began with the scandals in Washington, specifically the DOJ searches into reporters, including Fox News correspondent James Rosen, but moved on to racial profiling and ended with O’Reilly suggesting Jon Stewart should bring in a Muslim host as he takes leave from the show this Summer. Stewart: “You know it hurts me to say this, but some of the emails that the Department of Justice is finding from Fox News are probably between you and I.”

WATCH:

Following last week’s trifecta of scandals: Benghazi talking points, IRS targeting and DOJ phone taps, it turns out most Americans don’t give a damn. Late last week, the Pew Research Center surveyed a little more than 1,000 people and asked them if they are following the stories very closely.

26% said they are very closely following the IRS story; 25% are closely following the Benghazi investigation and just 16% are very closely following news about the Justice Department subpoenaing AP reporters’ phone records.

The numbers are greater if you’re a republican and less if you’re a democrat.

ABC’s upcoming primetime editions of “Nightline” will no longer feature the “Nightline” name. They will instead be called “ABC’s The Lookout,” a reference to their consumer-centric focus. The programs had originally been titled “Nightline: Two Truths and a Lie.”

The primetime “Nightline” shows were a make-good on the part of ABC after it pushed the late night show from 11:35 PM to 12:35 AM. As we reported at the time, ABC promised the show a full season commitment. For now, the show has a relatively safe slot on the lineup through the Summer, although had it debuted in March as originally planned, it would have had roughly the equivalent of a full season’s worth of episodes. The show’s future beyond Summer is unclear.

“Like any show on the network, our success on the air will determine the future,” an ABC News spokesperson says.

While it will not have the “Nightline” name, it will be produced by the staff of the late-night news program.

“Nightline” has had a rougher time at 12:35 than it did at 11:35, although much of it was expected. It now has fewer than half as many viewers as it did when it was on an hour earlier, although ABC is quick to point out that it often (though not always) does better than the second half of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” did in that timeslot. It also used to regularly topped CBS NBC and CBS in total and demo viewers. Now, such a clear ratings win is a relative rarity.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” aren’t the only morning shows with summer concerts. “Fox & Friends” kicks off its “All American Summer” concert series tomorrow morning with a performance by Michael Bolton.

Other performances slated for this summer include Lonestar, Eddie Money, Foreigner, the Doobie Brothers, Blues Traveler, Cody Simpson and Sugar Ray. See the full schedule here.

The “F&F” concerts will take place on the News Corp. plaza, which is just a block away from Rockefeller Plaza, the site of the”Today” show’s concerts.