Several television news journalists have landed on Reader’s Digest list of “The 100 Most Trusted People in America.” At #12, “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts is the most-trusted television news personality on the list.

In addition to Roberts, the morning shows are well represented: “GMA” anchor George Stephanopoulos is #57, while “Today” show co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer are #85 and #97, respectively.

The three evening news anchors make the list –ABC’s Diane Sawyer at #25, NBC’s Brian Williams at #29 and CBS’ Scott Pelley at #63. ABC’s Barbara Walters (#34), Katie Couric (#37) and Christiane Amanpour (#56) are also among the most trusted.

From the cable news landscape, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta is #17 and  Anderson Cooper is #50. HLN’s Dr. Drew Pinsky is #90 and Fox News anchor Shepard Smith rounds out the list at #100.

All this week, Anderson Cooper will be pulling double-duty, not only hosting “AC360″ at 8 PM, but new editions of “AC360″ at 10 PM… with an entirely different format.

The 8 PM show stays the same, but the 10 PM editions of the show will utilize a panel format through Thursday night, with Cooper serving as the host. CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour and senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin will be guests all week, as will Amy Holmes from TheBlaze. Every day there will be a different guest joining the panel as well. For Monday’s show, the guest was blogger Andrew Sullivan, a good friend of Cooper’s. Cooper, you may recall, formally “came out” as gay in a post on Sullivan’s “Daily Dish.”

CNN has been using 10 PM as a testing ground for new shows in recent weeks. First it tried out panel show “(Get To) The Point,” and then announced plans to re-run Jake Tapper’s afternoon show in the slot. The Boston bombing changed coverage around, but now the channel is back to experimenting.

One thing seems certain: the 10 PM re-run of “AC360″ will not be sticking around much longer. Whether it is replaced by a new format “AC360″ or by some other program, the channel is aggressively testing out other options there.

Update: It looks like the panel format may be worth repeating. 10 PM’s “AC360″ placed first among all the cable news channels in adults 25-54, though it remained third in total viewers.

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.

• CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is devoting today’s 6pmET hour of “The Situation Room” to North Korea. The hour will be simulcast on CNN International. Blitzer, who reported from North Korea in 2010, will be joined by Christiane Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria, among others.

• FNC’s Maria Molina tells Latina.com she’s wanted to be a meteorologist since age 5, after Hurricane Andrew hit her family’s home: “I learned how dangerous weather can be at a young age and since then knew that I wanted to forecast and warn people of severe weather.”

• It’s National Hug An Anchor Day! Our sister site TVSpy has a roundup of the celebrations from across the country.

10 years ago, “Shock and Awe” kicked off the Iraq War. It was a made-for-TV war, with explosions rocking the skies above Baghdad, and correspondents reporting live on cable news from their hotel balconies.

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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CNN will be dedicating nearly all of its dayside programming to coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation tomorrow.

Coverage will begin at 4 AM, with “Early Start.” John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin will anchor until 7 AM.

From 10AM-12PM, CNN will air special coverage “The Pope’s Last Day,” anchored by Erin Burnett and Chris Cuomo in new York, and simulcast on CNNI. That program will feature Christiane Amanpour interviewing Cardinal Timothy Dolan live from Rome around 10 AM.

CNN will also cover a Cardinal press conference around 12:30 PM, and the Pope’s ceremonial departure sometime around 2 PM. CNN has analyst John Allen and correspondents Jim Bittermann, Ben Wedeman joining Amanpour in Rome, along with CNNI anchor Becky Anderson and CNN en Espanol’s Jose Levy.

Amanpour has been in Rome reporting for a few days, even drawing praise from one of the Cardinals (see below).
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With Pope Benedict XVI set to resign on Thursday, U.S. networks are beginning to plan for coverage of the unprecedented (at least in modern times) event.

George Stephanopoulos and Terry Moran will lead the network’s coverage of the Pope’s departure, anchoring “Good Morning America” from the Vatican on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as two special reports Thursday morning. Moran will anchor “Nightline” from Rome on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as contribute to the network’s coverage. David Wright, Ron Claiborne, Cokie Roberts and Christiane Amanpour will also report from the Vatican.

Wright covered the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Benedict, while Roberts’ mother, Lindy Boggs, was the Ambassador to the Holy See from 1997-2001.

Diane Sawyer will lead the network’s coverage of the Conclave in March.
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CBS News foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward traveled to New York this week to accept the Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award for her series of “Inside Syria” reports.

“I was the last person to accept my award, and by the time it came around I was feeling pretty humbled because I was just awestruck but what incredibly compelling and diverse reports had been honored,” Ward told TVNewser. “I felt humbled and tremendously honored and very excited.”

Ward said she was particularly proud to accept the award from ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, who she called “a heroine and a role model.”

Ward and producer Ben Plesser were the first American journalists to report live from Syria with the rebels. In the past year, she has traveled to the war-torn country six times for reports that have aired on “CBS Evening News” and “60 Minutes.” Ward called reporting from Syria “extremely challenging,” noting the fractured nature of the conflict.

“In conventional warfare you might embed with an army, but this is a completely different kettle of fish,” she said. “You’re embedding with rebel forces and each group has its own ways and its own rules and its own methods.”

Because of this, Ward said she anticipates seeing less reporting from Syria this year.

“I think you’ll see fewer journalists spending time with the rebels, partially because of safety concerns, which are very legitimate,” Ward said. “I really want to go in only when I feel like I have a story that furthers the bigger picture.”

Ward cited the recent experience of NBC’s Richard Engel, who was held captive for several days in Syria last month. Read more

Former ABC ace Jake Tapper, who debuted on CNN Tuesday, says that his being passed over — twice — as ‘This Week’ anchor was not the reason he left the network.

When ABC chose CNN’s Christiane Amanpour for ‘This Week’ in 2010, “obviously I had a degree of disappointment, “ Tapper says, “but it wasn’t as though they were putting Mario Lopez in there. Christiane’s a legend.”

Less than 18 months later, when George Stephanopoulos returned to ‘This Week’– again, no hard feelings, Tapper insists. “It’s George’s show. It was logical for him to want to do it. He’s also a journalistic legend.”

What did it for Tapper was his own weekday show at CNN, most likely to launch in March or April, in addition to being named Chief Washington Correspondent. New CNN Worldwide boss Jeff Zucker made the offer over breakfast last month at a secret undisclosed location in New York.

Tapper, in Philadelphia Thursday to promote his new book, ‘The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor,’ says he expects to take over the 4 p.m. hour currently occupied by Wolf Blitzer’s ‘Situation Room.’ Blitzer will be cut back to 5 to 7 p.m.

If all goes well, could this be a prelude to Tapper breaking into the prime-time lineup?

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Her first big break was the Iranian Revolution. Her dream was to be a foreign correspondent. In this episode of My First Big Break, Christiane Amanpour talks about how escaping Iran with her family was the first step of a journey that took her from a local NBC station in Rhode Island all the way to the front lines of the first Gulf War as a reporter for CNN.

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