TVNewser attended the screening and a Q&A with Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays Lincoln, and screenwriter Tony Kushner moderated by TIME’s Rick Stengel. Stengel called first on O’Reilly who asked Day-Lewis how long it took to prepare for the role. “It took a year,” Day-Lewis says. “It seemed preposterous at first … growing up in Southeast London” to play the 16th president of the United States.

O’Reilly then gave his seal of approval: “You know you’re going to win Best Picture.” Then, to Day-Lewis, “and you’re going to win Best Actor.” And to Spielberg: “And you’re going to win Best Director and [Tommy Lee] Jones is going to win Best Supporting Actor.” Jones plays “Radical Republican” Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens.

Before the screening we had a chance to talk with O’Reilly, author of “Killing Lincoln” on its 55th week on the New York Times Best-Sellers list, this week at No. 5. His “Killing Kennedy” is No. 1 on the list for the second straight week.

We asked the Fox News star if he was excited by the news that FNC chairman and CEO Roger Ailes had signed on for another four years. “Excited? We’d be shocked if he hadn’t,” said O’Reilly.

Other notable tvnewsers at the event, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, who had a revealing feature on Spielberg last Sunday, “CBS This Morning’s” Gayle King, Charlie Rose, and EP Chris Licht. MSNBC’s Chris Jansing and Lawrence O’Donnell, who ducked out during the Q&A to make it back to 30 Rock for his 10pm show. CNN execs Mark Whitaker, Ken Jautz and Bart Feder and ABC’s “This Week” EP Sandy Cannold.

And, after an early morning co-hosting “GMA,” Oprah Winfrey also attended. She gave a bear hug to Kushner. Then, exiting the theater — appropriately at the Loews Lincoln Square on the Upper

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The book party included a discussion with CNN’s Senior Political Analyst David Gergen. Among the attendees: Mediaite’s Dan Abrams and his father, attorney Floyd Abrams; CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield, execs Ken Jautz and Mark Whitaker; News Corp’s Joel Klein, Bloomberg’s Norm Pearlstine, The New Yorker‘s David Reminck as well as Toobin’s mother, Marlene Sanders, a former CBS News correspondent and Toobin’s wife Amy McIntosh.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“Victor is a passionate and committed journalist,” says CNN EVP Ken Jautz. “He will be a strong addition to our weekend morning team and in the field.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Some changes announced at CNN and HLN this morning.

First, Kyra Phillips, who has been an anchor with CNN since 1999, is leaving the network and moving a few floors away at CNN Center, to HLN where she will anchor a new daytime program launching later this summer.

Also, Ashleigh Banfield is moving off “Early Start” and will anchor her own hour later in the morning in Phillips’ previous CNN timeslot of 11amET. John Berman, who left ABC News for CNN, will now co-anchor “Early Start” with Zoraida Sambolin as well as contribute to other CNN programs and to CNN.com.

All the changes take effect in a few weeks.

Recently, Phillips had been anchoring daytime hours on HLN and Banfield has been anchoring daytime hours on CNN, so the moves are not unexpected.

HLN executive Scot Safon says, Phillips’ program “will highlight her strengths as a journalist as well as her insights and observations on the news and the people at the center of the stories.”

Memos from Safon and CNN EVP Ken Jautz, after the jump…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In a memo to CNN staff obtained by TVNewser, CNN/U.S. chief Ken Jautz explained the move:

“John will be providing reports for SitRoom, AC360 and other programs and CNN platforms. This is John’s seventh presidential campaign, fourth with CNN, and making him available across our programming lineup allows us to better tap his skills and experience, especially on the ground reporting in major battleground states and among critical voting blocs.”

Joe Johns and Suzanne Kelly

CNN also made some other changes in its Washington bureau, naming Joe Johns crime and justice correspondent, and Suzanne Kelly intelligence correspondent.

The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter first reported the King news.

“JK USA” launched in March 2010, leading up to the midterm elections. Originally at 7 PM, it moved to 6 PM when Erin Burnett joined the network. The program–which focused heavily on politics–failed to catch on with viewers, although it saw a slight uptick during the heat of the current Presidential campaign.

Jautz’s full memo to staff is below.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Anderson Cooper, CNN’s biggest star, has made progress in establishing himself as a global presence on news stories and is unruffled by media naysayers who wonder why he doesn’t get higher ratings, considering how high profile he is. Jautz said he is “pleased” with Cooper’s growth.

• Piers Morgan, who succeeded Larry King, is developing a “water-cooler” appeal.

• Erin Burnett, who left CNBC last year to take over a CNN news show at 7 p.m., is gaining traction as a tough interviewer. “She’s doing great,” he said.

(h/t ICN)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gupta, Couric, Gupta's father Subhash

Just how well-liked is CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta? So much so that his book release party, held at The Setai Hotel last night, had more boldface names in attendance than many TV premieres. Gupta’s first novel, Monday Mornings, was released this week.

Former President Bill Clinton, former CBS News anchor Katie Couric, daytime talk-show host Dr. Oz, “The Daily Show” correspondent Aasif Mandvi, Fox News Channel’s Bill Hemmer and former CNN anchor Kiran Chetry were all there. And that is before you get into the CNN contingent, which included Soledad O’Brien, Don Lemon, Ivan Watson, Jeffrey Toobin, Ashleigh Banfield and Christine Romans, among others.

Nearly every top CNN executive was there, including CNN Worldwide chief Jim Walton, CNN U.S. chief Ken Jautz, CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker, CNN International chief Tony Maddox and HLN chief Scot Safon. We also spotted CBS News president David Rhodes mingling with the crowd.

Clinton held court close to the entrance to the bar, with guests approaching him to chat throughout the night. Gupta worked through the crowd, saying hello to everyone, posing for photos and signing copied of his book. “Enjoy your stay in Chelsea General!” he wrote in one, referring to the fictional hospital in the book.

Gupta also said that the television adaptation of his novel for TNT continues to progress, and production started this month.

“Clearly Sanjay is a man of many many talents, he is possibly the busiest human being I have ever met,” said Walton during the reception, before quipping “Here is his book by the way.”

Many more pictures below.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Janelle Rodriguez

Rodriguez has been CNN’s director of programming, overseeing the network’s Atlanta-based programs, since 2010. Prior to that, she served as a New York-based executive producer for the network.

“Her drive and passion for the news are  hallmarks of the best of CNN,” Jautz wrote in a memo to staffers announcing the promotion.

Read the full announcement after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Having to toggle between covering breaking news on CNN and judging dancing Christmas trees on “America’s Got Talent” began to take its toll however, and late last year Morgan was released from his NBC obligations, and focused his attention on his CNN program.

That program, “Piers Morgan Tonight,” will be undergoing a transformation this year.

“I think we will be evolving the show into a more structured format, bringing more of my personality into it,” Morgan said over a lunch with a small group of media reporters. “If you ask me what my favorite shows are on cable, it would be Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart, on network it would be [David] Letterman. The shows where they have a basic structure you get familiar with, stuff to look forward to.”

The goal is to make the program “a bit more mischievous, certainly more humor, more opinionated,” Morgan says.

“PMT” will be adding signature segments, and injecting more of Morgan’s personality into it.

“We will still have long-format interviews where appropriate, but less,” he says. “It will have a much newsier, and I hope humorous tone to it as well.”

While Morgan admires talent like Stewart and O’Reilly, he also says he has no intention of copying them. He wants to put his own stamp on it.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes is recognized as being the force behind “one realm of News Corp.’s journalism empire that has stayed above the fray” of the News of the World hacking scandal. CNN president Jim Walton and EVP Ken Jautz are both on the list, as is MSNBC president Phil Griffin.

For the broadcast networks, ABC News president Ben Sherwood was named, as well as his NBC News counterpart Steve Capus. CBS News is represented by both chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes, and the pair are cautiously applauded for charting a new, and unconventional, course for the network:

CBS News, with journalists now in charge, is the most intriguing. Its move to hard news, particularly in the morning hours, is admirable, but there will be lots of “told you so’s” if it doesn’t work.

See the full list here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper hosts a year end special with CNN’s foreign correspondents, including (l-r) Ben Wedeman, Arwa Damon and Nic Robertson

It’s a good thing today was a relatively quite international news day because most of CNN’s foreign correspondents were gathered in New York talking about about the incredible year that was. From the Arab Spring to the triple tragedy in Japan, reporters Nic Robertson, Ben Wedeman, Arwa Damon, Hala Gorani, Matthew Chance, Sara Sidner, Kyung Lah and Ivan Watson crowded into Piers Morgan‘s studio at Time Warner Center where Anderson Cooper, who’s also reported from many of the world’s hotspots this year, lead the discussion.

CNN International EVP Tony Maddox tells TVNewser the get-together, which happens once every few years, “was the greatest gathering of foreign journalists on the planet.”

Before the taping we asked Robertson what is his most remarkable moment of this remarkable year. Robertson, who started as an engineer with CNN in 1990, says it was the uprising in Bahrain in February. “We were approaching Pearl Square and all hell was breaking loose.” Robertson used his iPhone to report live on CNN. Later, as he was rushed out of the area, he used the phone to record more video and his audio for a package that was edited in Atlanta. “That’s a far cry from 36 boxes of equipment we used to use,” added CNN EVP Ken Jautz

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Romans and Velshi were praised by CNN executive vice president Ken Jautz, who called the pair “the odd couple.”

“No names, but one of them is the kid who always has her homework done — her homework,” Jautz joked. “One of them, the dog always ate the homework. One of them gets a little nervous as the chapter deadline approaches, and one of them doesn’t have that problem because he’s not aware that it’s there.”

“Ali’s very into investing, I’m into budgeting,” Romans said. “Ali is a spender, and I am a saver. So the yin and the yang was there for us.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The lineup changes Jautz has led come up a number of times, as do the recent comments made by Roger Ailes about Wolf Blitzer. The result sees Jautz arguing that CNN programs should have a point of view reflective of their anchors, but should also strive to be non-ideological:

Would you consider another political debate show in the future?

We do provide opinion from various sides of an issue. We’ve attempted to move away from the he-said-she-said, down the middle journalism and programming. We do in fact provide more analysis and more opinion and more debate within these various programs.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

That was in 2004. And that’s not all that’s different this time around.

“Absolutely, positively everything is different,” says O’Brien, who will lead an ensemble of contributors for the second two hours (7-9amET) of CNN’s revamped four-hour morning show, debuting in January.

We talked with O’Brien this morning not long after CNN announced the changes.

TVNewser: You’ve been on the record saying you were fired from the morning show the first time around in 2007, what’s different this time?

O’Brien: Everything is different. The format is different. I think the landscape of mornings is different. I’ve spent the last five years doing something very different [reporting documentaries for CNN's In America series]. My style of interviewing is different. Absolutely, positively everything is different.

TVNewser: Ken Jautz has said he wants the morning block to “complement our direction in primetime.” What do you take that to mean?

O’Brien: Well, I think Ken Jautz wants this morning show to do well (laughter). We all do. We want to do a really strong, smart show that people are proud of. The kind of show that gets people to say: ’I can’t wait to watch it tomorrow.’

TVNewser: You’ve got strong competitors on Fox, MSNBC even HLN. How is your show going to be different from those?

O’Brien: I think that what we will do is cover a wide range of topics. Talk about stories that aren’t always covered on the news and dig down a little deeper. And bring on real people and contributors, who are involved in these stories. It’s what we’ve been doing with the documentaries … find a compelling story, tell that story and surround it with people who can add to it.

TVNewser: And who are you thinking for contributors?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s been discussed for several weeks, and now CNN has made it official: Soledad O’Brien will return to anchoring two hours of CNN’s new revamped morning show, leading a team of contributors and guests from 7-9amET.  CNN EVP Ken Jautz promises the shows will “complement our direction in primetime.”

Ashleigh Banfield, the former MSNBC, CourtTV and ABC News correspondent and anchor will join CNN to co-anchor the 5-7amET hours alongside another new CNN hire, Zoraida Sambolin who leaves her morning show co-anchor gig at WMAQ (NBC) in Chicago.

Despite the weeks of speculation, insiders tell us O’Brien only sealed her new deal Tuesday. And just yesterday, Shannon High — recruited from NBC to be the EP of the four-hour morning block — signed her deal with CNN. The shows will launch in January.

Release after the jump…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.