• Journal-isms reports NBC News will start paying interns starting this Spring “addressing a long-held contention that requiring interns to work only for the experience or for college credit amounts to favoring students with well-to-do parents.”

• Talkers reports Fox News contributor and one-time MSNBC host Laura Ingraham is off the radio, for now. Ingraham’s contract with Talk Radio Network is up and so Ingraham is in discussions with other distributors. The show airs on 325 stations nationally.

• Mexico’s President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto sat down with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer today before Peña Nieto met with Pres. Obama at the White House. The interview airs on “The Situation Room.”

MSNBC beat Fox News in primetime (8-11pm) in the key adults 25-54 demographic in the first three nights after the election. This is the first time in nearly twelve years — since January 1-3, 2001 — that MSNBC has won in demo viewers for three nights in a row in primetime. Fox News remains the top cable channel in Total Viewers.

On Wednesday, MSNBC averaged 765,000 demo viewers to Fox News Channel’s 683,000. On Thursday, MSNBC drew 514,000 demo viewers to FNC’s 418,000. On Friday, MSNBC had 417,000 demo viewers to FNC’s 386,000. It should be noted that Bill O’Reilly was off Thursday and Friday and Sean Hannity was off Friday, and their respective programs had guest hosts.

Rachel Maddow‘s program was the highest-rated show in cable news among younger viewers on Wednesday and Thursday, and was second to Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” on Friday.

MSNBC is celebrating its 16th birthday today. The cable network launched July 15, 1996 as a joint venture of NBC News and Microsoft. Interestingly, the celebration comes on the same day that Microsoft and NBC News have dissolved their co-ownership of msnbc.com. NBC News gets full control and has already rebranded the site NBCNews.com. Microsoft’s stake in the cable channel was dissolved in 2005.

Check out this clip from the first day on air — technical glitches and all. Host Jodi Applegate, who now anchors the 10pm news on WPIX in New York, talks presidential politics (Clinton v. Dole) with her “friends” (an early programming technique). In this segment, Applegate chats with Laura Ingraham, who would later host a show on MSNBC called “Watch It!,” and is now with Fox News, and Lawrence O’Donnell, who now hosts “The Last Word” weeknights on MSNBC.

Ed Schultz spent a little time on his MSNBC show last night talking about Talkers, the radio industry magazine and its 2012 Heavy Hundred list. Rush Limbaugh is #1 on the list, followed by FNC’s Sean Hannity and Michael Savage at #3. “Well, we all know his history and what happened here on MSNBC,” said Schultz of Savage.

“And I’m right ahead of my good friend, Laura Ingraham,” said Schultz sarcastically. Unless this is how you refer to your “good friend.”

Schultz joins Joe Madison and Thom Hartmann as the “three lefties in the top ten!”

Former Fox News host Glenn Beck is #9 on the list.

On his show last night, Ed Schultz says there is just no comparison between his apology — and its aftermath — after he called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut” on his radio show last May, and Rush Limbaugh‘s apology to Sandra Fluke this past weekend.

“When I made an inappropriate comment last year on my radio show, I took it to a much higher platform. I went to management here at MSNBC and I said ‘I’ve made a mistake, I need to take myself off the air without pay.’ And we moved on. I did restitution. I was off the air for a week,” said Schultz.

Schultz, who was one of the first to reveal Fluke’s story when he interviewed her on his MSNBC show on Feb. 16, adds: “Drawing a moral equivalence between me and Rush is not only inaccurate but it diminishes the outrageous nature of Limbaugh’s prolonged attack on Sandra Fluke.”

Before last week, the name Sandra Fluke had only entered the discussion in a column by TIME humorist Joel Stein, before her testimony on Capitol Hill Thursday, Feb. 23

MSNBC covered the testimony that Thursday morning, including talking to Sandra Fluke. They reported on it throughout the day. The following Tuesday, Megyn Kelly reported the story on Fox News: “It hasn’t seen a lot of media coverage so far,” said Kelly, “but there was a congressional hearing late last week that’s now getting some attention.” The next day, on his radio show it got a lot more attention courtesy of Rush Limbaugh. On his radio show, he called Fluke “a slut” and “a prostitute.”

The following day, on MSNBC’s “Ed Show” Ed Schultz , had the first interview with Fluke reacting to Limbaugh’s comments. (Schultz, you’ll recall, served a suspension for calling Laura Ingraham a slut, twice, on his radio show last May.) On Friday, Fluke was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the “Today” show, and returned to MSNBC, on Andrea Mitchell‘s show. Just before her interview with Mitchell, Fluke had taken a call of support from Pres. Obama.

By then Limbaugh doubled, then tripled down, for the next two days talking about the amount of sex Fluke must be having. By Saturday, he’d apologized. But by then, the Fluke story was factoring into the GOP primary and it certainly would come up on the Sunday morning public affairs shows.

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He’s been hosting the 6pm hour for the better part of the summer, now Al Sharpton becomes the permanent host of the hour, which is also getting a new title: “PoliticsNation.”

“I’ve known Rev. Sharpton for over a decade and have tremendous respect for him,” said MSNBC president Phil Griffin in a statement. “I’m thrilled that he’s now reached a point in his career where he’s able to devote himself to hosting a nightly show.”

The announcement comes a month after Cenk Ugyur, who had been filling in on the 6pm hour since January excoriated the network for not making him the permanent host.

A presence on television for more than two decades, mostly for his work as a civil rights activist, this will be Sharpton’s first regular TV hosting job. But he does not come without baggage (but then, neither did this guy).

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Casey Anthony‘s lawyers called their final witnesses to the stand today. And the mother accused of murdering her toddler daughter, wasn’t one of them. While all the cable news networks have begun carrying live testimony this week from the courthouse in Orlando, HLN’s decision to broadcast gavel-to-gavel coverage continues to set ratings milestones for the network.

According to Nielsen ratings for Wednesday:

• HLN ranked #1 in both total day (357K) and primetime (544K) in cable news in the A25-54 demo.

• This was HLN’s largest A25-54 & Total Viewer delivery since HLN moved to long-form programming in February 2005.

• HLN was #1 in every hour from 9am-9pm in A25-54 viewers.

• HLN Special Report at 5pmET was the #1 cable news telecast in Total Viewers and A25-54 viewers on all of cable.

• Nancy Grace at 8pmET was the 3rd most-viewed cable news telecast with 676K A25-54 viewers, 27% ahead of FNC’s “The O’Reilly Factor” (532K) with Laura Ingraham sitting in.

• This was the largest A25-54 audience for Nancy Grace since Jan. 7, 2009 (a broadcast which also centered on the Caylee Anthony case).

Ed Schultz‘s unpaid suspension is almost up. He’ll be returning to the MSNBC airwaves Monday night, TVNewser has learned. Schultz was suspended last Wednesday for calling fellow radio talk show host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham a slut, twice on his radio show. MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts had been filling in, but the Rev. Al Sharpton will be sitting in on “The Ed Show” tonight. In all, Schultz will have missed five shows (May 25, 26, 31. June 1, 2) since his program does not air on Fridays and didn’t air on Memorial Day.

While Ed Schultz was delivering his apology for calling Laura Ingraham the “s” word that rhymes with “but” with an “l” in there, on MSNBC last night, Greta Van Susteren was hosting her show on Fox News. Today, Van Susteren writes on GretaWire that “it’s time to move on” that Big Ed’s apology “seems genuine.”

Laura ought to accept the apology, too, and just chalk it up to the competition going stupid. He is suspended by MS/NBC for two weeks and that seems like a just sanction but then the rest of us should, after his suspension, let him off the hook and move on. (No one died, someone just acted really boorish.) I think he got the message. It is easy to jump him if you don’t like him but remember that the next really stupid thing could be said by someone you like.

The Schultz comment was also discussed on “Hannity” last night and this morning on “Fox & Friends” with guest Michelle Malkin. The ladies of “The View” talked about it as well questioning why their flippant use of the word “slut” has not drawn ire like it has with Schultz. Mostly, it’s because Joy Behar and Ed Schultz are two totally different people. Totally different.