“First Thursday,” the big kick-off for March Madness, is over, and with it the 2013 TVNewser March Madness bracket challenge really gets started.

This early in the game everyone is really close, but a few people have separated themselves from the pack.

CNBC’s Brian Schactman leads the way, with his colleague Joe Kernen and CNN’s Brooke Baldwin right behind him. Right now Lisa Sylvester, Wolf Blitzer, Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell are at the bottom of the pack, but there is plenty of time for a comeback.

Take a look at the full standings, after the jump.
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Spring is here (even though it may not feel like it where you are) and with it comes the sweet sound of sneakers on hardwood: the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament.

Every year we have some of the best and brightest from the world of TV news come together in one competition to see who is tops at picking winners and losers.

Ultimately there can be only one winner, and they get the chance to brag about their picking prowess for all to see. 2012′s winner was Fox Business Network stocks editor Liz MacDonald. Liz wont be participating this year, but 2011′s winner Dominic Chu is back to try and reclaim the title.

Here is your 2013 TVNewser March Madness lineup:

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Dana Bash has been promoted to chief Congressional correspondent at CNN.

“Week in and week out, Dana’s reporting and analysis make our air better. And we saw it again yesterday with Dana’s relentless efforts to land interviews in the Capitol Rotunda during our Inauguration coverage,” CNN Washington Bureau chief Sam Feist wrote in a note to staffers Tuesday evening.

Bash moved to Capitol Hill from the White House beat in 2006. Before her on-air position with the White House unit, she was the Capitol Hill producer for CNN as well as an editor in the network’s Washington bureau. Her promotion is effective immediately.

As the networks gear up for the second debate of election season, the New York Times shines a spotlight on a common element of debate coverage: the split-screen shot, which has “long bedeviled presidential candidates who — no matter how many times they are reminded — seem to sometimes forget that they are still on camera even when they are not speaking.”

The major networks and cable news outlets — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News — all say they plan to use split-screen shots regularly throughout the vice-presidential debate. Fox said it was even considering using them more than it did during the presidential debate last week in Denver.

Campaigns have tried with varying degrees of success to limit television networks from using what are known as “reaction shots” of candidates. … But what the candidates demand and what the networks actually televise are often two different things. By now, the split screen has become just another device to keep viewers stimulated, a product of the 24-7 news cycle like the breaking news crawl at the bottom of the screen.

“We want to give our viewers the opportunity to see both candidates as frequently as possible,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. “In a presidential debate, the image of the candidate who is listening is frequently as interesting as the candidate who is talking.”

Because essentially every network will be showing the same video feed for the debate tonight, it is up to the producers at each channel to figure out what they can do differently.

Pre and post-debate analysis are a given, but CNN is also planning to change things up during the debate too. Taking advantage of the HD screen space, CNN plans to have an audience reaction meter from focus groups at the bottom of the screen, where the “flipper” normally is. CNN had a similar graphical gimmick in 2008. CNN also plans to put the question asked by the moderator on the screen, allowing viewers to see for themselves whether a candidate is dodging the question. Finally, CNN will have a clock displaying the amount of time each candidate speaks for.

“In some debates candidates get more time than in others,” CNN Washington bureau chief Sam Feist tells TVNewser. “The campaigns track it, journalists track it and this time the viewers will be able to track it, without a stopwatch.”

Of course, CNN is not forgetting the bread and butter of cable news debate coverage: the analysis.

“We will use every tool at our disposal to help our views understand who had a successful debate and who didn’t, who won and who accomplished what they hoped to accomplish.”

Executives at CNN and CNN.com sent memos to staff yesterday, promising investigations into exactly what happened when the network incorrectly reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the individual mandate in President Obama’s healthcare bill.

The Washington Post has the memo from CNN DC bureau chief Sam Feist, who told staff:

Today we failed to adhere to our own standard, namely it’s better to be right than to be first. We take mistakes seriously, especially mistakes on such important stories. We are looking into exactly what happened and we will learn from it.

Feist went on to note that the network corrected itself on every platform, and that its coverage after 10:20 was of an extremely high quality.

Poynter has the memo from CNN Digital managing editor and VP Meredith Artley, who said:
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Politico asks a question that has been asked a number of times over the last couple of years: “What’s Wrong at CNN?”

There are a number of familiar refrains, including the fact that MSNBC and Fox News are heavy on primarily partisan politics, which is a more reliable ratings strategy than CNN’s goal of being the place for breaking news. There are also complaints about the network’s editorial strategy, but you see that anytime a network has ratings issues.

Also, the fact that CNN makes $600 million in profits is mentioned, although that includes CNN/US, CNN International, HLN, CNN.com and every other CNN property, so it isn’t clear how much profit CNN/US generates on its own.

More interesting to me are some comments made by CNN DC bureau chief Sam Feist.

In meetings, Feist has said that people should think of CNN as a premium channel for news, the way CNBC is a premium channel for finance. That thinking benefits CNN because people never judge CNBC based on its ratings, which are very low. But it is also a radical admission for a network that, from its launch in 1980 until 10 years ago, was the leading cable news network on television — and one that the industry may therefore have a hard time taking seriously.

The comparison to CNBC is understandable, but misguided.

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The parties are underway in Washington D.C. ahead of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Last night at the St. Regis, TIME and People threw a cocktail party with drop-ins from a bunch of boldface tvnewsers all enjoying custom flavored custards by Shake Shack.

TIME‘s Managing Editor Rick Stengel (below with Savannah Guthrie) along with and DC bureau chief Michael Duffy, People‘s Managing Editor Larry Hackett, and DC correspondent Sandra Sobieraj Westfall hosted the party.

Spotted at the party: Gayle King (below with Andrea Mitchell), Chris Matthews, Julie Chen and hubby CBS CEO Les Moonves (right with Wolf Blitzer), Greta Van Susteren, Wolf Blitzer, , Thomas Roberts, Kelly O’Donnell, Ed Henry, Willie Geist, Dana Bash, Erica Hill, Chris Wallace, Tamron Hall, Norah O’Donnell, Alex Wagner, Donna Brazile; ABC News president Ben Sherwood, NBC News president Steve Capus, “Meet the Press” EP Betsy Fischer and “Face the Nation” EP Mary Hager also CNN execs Mark Whitaker and Sam Feist.

(Photos: Getty Images)

Look who just made an impromptu visit to the CNN DC bureau.

Meet Edith and Carolyn of Clinton County, Iowa fame. Edith Pfeffer and Carolyn Tallet famously joined Wolf Blitzer and John King on the phone in the early morning hours — just after 2amET — of Wednesday, Jan. 4, to sort out some unaccounted-for votes from the Iowa Caucuses.

Edith and Carolyn got in touch with the DC bureau last night to say they were in Washington to meet with a congressmen on a highway bill. And so they stopped in this morning to see the bureau and meet some staffers. They also posed for a photo with Blitzer and execs Sam Feist (far left) and Eric Sherling (far right).

B&C’s Andrea Morabito previews “Super Tuesday,” speaking to CNN’s Sam Feist, NBC’s Chuck Todd and ABC’s Amy Walter (subscription required).

Todd notes that depending on what happens on Super Tuesday, there may be more GOP debates to come:

But those in TV news also are not willing to call it quits on the debates just yet. Just as in 2008, when more debates were added as the Democratic race for the nomination stretched late into the cycle, they are expecting that a split decision this Super Tuesday would mean more debates added to the calendar.

“We’re looking to put a debate together; too many states haven’t voted,” Todd said. “You could make an argument that there ought to be a debate a month between now and June.”