Filmmaker Michael Moore was on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” last night, and he got into a spirited debate with Morgan about CNN’s coverage of the disaster. With regard to Ali Velshi‘s coverage from New Jersey, Moore said:

“I was watching Ali out there, in Atlantic City, and my first thought is, why is CNN trying to kill Ali Velshi?”

Moore also said that CNN should have been showing video from Breezy Point, NY, where over 100 homes were destroyed by a fire. As it happens CNN did have reports from Breezy Point. Velshi would call in to talk to Moore about the reports.

WATCH:

CNN’s Ali Velshi talks to The Huffington Post’s Rebecca Shapiro about covering Hurricane Sandy. Velshi, as we noted, spent a good deal of the storm in the streets of Atlantic City, battling nature’s wrath… and some video bombers.

Velshi addressed the safety precautions his team had to abide by, and the criticism CNN and other networks faced for putting reporters at risk for the sake of getting a good shot.

I read a lot of the criticism and I have to say, I take it well. I think one of the great things about CNN is I know we will have discussions about this. I know people will talk about this internally, and we’ll sort of continue to evaluate what it does for us.

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• Former New York Governor and CNN host Eliot Spitzer will be on Christiane Amanpour’s CNN International program today. He’ll talk about Sandy recovery and the election. “Amanpour” airs at 4pmET on CNNI.
• “Rock Center with Brian Williams” will dedicate its entire hour to the super storm tomorrow night. Harry Smith, Tom Brokaw, Ann Curry, Richard Engel and Natalie Morales report. Thursday at 10pmET/PT.
• CNN’s Ali Velshi, in Ohio, and Christine Romans, in New York, will co-anchor “CNN Newsroom” Friday morning at 9amET with Sandy’s clean-up underway, unemployment numbers due, and the election just four days away.

This was inevitable. On CNN just after 5pm, Ali Velshi was reporting live from Atlantic City when three shirtless geniuses video bombed his liveshot. Meteorologist Chad Myers, after delivering the 5pm NHC update, commented that the trio “should be off the streets and into a house somewhere, that’s certainly not the place to be.” There’s a 6pm curfew for the city, which is about the time Sandy is expected to make landfall just south of where Velshi is reporting.

CNN will be keeping its usual primetime lineup on tonight to cover Sandy, and will be live until the worst of the storm passes, whenever that may be. Anchors Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett will be reporting in the field tonight across primetime. CNN International will be simulcasting CNN/U.S. from 11AM-2PM and again starting at 4 PM.

The list of correspondents in the field for CNN is after the jump.

Update: HLN is blowing up its primetime lineup to provide hurricane coverage. Those details are also after the jump.
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CNN has announced a slew of assignments for network correspondents in advance of the Presidential election. The network will have anchors and reporters in every swing state, as well as some floaters that will travel to multiple states, and the correspondents embedded with the campaigns. The network is launching segments branded as “The Final Battlegrounds” starting on Monday.

“CNN is deploying its vast resources and top-notch reporters into the states that the campaigns are targeting as the election nears,” said Mark Whitaker, executive VP and managing editor of CNN Worldwide in a statement. “Our in-depth reporting and analysis will keep voters informed of the up-to-the-minute developments that will determine the outcome of this extraordinarily close presidential race.”

The correspondent assignments, after the jump.
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CNN’s Election Express is on the road again.

Tomorrow morning, the tricked out politibus hits the road departing Boca Raton, site of tonight’s debate, headed for other Florida cities like Lakeland, and Winter Park. Then it’s on to North Carolina on Friday and by Sunday the Election Express will be in Virginia. On board are CNN’s Ali Velshi and John Avlon who will be interviewing voters in four swing states. Interviews and analysis will be featured throughout CNN’s television networks and digital platforms over the final two weeks of the campaign.

This is the second presidential election cycle for Election Express. TVNewser got a tour the last go-round when the Express swung through New York City.

Despite requests from TV news organizations to political campaigns, attack ads across the country still prominently feature TV news anchors and reporters. Advertising Age looked at the numbers, and found that journalists have been featured in TV spots that aired thousands and thousands of times.

Clips from CNBC were the most commonly used, followed by CNN and MSNBC. Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, Ali Velshi and John Harwood were among the journalists whose clips were used for political purposes. Earlier this year networks asked the campaigns to stop featuring clips from their programming in ads. It didn’t work.

Ad Age explains:

From a messaging standpoint, TV journalists “deliver” the advertisers’ messages not only more credibly but also more concisely and accessibly, an added benefit for the advertisers in light of the complex economic circumstances being debated this year. Deficit spending, unemployment and stimulus are tough to explain in 30 seconds, so why not “borrow” the people who do it for a living? Having familiar faces and voices do the work is also far more powerful than showing frame after frame of static newspaper headlines.

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Twitter is awesome, as it can spread breaking news incredibly efficiently and quickly. It is also a problem, as it can spread misinformation incredibly efficiently and quickly.

CNN’s Ali Velshi saw that firsthand this morning, after CNN confirmed that terrorism was not a factor in the shooting by the Empire State Building.

Velshi tweeted the following, leaving out a key word: “no”

To his credit, he quickly caught the error and deleted the tweet. More impressively, he seemed to respond to everyone that messaged him, correcting and apologizing along the way.

I have a responsibility to get it right. I deserve criticism for this. RT @ronaldedmunds: @alivelshi @johnvmoore Leave Ali alonehe mis…

— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) August 24, 2012

Just a friendly reminder: double check those tweets. Mistakes can (and do) happen to the best of us. When you are on-air talent, followed by thousands of people, misinformation can spread especially quickly.

Here’s something you may not know about Fox News Channel’s chief White House correspondent, Ed Henry: he loves pocket squares. (So much that they even have their own Twitter account.) The AP’s Samantha Critchell examines the origins of Henry’s fashion statement:

Blue ones, red ones, white ones. He’ll wear red-meets-blue purple, too, but don’t read too much into any political meaning, he says.

It all started as a friendly fashion competition with Ali Velshi, a former colleague when Henry was at CNN. It was all about the bigger, better necktie back then. There was an unending game of one-upmanship with more colorful shirts, perhaps even a patterned vest.

Still, Henry says, Velshi usually out did him — until Henry pulled out the pocket square. “The pocket square amps it up!” says Henry. He adds: “At least no one is teasing me about my makeup anymore.”