“Honestly, I appreciate the feedback,” says Stelter, 27, author of Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, and a media reporter for the New York Times. (Full disclosure: Stelter founded TVNewser when he was a college student)

“I’m not making this up,” he continues. “I want to learn how to be a better writer and reporter. I do think normal readers come away really happy, really entertained.”

‘Normal readers’ probably don’t include a trio of power players, past and present, from NBC. ‘Morning’ paints a less than flattering portrait of ‘Today’ co-anchor Matt Lauer; his former boss, Jim Bell; and ex-NBC News president Steve Capus.

All were involved, to varying degrees, in the ham-handed – and excruciatingly public — ouster of Lauer’s co-anchor, Ann Curry, according to the book. Bell had dubbed it ‘Operation Bambi,’ not knowing, of course, that Curry would come out looking as innocent and victimized as the white-tailed fawn in his title.

Lauer is the clear villain of the piece, prompting Entertainment Weekly to accuse Stelter of having a ‘vendetta’ against the mega-millionaire anchor.

Stelter labels the accusation as ‘preposterous.’

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As the sun set over the Hudson River and the High Line park, guests sipped wine and nibbled on hummus, cheese and skewers of shrimp and scallops. NY1 traffic anchor Jamie Shupak, Stelter’s girlfriend, organized the affair.

“Matt Lauer and Ann Curry send their regrets,” Stelter quipped in his remarks. Indeed, NBC’s “Today” was not represented at the party, though there were plenty of notable TV news attendees.

ABC News seemed to have the largest contingent, led by president Ben Sherwood, and joined by senior VP of content and development James Goldston, and senior VP of communications Jeffrey Schneider. CBS News was represented by chairman Jeff Fager and “CBS This Morning” co-host Charlie Rose (pictured below). NY1′s morning news anchor Pat Kiernan was there, as was CNN “Piers Morgan Live” EP (and former “Today” EP) Jonathan Wald. Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, New York Post publisher Jesse Angelo and Gawker founder Nick Denton were all spotted in the crowd.
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As he neared graduation, Stelter had to make a choice: work in TV news, or cover it.

• Part I: Stelter on Being Matt Lauer’s “nemesis”

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That’s not a surprise since the ABC morning show had the best story to tell — breaking the “Today” show’s 16-year winning streak a year ago this month. It should also come as no surprise, then, that Stelter’s first network interview was with “GMA.”

“Here at ‘GMA’ we report the news, we rarely try to find ourselves at the center of it,” George Stephanopoulos said introducing Dan Harris‘ 2-minute story.

There was no “happy chat” after the story, when an anchor might normally add, “I read it! Great book!” Instead Stephanopoulos cracked wise about Stelter admitting he gets 9-10 hours sleep some nights — a luxury the millionaire morning anchors do not have.

In his first interview for the book, Stelter told me he hopes to go on all the morning shows. He’ll be on “CBS This Morning” tomorrow, but not to talk just about the book, but also about the media coverage of last week’s events in Boston. After reading “Top of the Morning,” something tells me getting on the “Today” show will be a tougher sell. But it would make for great TV. Something these shows are always looking for.

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• Part II, tomorrow: What happens when Brian Stelter Tweets something he shouldn’t?

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So, what kind of access did he get to the shows, anchors and producers? In “A note about sourcing” at the end of the book, Stelter writes that his visits to the control rooms and studios, “shaped the book in big and small ways.”

“NBC, ABC, and CBS insisted that most of these visits be off the record, with the understanding that they’d decide which quotes could be placed on the record later,” he writes. “I agreed to the restriction, knowing it was the only way I’d receive any access to the otherwise sealed-off studios, control rooms and production offices of the shows.”

ABC scrubbed a few curse words from producers’ mouths but allowed virtually every other quote. NBC was more heavy-handed every one of [former "Today" EP] Jim Bell‘s quotes from my control room visits were kept “off the record.” So were descriptions of Bell’s body language and his demeanor, descriptions of other staffers reacting to Bell, and some quotes from Ann Curry. NBC approved most of the rest of the control room material. Once in a while, on particularly sensitive days when the PR apparatuses of NBC and ABC denied access to their studios, I simply peered into their street-level windows like a tourist.”

More from Stelter tomorrow in Part I of our MediaBeat interview.

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The Magazine story has itself been excerpted dozens of times across numerous sites since it went online Wednesday. For its part, the “Today” show is trying to look the other way: “We are focused on covering several major news stories this week and producing the best show we can for our viewers, not on year-old gossip.”

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Stelter reports NBC News Group chairman Pat Fili-Krushel is likely to appoint NBC News SVP Alex Wallace as the executive in charge of the four-hour program, while looking for top producers for the first and second two-hour blocks. Wallace, who has worn several hats in her 7 years at NBC News, was just named EP of “Rock Center with Brian Williams.” She is a former “Weekend Today” and “Nightly News” EP and was, until the appointment at “Rock Center,” second-in-command to NBC News president Steve Capus.

Sources tell us no deals have been signed and no internal announcements made. Don Nash, a 24 year “Today” veteran and now senior broadcast producer will likely stay on.

Bell will transition off the show as the year draws to a close. He has been EP of “Today” since 2005, joining from the Sports division. Bell was tapped to oversee NBC’s record-breaking coverage of the London Olympic Games and is expected to do the same for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia in 2014 and the Rio Summer games in 2016.

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The TV critics are assessing last week’s morning show stunts.

“Television news now feasts on fame, the gaudier the better, with journalistic credentials a mere afterthought,” writes Newsweek/Daily Beast’s Howie Kurtz, who talked to two former “Today” show hosts about last week’s ratings grabbers — including Sarah Palin co-hosting last Tuesday — a response to Katie Couric‘s fill-in on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The star-making machinery has changed. When Today tapped Jane Pauley in 1976, she says, “I was 25 years old, four years out of college. I was extremely unknown.” Today alumnus Bryant Gumbel, who says he was “embarrassed” by the Palin stint, believes hosts “used to be judged not just on their popularity level but the extent to which they were capable of interviewing someone or reporting on a situation, or able to have a degree of gravitas. Now that is secondary to being popular.”

The New York Times’ Bill Carter and Brian Stelter sum up the week and the ongoing horse race between “Today” and “GMA,” revealing Katie Couric could return to ABC’s mornings:

Senior ABC staff members characterized NBC’s stunt bookings as desperate. But those at NBC suggested that ABC’s use of Ms. Couric, who left ‘Today’ in 2006, and the overall win-at-all-costs approach showed desperation. [GMA Senior EP Tom] Cibrowski disputed that and said Ms. Couric could fill in again in the future, perhaps when Mr. Stephanopoulos takes a vacation.

As of Thursday’s ratings, “Today” was holding off the hard-charging “GMA.” We’ll have Friday’s Fast National numbers this afternoon, and final weekly ratings for last week on Thursday.

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Fox News averaged 2.53 million viewers between 8-11pm Monday night, and 2.51 million last night. MSNBC averaged 1.12 million Monday and 984,000 last night.

This says a few things: the early call drove viewers elsewhere, national interest in state primaries may be waning and FNC and MSNBC’s loyal viewers would have preferred to watch a regularly scheduled “O’Reilly Factor” or “Rachel Maddow Show” than election returns.

CNN placed second to Fox News during primetime, drawing 1.09 million viewers, up from an average of 622,000 Monday night. By comparison, here’s how the broadcast networks fared: FOX — 7.5 million, CBS — 10.62, ABC — 5.54, NBC — 4.83.

Mitt Romney watches Florida election results on CNN about a half hour before he was declared winner of the GOP primary

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In his final month on Fox, Mr. Beck had an average of 1.6 million viewers; the following month, “The Five” had fewer than 1.3 million.

It has steadily gained audience share since then, and in mid-September Mr. Ailes made the show permanent. So far this month it had 1.6 million daily viewers, matching Mr. Beck’s final numbers for the first time.

“Not having a host, just in and of itself, is a departure for cable news,” said Mr. Beckel, who commutes to New York weekly from Washington to be on the show. Viewers, he said, “are looking all day long at cable news and they’re seeing guest, host, guest, host — and this is a departure from that.”

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His hire is part of the ongoing transformation of “The Early Show” which over the past few weeks has seen the hiring of senior production staffers. Last weekend, Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley called the revamped show “Sober but better.”

Miller begins October 31. Press release after the jump…

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Meredith Viera bid farewell to viewers on “Today” this morning. Scott Pelley anchored his first “CBS Evening News” Monday night. Jim Lehrer, who has been with PBS since 1973, broadcast his final “News Hour” on Friday. Later this month, Keith Olbermann will begin a new show on Current TV. Stelter points out that this is indicative of a rapidly-shifting industry:

It seems like the most tumultuous time on the small screen in a generation, but much of the tumult is off the screen, in business meetings about how the media industry is transforming.

“The changes have been seismic — so seismic, in fact, that the next generation needs to work even harder to try to put the pieces back together or get some semblance of an audience,” Jonathan Wald, EP of “Piers Morgan Tonight” tells Stelter.

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The article notes that the American media has been exceptionally busy, with events in Tunisia, Egypt, Japan and Libya all overlapping. It also notes that fewer (or smaller) foreign bureaus have meant that networks have had to hopscotch reporters from place to place or region to region, creating some holes of coverage. Even with the resources they have, there are still major stories left untold by the TV news organizations:

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But the news broke sooner than expected.

The New York Times‘ Bill Carter and Brian Stelter wrote today that Olbermann will be going to Current TV.

Carter and Stelter wrote that Olbermann and his representatives would not deny the story and an anonymous source told them that the former MSNBC host would have an equity stake in Current TV.

Current TV has prepared a presentation for Wednesday morning in New York City to announce the channel’s future plans.

We’ll be listening to the conference call tomorrow and will update with the details.

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