TVNewser editor Merrill Knox is at the Women in the World conference at Lincoln Center New York today where the likes of CBS’s Lesley Stahl and Norah O’Donnell, ABC’s Cynthia McFadden, and Campbell Brown are all taking part in moderating sessions on global women’s issues. Speakers include Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie.

Last night, mediabistro was at the opening session where ABC’s Barbara Walters, CNN/ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and CBS’s Charlie Rose took part. FishbowlNY has the details. And look for Merrill’s stories this afternoon.

Let’s get this out of the way: conflicts of interest are rife in the TV news business.

CBS News president (and former Fox News executive) David Rhodes is the brother of one of President Obama’s advisers Ben Rhodes. NBC News anchor Andrea Mitchell is married to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. Bob Schieffer‘s brother Tom Schieffer was President Bush’s Ambassador to Japan.

In other words: potential conflicts happen all the time. The question is when should they be disclosed? Typically subjects with a conflict aren’t allowed to cover anything related to that conflict. If they do, a disclosure is a must.

The latest flap involves new CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

Read more

Sunday morning, NBC’s Weekend “Today” will celebrate a quarter century of being on the air. “Today” made its Sunday debut in 1987 and five years later, the Saturday edition premiered making it a 7-day a week franchise.

Former anchors Boyd Matson, Garrick Utley, Mary Alice Williams, Scott Simon, Jackie Nespral, Mike Schneider, Giselle Fernandez and Jodi Applegate will be in studio, while the show has assembled taped pieces from other former anchors including Campbell Brown, Maria Shriver, Jack Ford and Soledad O’Brien.

Will Amy Robach who left the show earlier this year and is now with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” make an appearance? Stay tuned. A permanent Saturday co-anchor has not been named. Jenna Wolfe and Lester Holt, who has anchored the show for 9 years, lead the anniversary broadcast Sunday morning.

Former CNN and NBC News anchor Campbell Brown writes for Slate about the tricky issue of disclosure. Brown notes that her husband, Dan Senor, is an adviser to Mitt Romney‘s campaign, and goes on to talk about some of the crticism she has received for not disclosing that fact when writing recent op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

She then notes that her situation is hardly unique:

First, since I am writing opinion and am no longer an objective reporter, different rules apply. It is a bit more challenging for NBC political reporter Chuck Todd, whose wife was a Democratic consultant. But he is on TV so much (deservedly so) that if he disclosed this fact every time he opened his mouth, no one else would ever get a word in. My friend and former colleague NBC’s Andrea Mitchell has managed to have one of the most illustrious careers of anyone in TV news while being married to (and well before being married to) former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Read more

• FNC’s Brit Hume gets the first sit-down solo interview with GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan. Hume talks with Ryan tomorrow in Denver. Portions will air throughout the day, with the full interview on “Special Report with Bret Baier” at 6pmET.

• Greta Van Susteren will be hosting tonight’s “On the Record” from her home state of Wisconsin. She’ll be live from Rep. Ryan’s hometown of Janesville. Van Susteren interviewed House Speaker John Boehner in the Central Wisconsin city of Wausau Sunday. Gov. Scott Walker will also be a guest.

• Dan Senor, the husband of former NBC and CNN anchor Campbell Brown, becomes a senior adviser to Rep. Ryan. Politico reports, Senor “will be serving in a much broader role with Ryan, helping on things like debate prep and the convention speech.”

Former NBC News White House correspondent and “Weekend Today” anchor Campbell Brown was back at 30 Rock today. “I haven’t been up this early with make-up on, in a very long time,” said Brown to “Morning Joe’s” Mika Brzezinski. Brown was on talking about her New York Times op-ed a few weeks ago about Planned Parenthood, which continues to reverberate.

“I don’t approach this in an ideological way at all,” said Brown of her position. “I really view this as a practical matter, sort of, rethinking strategy.”

Following her appearance, Brown Tweeted, “Weird to be back on TV after so long!” Brown left her CNN show in May 2010.

Former CNN and NBC News anchor Campbell Brown may not have had a cable news show in two years, but she continues to make her presence known, this time in a new op-ed in the New York Times. It is the second op-ed Brown has written for the Times this year, she also wrote one in May taking President Obama to task.

The focus of the new op-ed? Planned Parenthood, who Brown argues needs to change its political strategy:

Once again, Planned Parenthood is potentially making an enemy of someone who has failed to pass its purity test. It’s gotten to the point where, in this election cycle, the group’s political arm (while proudly claiming to be nonpartisan) has not endorsed or directly given money to a single Republican. As a person who believes abortions should be safe, legal and rare, I support many of Planned Parenthood’s goals. But the militancy must go. Demanding a perfect record from candidates it supports has already left Planned Parenthood marginalized. So does an attitude that doesn’t ever seem to take into account that abortion is a morally complicated matter or that those on the anti-abortion side are often decent and well-intentioned people.

Read more

Former NBC News and CNN anchor Campbell Brown has been laying low for a while following her departure from CNN two years ago. Over the weekend however, she decided to return to the public eye to talk women and politics in an op-ed in the New York Times. Brown, who noted that she has “always admired” President Obama, nonetheless took him to task for the way his campaign has viewed women in this election cycle.

But the promise of his campaign four years ago has given way to something else — a failure to connect with tens of millions of Americans, many of them women, who feel economic opportunity is gone and are losing hope. In an effort to win them back, Mr. Obama is trying too hard. He’s employing a tone that can come across as grating and even condescending. He really ought to drop it. Most women don’t want to be patted on the head or treated as wards of the state. They simply want to be given a chance to succeed based on their talent and skills. To borrow a phrase from our president’s favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, they want “an open field and a fair chance.”

Read the entire piece here.

A couple new additions at ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer.” Claire Brinberg joins as senior producer. Brinberg, who most recently worked with Christiane Amanpour on “This Week,” joined ABC from CNN in 2010 where she worked with Anderson Cooper, Judy Woodruff and Campbell Brown. Also, Mary Harris has been named senior producer overseeing special projects and series. Harris, who previously worked on “World News” and “Good Morning America” recently worked at WNYC radio in New York where she launched “The Takeaway.”

Former CNN and NBC News anchor Campbell Brown is back — on Broadway. Brown will appear in a one-night only staged reading of “8,” a new play about California’s Proposition 8 next Monday. Brown plays the role of — wait for it — “broadcast journalist.” Actors Bob Balaban, Bradley Whitford and Marisa Tomei also star, with Morgan Freeman and John Lithgow playing David Boies and Ted Olson, the two attorneys who lead the case to overturn Prop. 8.

(h/t Newsblues)