New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“It’s a really creative, innovative way to structure top management,” says Heyward, a consultant to media companies. “I give Leslie [Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corp.] a lot of credit for this.”

“This” is the unusual tandem of Bloomberg alum David Rhodes as CBS News president and ’60 Minutes’ executive producer Jeff Fager as chairman, a new title. In addition to topping the division’s flow chart, Fager will continue running ’60.’

Rhodes is a young (37) CBS outsider whose entire career has been in cable. Fager, 56, has spent more than half his life at CBS, where he is universally respected as a  newsman and manager.

Frank Sesno, former CNN Washington bureau chief, labels the professional coupling  “a dream team.”

“The boss understands the heritage, preserves the legacy, articulates the vision,” says Sesno, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. “The president brings in new blood, a new sensibility and a cable edge.”

The duo, announced Feb. 7, made its first major move Friday with the exit of Paul Friedman, executive vice president for news, and Barbara Fedida, head of talent and development.  Neither departure was unexpected.

Friedman, in particular, was strongly disliked by the troops for his brusque management

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Secretaries Clinton and Gates were interviewed by CNN in Oct. 2009 by now-ABC News anchor Christiane Amanpour and former CNNer Frank Sesno.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Cable news channels were pioneers in vituperation, as politicians learned they were more likely to get invited back by breathing fire. The rise of highly opinionated hosts at Fox and MSNBC helped fuel the trend, as has the invasion of pols-turned-pundits — Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, James Carville, Eliot Spitzer — who have blurred the distinction between us (the journalists) and them (those we cover).

And later:

[Bill] O’Reilly regularly portrays his network as the antidote to hopelessly biased rivals: “If you want to know what’s really happening in America, you have to come here because you will not get it in much of the mainstream media.” His chief antagonist, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, said Sherrod’s reputation had been “assassinated by Fox News” and “that scum Breitbart,” but he did not spare what he called “the cowering media, this network included.”

The article seems to draw from a discussion Kurtz had on his Sunday CNN program, “Reliable Sources:”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Host Howard Kurtz brought on Kansas City Star television critic Aaron Barnhart to discuss Christiane Amanpour‘s debut as host of ABC’s ‘This Week’, barely an hour after it aired.

Said Barnhart:

Well, I think she played to her strengths as a well-prepared researcher, someone who comes loaded for bear for her interviews. These were gets that were — they were published on the Web ahead of time. We could watch much of the segments ahead of time.

So, that part is the known quantity about Christiane. The unknown quantity is the back half of the show, which is the roundtable, where she’s expected to let her guests sort of hold forth and move the news agenda forward. And in that, she seemed a little less ready for the new environment she was thrown into there.

Update: From Barnhart, who writes in from Beverly Hills: “I wasn’t in Kansas City for the segment, I was in LA on TV critics press tour, meaning that I watched the East Coast feed at CNN’s bureau at 6 a.m.! Still, when you compare it to Oscars night – where my review is due about two minutes after the ceremony ends – this was a walk in the park.”

The program also discussed the hyper-partisan state of cable news earlier today, referencing the Shirley Sherrod case and the New Black Panther party coverage, among other topics.

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, former CNN exec turned George Washington University professor Frank Sesno, Former USA Today managing editor Lauren Ashburn and CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid talked about the rhetoric.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The bash — an unofficial gathering organized by former CNN producer Elissa Free — drew over three hundred people and was emceed by former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw.

“It was a celebration of what we had built,” former CNN correspondent Kelli Arena tells TVNewser. Arena, who started her career at CNN in 1984, said that joining the then-four-year-old network “was a labor of love… There was an energy and an innocence about the place. We brought live to the air things that people had never seen live on the air before.”

CNN founder Ted Turner addressed the group, telling attendees he was proud of what staffers have accomplished. Former CNN president Tom Johnson also spoke.

Current CNNers in attendance included anchor Wolf Blitzer, News Standards and Practices EVP Rick Davis, Political Director Sam Feist, and correspondent Jeanne Meserve.

Former CNNers in the house included Cissy Baker, Ralph Begleiter, Charles Bierbauer, Mike Boettcher, Tony Collings, Roger Cossack, Patty Davis, Bill Dorman, Rusty Dornin, Bob Franken, David French, Frances Hardin, Leon Harris, Sandy Kenyon, Jamie McIntyre, Brooks Jackson, Kathleen Koch, Eileen O’Connor, Chris Plante, Frank Sesno, Mark Shields, Linda Taira, Mary Alice Williams, and Judy Woodruff.

“It was a lot of reminiscing about the little network that could,” Arena said. “There was no griping, no discussion about the current CNN — that’s not why people were there. People were there to celebrate what we had accomplished. It was like a family reunion.”

More photos, after the jump…

(photo by Richard Kolko)

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“We compete against a lot more than Fox and MSNBC,” says Walton.

Frank Sesno, the former CNN Washington bureau chief and now a professor at George Washington University tells Bauder, what CNN needs is to find a way to bring the passion to stories that its rivals bring to arguments. Which sort of echoes these comments from the premiere primetime cable news host a couple weeks ago.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

On the issue of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Gates says, “We are not leaving Afghanistan. There should be no uncertainty in terms of our determination to remain in Afghanistan and to continue to build a relationship of partnership…with the Pakistanis.” Asked about the situation in Honduras, Clinton said, “We’re working very hard to reach a conclusion in Honduras that will permit the elections to go forward…to get Honduras back on the path to a more sustainable democracy…to get to where they were before there was the disruption and the exiling of President Zelaya.”

Is this a first? Does anyone know if sitting Secretaries of State and Defense have participated in a joint TV interview?

• The full transcript after the jump…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Former “Good Morning America” investigative correspondent Greg Hunter has launched a new Website whose mission is “to watch out for the American people.” USA Watchdog “will keep an eye on the government, your financial interests and cut through the media spin.”

• And Fox Biz anchor Jenna Lee was featured in this month’s Cosmo as one of the “money honeys” that was asked to share their wardrobe strategy. Not surprisingly, she suggests paying close attention to how you allocate your monthly budget. (PDF here).

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

So does this mean good things for MSNBC? The former president of the network says maybe. Erik Sorenson says MSNBC should do better in quieter periods than it has in the past because of its clearer identity. “That said, the wrong guys won the election for MSNBC,” Sorenson says. “If McCain won, Keith [Olbermann] and Rachel [Maddow] would have a lot to talk about. The audience would have a lot to be angry about and focused on.”

— Earlier on TVNewser: What the cable nets will do to keep audiences tuned in…

• FNC: Jay Wallace: “Any time there’s a key story that’s out there…we always tend to retain more eyeballs than anyone else.”

• CNN: Jon Klein: It’s the economy…

• MSNBC: Phil Griffin: “We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.