CNN has been simulcasting CNN International for an hour or so now, with Arwa Damon on the ground in Taksim Square and Nick Paton Walsh above the fray (though not above the gas). Damon donned a gas mask to report on the clashes, and it makes for riveting video.

WATCH:

On MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Richard Engel also wore a gas mask to report on the clashes from Taksim Square.

WATCH:
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Fox News and CNN are planning live coverage of the hearings, with CNN bringing in Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, Wolf Blitzer and Arwa Damon to join the coverage. Fox News will have Bret Baier, Congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel, chief Washington correspondent James Rosen and Fox News contributor and Amb. John Bolton contributing.

Interestingly enough, it is quite likely that the Sunday public affairs shows will be part of the story. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice appeared on the network Sunday shows and argued that the attack was spontaneous and not premeditated. That now appears not to be the case, and some State Department officials say they knew that all along.

Elsewhere, The Washington Post profiles CBS News correspondent Sharyl Atkisson as “a persistent voice of media skepticism on Benghazi.”
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CNN international correspondent Arwa Damon and photojournalist Sarmad Qaseera won the IRE Medal for their coverage of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, who the judges said “provided additional valuable context about the milieu in which the consulate attack occurred.” The report was also honored in IRE’s Investigations Triggered by Breaking News category.

Univision’s newsmagazine, “Aquí y Ahora,” won in the broadcast video division for “Rápido y Furioso,” its investigation of the Fast and the Furious program. “Rápido y Furioso” also won a 2012 Peabody Award.

CNN Digital and PBS won in the multiplatform news category. CNN digital reporters John D. Sutter and Edythe McNamee were honored for their travels to Africa to report “Mauritania: Slavery’s Last Stronghold.” PBS won for “Big Sky, Big Money,” an investigation of campaign finance that was done in partnership with ProPublica.

>Update: CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker‘s note to staff is after the jump. continued…

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TV news not only covered the war, but promoted it as well, regularly featuring guests who beat the war drum, and ignoring those that had opposing views. Sometimes, as The Huffington Post’s Jack Mirkinson notes, it was a vicious circle:

Perhaps the most notorious example of the Washington-media nexus over Iraq came when Dick Cheney appeared on “Meet the Press” in September of 2002. He cited the lead story in that morning’s Times as he talked to Tim Russert (“I want to attribute it to the Times,” he memorably said). The story, by Miller and her colleague Michael Gordon, said that Hussein was busy using aluminum tubes to help build nuclear weapons. The Bush administration had leaked that story to Miller. The circle was complete.

The war has not been forgotten. With the President making his first mideast trip of his second term, cable news is finding time to look back at Iraq. Throughout the week a number of segments about the war are on tap at the “big three” cable news channels, nestled in between the other day’s coverage.

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The daughter of an American father and a Syrian mother, Damon grew up speaking both English and Arabic. Hr parents settled in Beirut, Lebanon, where Damon also rents an apartment.

“In college, I had a lot of friends who didn’t know anything about the Middle East, who had never met anyone from there,” she explains. “And when 9/11 happened, I saw this East-West divide become even greater, and I got this idea in my head that I was going to be a bridge, to help create cross-cultural understanding through journalism.” Her friends thought she was off her rocker. “They said I should start in a small town, build my way up in the industry. I said no, I’m going to Iraq.”

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• CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon has been in Syria reporting for the network for almost a week. “She’s risking her life to bring us these reports,” CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer wrote on Twitter.

• Speaking of Syria, Lara Setrakian has launched Syria Deeply, a website dedicated to exploring “a new model of storytelling around a global crisis.” Setrakian is a foreign correspondent who has been based in the Middle East for five years, filing reports for Bloomberg TV and ABC News.

• After just three weeks on Broadway, it’s the end of the road for “Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson,” written by NBC’s Kathie Lee Gifford. Gifford talked about it on the fourth hour of “Today” Wednesday, saying, “They’re the best cast on Broadway. They’re unbelievable. And I love them to pieces. There’s a sadness that comes with this.”

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• The Leveson Report, which focuses on the British press in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, has been released. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and CNN host Piers Morgan are among those mentioned. The Guardian has the highlights (or lowlights, if you prefer).

• Current TV’s Joy Behar will host a benefit event for the victims of Hurricane Sandy Friday, December 14. Current TV founder Al Gore and comedian Andy Borowitz are among those that will appear. The benefit will air on Current.

• CNN’s Arwa Damon is returning to Syria to report on the ongoing battle between rebel fighters and government forces there. It will Damon’s second trip to Syria this year. Her latest report is here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

WATCH:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata captured the first video from inside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi earlier this week.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Arwa Damon (far right) and Sara Sidner (far left) have both been promoted to Senior International Correspondent. In addition, Sidner moves from CNN New Delhi, where she’s been based since joining CNN in 2007, to CNN Jerusalem.

Damon has been reporting on the Arab Spring for the last couple of years from Syria, Libya, Egypt and Lebanon, where she’s based. Sidner also reported extensively from Libya — and had this harrowing experience covering the fall of Gadhafi. She also reported on the Mumbai terrorist attacks, as they happened in 2008.

TVNewser was at CNN HQ in December when many of CNN’s foreign correspondents, including Sidner and Damon, gathered to tape a special reflecting on the year in foreign coverage.

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The goal is to shine a light on how incredibly difficult and dangerous the situation in the country is, and what news organizations are doing to shine alight on the situation there.

“It’s a humanitarian crisis. We might not be able to bring about immediate change to Syria, but the one thing that we absolutely cannot do is walk away from this story – no matter how long it takes,” Damon says.

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As the situation continues to deteriorate, news organizations will have to weigh the pros and cons of trying to sneak producers or correspondents into the country. A number of journalists have been killed in the country, so sneaking in is not a matter to be taken lightly.

Cable news is dominated by politics, but as 2011 showed, revolutions make for extremely compelling TV.

CNN is the only cable news channel to have a correspondent in the country right now, and it has far more coverage than either Fox News or MSNBC, according to TVEyes. CNN correspondent Arwa Damon snuck into the country, and has been reporting for CNN both in daytime and primetime. According to TVEyes, CNN had at least one segment on Syria (often two or three) every hour from 1PM-11PM yesterday.

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A year ago today we wrote about one of those annual “predictions” stories. It was from Mashable’s Vadim Lavrusik who had a host of predictions for the news media in 2011. This was No. 6:

6. The Death of the ‘Foreign Correspondent’

Lavrusik, who is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s journalism school, argued that news organizations would rely “heavily on stringers and, in many cases, social content uploaded by the citizenry.”

How right he was… and wasn’t.

While much of the video from the Arab Spring and Japanese earthquake & tsunami — two of the biggest stories on the planet this year — was user generated: captured on smartphones, uploaded to video sites and shared around the world on social networks, it took the network correspondents to put into perspective what we were seeing, to interview some of those captured on video (or who captured the video), and put into greater context what it all means. That’s really their job. So that at the end of a 1-minute 45-second package or 2-minute live shot, we all have a better understanding of the story.

This year, the networks did not rely “heavily on stringers,” the news was simply too broad and complex and the competition too great. No network wants to be left out.

So they dug deep into their pockets and sent in correspondents and anchors to report what was happening. Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer, Anderson Cooper, Scott Pelley, even Barbara Walters have all traveled the globe this year for their networks. ABC’s Christiane Amanpour racked up more stamps on her passport and NBC’s Richard Engel and CBS’s Lara Logan — who

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At 11:28pmET, U.S. cable news networks broke into coverage as the final U.S. combat troops crossed from Iraq into Kuwait, creating a lasting image for the end to the 8-and-a-half-year war, which was officially declared over on Thursday. CNN/U.S. and CNNI simulcast coverage with Hala Gorani and Don Lemon co-anchoring. Michael Holmes reported from Kuwait, Arwa Damon from Baghdad and Martin Savidge, who traveled the 5-and-a-half hours with the American convoy, reported by phone (and later, around 12:27amET, via livestream from inside an MRAP vehicle) after crossing into Kuwait. CNN/U.S. stayed live until MidnightET (CNNI until 12:30amET) and included interviews with soldiers at Camp Virginia, Kuwait.

On Fox News Geraldo Rivera and Greg Palkot reported live from Kuwait, with the final MRAP truck crossing over at 11:38pmET / 7:38am along the Kuwait/Iraq border. “I have tears in my eyes, so emotional,” said Rivera, who is on his 11th trip to the region. Fox News wrapped coverage at 11:46pm.

MSNBC produced a 4-minute special report with Richard Engel live in Kuwait. Engel too, traveled with the U.S. convoy. “So much has transpired when they crossed this berm in 2003 going North,” said Engel. “They were on their way to topple a dictator. Now they are crossing this berm again. The dictator has been toppled and the troops are going home.”

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Correspondent Arwa Damon, former CNN President Tom Johnson, Producer Yousuf Basil, Producer Ingrid Formanek, Reporter Nic Robertson, and Cameraman Sarmad Qaseera are the staffers that reflect on their time covering the country.

You can see what they have to say in “Wars in Iraq: What I Remember” here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.