• NBC Nightly News led with two stories on tax day. Lee Cowan reported on the tea parties while Savannah Guthrie reported on the White House message of middle class tax cuts. In his open, Brian Williams said the tea parties were, “organized on the Internet and by some cable TV personalities.”

• ABC’s World News made it the third story. First a soundbite from Pres. Obama and a Dan Harris story on the tea parties which were, “cheered on by Fox News and talk radio,” Harris explained. The Charles Gibson broadcast led with two stories on the pirate attacks – Jim Sciutto in Kenya with the crew of the Maersk Alabama and David Muir with a story on the attack of another U.S. ship.

• CBS Evening News led with tax day – a soundbite from Pres. Obama, a live picture of a rally in Arlington, Texas and a tea party story from Dean Reynolds. Reynolds referenced, “a fistful of right-ward leaning Websites and commentators…embraced the cause,” while showing Neil Cavuto and Glenn Beck at two different rallies.

> OK! Magazine asks “Real Housewife of New York” Jill Zarin how to meet rich men: “The Waldorf-Astoria shoots a Fox News show at 5:00 every day, at the Bull and Bear. All these really successful financial experts come in and it’s a live show.” That would be the FBN show, Happy Hour, Jill.

> NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams will feature a new series next week, “We The People,” focusing on Hispanic issues. Monday’s insatllment, from correspondent Lee Cowan, looks at the growing Hispanic population.

> TVByTheNumbers.com breaks down how the viewership for Obama’s Address to Congress stacked up against past addresses/State of the Unions. It had the 4th most viewers since 1993, and the most since 2003.

TVNewser hears NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel may be headed to the White House for the network.

Engel has been with NBC since just after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He’s reported extensively on the war and has also served as Beirut bureau chief and, since April, as chief foreign correspondent. Sources tell us Engel, who has been reporting from NBC’s New York headquarters recently (last night’s Nightly News story after the jump), could also remain chief foreign correspondent but be based stateside, similar to Lara Logan‘s assignment with CBS News.

Savannah Guthrie and John Yang are currently reporting on the White House for NBC. Yang, on the remaining days of the Bush administration and Guthrie on the Obama transition. As TVNewser first reported last week, Lee Cowan, who covered the Obama campaign, is expected to move to NBC’s Los Angeles bureau.

Two other NBC White House correspondents Kevin Corke and Jeannie Ohm were part of the cuts NBC News made earlier this month.

ABC, CBS and CNN have all named their Washington, DC teams.

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With David Gregory‘s promotion to “Meet the Press”, NBC needs to fill the senior White House correspondent role for the network. ABC named Jake Tapper as chief White House correspondent the day after the election; CBS named Chip Reid to their post a few days later.

An NBC News spokesperson tells TVNewser an announcement is expected “in the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, TVNewser has learned NBC News correspondent Lee Cowan, who covered the Obama campaign, is moving even further West, from the Chicago bureau to Los Angeles.

The news comes less than a week after a round of NBC layoffs cut correspondents John Larson and Mark Mullen from the L.A. bureau.

First on TVNewser: Insiders tell us that as of Wednesday, David Gregory‘s 6pmET program, “Race for the White House” will be known as “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

How Gregory will continue to anchor a 6pm show and be NBC’s Chief White House correspondent, which usually means being available to report for Nightly News at 6:30pm, is not known.

Generally, after an election, the correspondents who’ve been covering the candidates end up being put on the White House beat. For NBC that would be Lee Cowan, covering Obama and Kelly O’Donnell, who’s been covering McCain. O’Donnell was on White House duty before the campaign. Cowan, who joined NBC from CBS last year, is based in Chicago.

> Update: An emailer reminds us O’Donnell became NBC’s congressional correspondent in Dec. 2007. “She switched to #1 on the Hill from #2 on the White House beat.” This was after NBC’s congressional correspondent Chip Reid jumped to CBS News.

Here are some of the coverage plans for tonight’s town hall style debate at Belmont University in Nashville moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw. All the following networks will carry the debate.

• ABC: The team of Gibson, Sawyer and Stephanopolous will anchor again, this time from three different cities. Charlie Gibson will be at Bowling Green (Ohio) State University with a group of students; Diane Sawyer will be at ABC News headquarters in New York and George Stephanopoulos will be at the debate. Ron Claiborne and Jake Tapper will report during ABC’s coverage from 9-11pmET.

• NBC: Brian Williams anchors from New York. Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Kelly O’Donnell and Lee Cowan will report from Nashville. Debate moderator Tom Brokaw will not be doing interviews after the debate, but he’ll appear on the Today show tomorrow.

• CBS: Katie Couric leads coverage from 9-11pmET, with the live Webcast following on CBSNews.com and CNET.com. [It was announced today that Intel Corp. has the exclusive advertising rights for the debate Webcasts.] Bob Schieffer will join from Nashville and Jeff Greenfield will be in New York. Correspondents Chip Reid and Dean Reynolds will report from the debate site. Harry Smith anchored The Early show from Nashville along with correspondent Jeff Glor.

• FOX: Shepard Smith will anchor FOX Broadcasting’s debate coverage from 9:00-10:30pmET.

• Fox News: Coverage begins at 8:50pmET (after a shortened O’Reilly Factor) and will be anchored by Brit Hume from Washington. Chris Wallace will be on the debate floor. Shepard Smith (at 7pmET), Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes (at 11:15pmET) and Greta Van Susteren (at MidnightET) will anchor their programs from Nashville.

• CNN: Anchors Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown, Anderson Cooper and Lou Dobbs lead coverage from the CNN Election Center in New York. A special edition of AC360 will air as post-debate coverage until MidnightET. John King will be at the Magic Wall, while correspondents Jessica Yellin, Candy Crowley, Ed Henry and senior political analyst Bill Schneider will be on location in Nashville. [An earlier version of this story reported Suzanne Malveaux and Dana Bash would be in Nashville. They are not]

• MSNBC: David Gregory anchors debate coverage beginning at 9pmET and post-debate coverage at 10:30pmET. Countdown with Keith Olbermann airs at 11pmET, with a live Hardball with Chris Matthews at MidnightET.

• C-SPAN: Presidential debate preview, anchored by Susan Swain, begins at 7:30pmET.

• CNBC: Melissa Francis, Larry Kudlow and John Harwood anchor coverage before and after the debate.

• FBN: Neil Cavuto anchors pre- and post-debate coverage.

This time, no one is taking any chances.

With the potential of being as severe or even worse than Hurricane Katrina three years ago, Hurricane Gustav is challenging network executives like no story in recent memory. Just like RNC planners, themselves facing a scaled back gathering, news executives, too, have been huddled all weekend coming up with their coverage plans.

NBC’s Brian Williams covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

NBC News will place Nightly News anchor Brian Williams along the Gulf coast while his predecessor on Nightly News, Tom Brokaw handles anchor duties from St. Paul. “There’s nobody who can put the kind of talent on both stories like NBC News,” division head Steve Capus told TVNewser today. “There’s no such thing as a “B” team when your anchor is Tom Brokaw,” Capus says. For his part, Williams will combine both stories tonight. He’s scored an interview with Sen. McCain that will air on tonight’s Nightly News.

NBC & MSNBC will also have the benefit of on and off camera meteorologists from the Weather Channel. “We feel great that with our pending acquisition of the Weather Channel, we’ve got at least five correspondents from the Weather Channel. That just rounds out a strong reporting team,” Capus says.

Complicating matters for NBC back in St. Paul, the network is the broadcast pool, providing video coverage for all networks. “From a technical load we have a tremendous burden,” Capus says. “We’re not pulling anything on the tech side out of St. Paul.” And as for any criticism that might be leveled at the network from those who might claim unequal DNC & RNC coveraage, Capus says, “The McCain campaign and the RNC have been incredibly sensitive to what’s happening in the Gulf, and we’ve tried to do the same.” Capus doesn’t rule out Williams traveling to St. Paul to report on the final day of the RNC, again, all depending on the storm.

Another NBC News reporter not going to St. Paul: Luke Russert. NBC says he’ll be going to Memphis to cover the evacuation of Gulf coast residents.

Click continued to read NBC’s press release. We’ll highlight other networks’ coverage plans in later posts…

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During a panel this afternoon in Denver about media coverage of the presidential campaigns, NBC’s Tom Brokaw found himself defending MSNBC, once again. Politico’s Michael Calderone attended the panel which was moderated by PBS’ Judy Woodruff with participants Brokaw, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and CBS’s Bob Schieffer.

Also in attendance, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary. Rendell and Brokaw began debating NBC’s campaign coverage, including the comments by correspondent Lee Cowan as well as MSNBC.

“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign,” Rendell said, who called their coverage “absolutely embarrassing.” Chris Matthews, Rendell said, “loses his impartiality when he talks about the Clintons.”

Brokaw responded saying Matthews and Keith Olbermann are “not the only voices” on MSNBC.

> More: FishbowlNY’s Glynnis MacNicol also attended the panel and writes, “Stephanopolous is the most defensive of the three in terms of the job the press has done…”

Over on brother blog FishbowlDC, the annual Hottest Media Types contest is just getting started. With nearly 100,000 votes already cast, the competition is heating up. TVNewsers from every network are represented, from NBC’s Chuck Todd, Lee Cowan and Kevin Corke, to FNC’s Catherine Herridge to CBS’ Lara Logan, and many more (off-air journalists as well).

So get to voting!

• Female, On Air
• Male, On Air
• Female, Off Air
• Male, Off Air
• Female PR
• Male PR

As the mainstream media globetrots with Sen. Barack Obama (except for that one guy), the Sen. John McCain campaign put out a new ad starring…the mainstream media!

Well actually two ads. On McCain’s web site, he’s asking people to vote which version is their favorite. The ads are essentially the same — compilations of clips showing various degrees of media love for Obama, set to different love songs.

Some media members prominently featured are NBC’s Lee Cowan (for this) and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews (for this).

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes, “Privately, though, McCain aides say they will be satisfied if the videos go viral, firing up supporters and donors, and that it isn’t clear any of this will find its way into a campaign ad.”

• Related: The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and its correspondents (past and current) tackle the Obama lovefest.

Click continued to see the most popular version of the McCain ad (so far)…

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