CNN is getting political day during a two-day special report on firearms background checks. “Guns Under Fire: A CNN Special Report on Background Checks” will kick-off this evening on “AC360″ as Dana Bash interviews former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Piers Morgan and Wolf Blitzer will also discuss the issue on their respective shows.

Wednesday, the channel will present a number of special reports on background checks, including interviews and analysis on the issue (see all the reports after the jump). The reasoning behind the special report? “According to the latest polls, 9 out of 10 Americans support tougher background checks, so how is it that Congress can do nothing?” the channel says in a release.
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Cable news coverage of the rape trial in Steubenville, Ohio was put under the microscope early this week, with CNN receiving the brunt of the criticism. So far the network has declined to comment on its coverage, but some network insiders did spill some dirt to The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman.

At issue is the criticism levied at correspondent Poppy Harlow and anchor Candy Crowley, who expressed sympathy on-air for the rapists.

“Poppy is taking this extremely personally as a woman,” said one executive. “She’s outraged that someone would think she’d do such a thing” as slant her coverage toward rapists. “It’s gotten so out of control.”

It is worth noting that the victim’s mother chose to give a statement exclusively to Harlow, and it was at the center of CNN’s coverage Monday evening.

• CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer will be receiving the 2013 NAB Distinguished Service Award at this year’s NAB show in April. The award honors “members of the broadcast community who have made significant and lasting contributions to broadcasting.” Previous recipients included Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Ronald Reagan and Oprah Winfrey.

• Time magazine is unveiling its longest cover story ever today, and is partnering with sister company CNN to talk about it. The story, about medical costs in the U.S., will be discussed on “AC360″ tonight, with segments on “The situation Room” and “Starting Point” tomorrow.

• One of the Republican members of the Presidential Debate Commission says that it was a”mistake” to have CNN’s Candy Crowley moderate, apparently because of her now-infamous interjection. That said, the chairman of the commission didn’t comment on his comment.

CNN is treating tomorrow’s “State of the Union” coverage like an election night, loading up on political anchors and analysts. Coverage will be led by Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, Jake Tapper, Kate Bolduan and Erin Burnett, who will be overseeing a focus group reacting to the speech. Dana Bash will be in the House Chamber while Jessica Yellin reports from the White House. John King will be on “Magic Wall” duty, with John Berman and Tom Foreman in the “virtual studio” to offer “reality checks” of the President’s remarks, and the Republican response.

On the analysis side, former Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich and former Current TV anchor Jennifer Granholm will provide insider analysis, with Gloria Borger, David Gergen, Cornell Belcher, Donna Brazile, Alex Castellanos, Margaret Hoover, Van Jones and Ana Navarro also weighing in throughout the night.

One person who apparently will not be appearing on CNN’s SOTU coverage is the anchor of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Candy Crowley. Crowley hosted her weekend program from DC yesterday, and previewed the SOTU on “CNN Newsroom” yesterday afternoon.

Update: CNN says that Crowley is out of town, caring for her mother. Hence, she won’t be able to participate in the coverage.

More info, below.
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• FishbowlDC has more on the goings-on at CNN. It looks as though John King will be staying with the network, but will Candy Crowley? Read the rest at FishbowlDC.

• Former Bloomberg and CNN corespondent Lizzie O’Leary talks to Cosmopolitan about her battle with endometriosis, and how it affected her work and home life.

• It looks like Regis Philbin may be coming back to TV. SportsBusinessDaily reports that Philbin is in talks to host a panel show on Fox Sports 1 the yet-to-launch sports cable channel.

Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper will lead CNN’s coverage of President Obama’s second inauguration. Coverage of Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony begins at 10amET. Cooper and Blitzer will be joined by John Berman, Kate Bolduan, Gloria Borger, Erin Burnett, Candy Crowley, John King, Don Lemon, Piers Morgan and Soledad O’Brien. Crowley will anchor “State of the Union” from the National Mall. Special Sunday editions of “Piers Morgan Tonight” and “Anderson Cooper 360″ will air in primetime.

On Monday, Blitzer will be live with Berman, Bolduan, O’Brien and Jessica Yellin from the U.S. Capitol West Front beginning at 9amET. Cooper will be live from the National Mall with Borger, King, Lemon, David Gergen and Brooke Baldwin.  Blitzer will  anchor “The Situation Room” from Lafayette Park, the location of the President’s viewing stands. Cooper, Morgan and Burnett will anchor from 7-1opmET. Cooper will be live from the Mall, with Morgan and Burnett from the inaugural balls.

More from CNN after the jump. Read more

CNN’s Candy Crowley and ABC’s Martha Raddatz were the female moderators of this year’s Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates, landing the pair on The Hollywood Reporter’s annual year-end “Rule Breakers” list. Crowley and Raddatz reflect on the experience:

Crowley, 63, maintains she didn’t think too much about breaking the decades-long dry spell, but when the letters from women — young and old — came pouring in, “It hit me,” she says. “The optics matter.” And when in pre-debate interviews on CNN and elsewhere Crowley said she would attempt to get the candidates off of their talking points by pressing them with follow-up questions, both campaigns privately protested — a move criticized as defensive and vaguely sexist.

So would the women subject themselves to the debate ringer again? “In a heartbeat,” says Crowley. Raddatz agrees. “You walk off the stage, and you say, ‘Oh, thank God it’s over.’ And then you think, ‘That was fun.’ I used to say about summer in Iraq [where she has traveled 21 times]: ‘It’s so horrible; I’m never going back in the summer.’ And then you forget, and you go back.”

Also on the list: NBC’s Bob Costas and Jim Bell, who helmed NBC’s coverage of the 2012 Olympics, and ABC’s “Good Morning America” team, who overtook “Today” to become the top morning show in 2012. The list was a topic of conversation on “GMA” this morning, with Lara Spencer calling the show “the bad boys of morning TV.”

CNN’s Candy Crowley and NBC’s Lloyd Siegel have been named recipients of the 2013 RTDNF First Amendment Award.

Crowley, the anchor of “State of the Union,” will receive the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment award, named for the late senior Washington correspondent for Broadcasting & Cable. Siegel, vice president of NBC News Partnerships, will receive the First Amendment Service Award, presented to a person who works in an off-air management capacity.

Both awards will be presented at the RTDNF awards dinner, held on March 14 in Washington, DC. Belo Corporation chairman and president Robert Decherd will also be honored with a First Amendment Award for leadership.

• CNBC and Yahoo! have teamed up for their first original online program. “Off the Cuff” will be a weekly video series featuring sit-downs with C-suite execs about how they got to the corner office and beyond.

• Chris Matthews, Martha Raddatz, Candy Crowley and John Dickerson are the among the tvnewsers taking part in The Atlantic/Aspen Institute/Newseum two-day Washington Ideas forum beginning Wednesday. They’ll be asking questions of, among others, Bill Gates, Grover Norquist and Lawrence Summers.

• Nielsen, the TV ratings service, is getting into the social TV measurement biz with the acquisition of SocialGuide which tracks social conversations around more than 30,000 programs, across 232 channels. Lost Remote has the story behind the deal.

The wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of the Unknowns on this Veterans Day, falling this year on a Sunday, got the traditional coverage on the cable news networks this morning. Jamie Colby and Eric Shawn anchored on Fox News, Melissa Harris-Perry anchored during her show on MSNBC and Candy Crowley anchored coverage on CNN before “Reliable Sources” began at 11:11am.