• CBS Newsmagazine “60 Minutes” is experimenting with some new media. to promote a story about knuckle-ball pitcher RA Dickey, the program teased the segment with a six-second Vine on its Twitter feed.

• The New York Festivals honored CBS “48 Hours” EP Susan Zirinsky with a lifetime achievement award. The award was handed out at the NAB show in Las Vegas last night.

• Fox Business Network’s Sandra Smith talks to the Chicago Sun-Times about leaving trading for TV. “I was able to bring something very different to the table: real world experience.”

• New York Festival International Television & Film Awards will honor CBS News Senior Executive Producer Susan Zirinsky with the 2013 TV & Film Lifetime Achievement Award. Zirinsky, thought to be the inspiration for Holly Hunter’s character in the 1987 film “Broadcast News,” began her career as a part-time production clerk in 1972.

• Katie Couric returns to Newtown, Connecticut for a special town hall episode of “Katie,” airing Monday. Nearly three months after the tragedy, Couric will show how the town is committed to ensure that their loved ones have not died in vain.

• Susan Lyne, who’s held executive positions at ABC, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Gilt, has been named CEO of AOL’s brand group made up of AOL sites including Huffington Post, Moviefone, Aol.com and Patch.

• CBS News is partnering with Vanity Fair for an Oscars special. “Vanity Fair’s Hollywood” airs Saturday at 10pmET/PT on CBS. Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer of the show. Here’s a preview.

• CNBC’s Suze Orman will moderate a discussion called “The Cost of Marriage Equality” at NYU tonight. Sponsored by the Respect for Marriage Coalition the panel will also feature Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

• The premiere Monday of Rachel Maddow‘s “Hubris: Selling the Iraq War” was MSNBC’s most watched documentary in 10 years. The doc won its 9pm timeslot in A25-54 viewers and was second in total viewers with 1.46M.

Almost 60 years after Edward R. Murrow took viewers into the homes of icons like John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, and Elizabeth Taylor, CBS News’ “Person to Person” is back as a television special airing Wednesday, at 8pmET/PT.

The modern day hosts, Lara Logan and Charlie Rose get a tour of George Clooney‘s Los Angeles home. Warren Buffett opens up his Omaha office, and Jon Bon Jovi welcomes the show to his New Jersey mansion.

“What sets our broadcast apart is the unique access,” says Executive Producer Susan Zirinsky.

“When someone opens their home, they’re sharing a part of themselves that traditional interview programs can’t reach,” adds Co-EP Judy Tygard.

“Person to Person” debuts on the same night that NBC’s “Rock Center” moves to its new night, Wednesday’s at 9pmET/PT.

CBS News executive Susan Zirinsky joined the network in 1972 — when there were three networks and one screen. Fast forward 40 years and Zirinsky, who now holds the title of executive producer of special projects for both CBS News and CBS Entertainment, has become one of the savviest social media executives around.

In an interview with our sister blog SocialTimes, Zirinsky, who oversees “48 Hours Mystery,” says she didn’t embrace social media for the ratings it might provide her TV show: “I’m doing social media because I want us to be part of the world’s discussion about law and justice,” she says.

“We’ve landed at the beach in Normandy, everybody’s dead and I’m taking over the island,” says Zirinsky. “So [social media] is now not an option if you’re on my staff. This is part of your job.”

Zirinsky got her start in social media doing Web companion pieces for the CBS nuclear war drama “Jericho.” Unable to use any of the actors or clips from the show, Zirinsky grabbed all the secretaries in the office and shot interviews based on “Jericho’s” story line and themes. After 22 episodes, the “webumentary” took off. “The series on the Web got more attention than the TV series,” Zirinsky remembers.

“You’d have to be an ostrich, if you’re in the media business, to not sense the ground opening and the social revolution bubbling up,” says Zirinsky.

It’s worth the read, here.

CBS News held its holiday party Thursday night at the nearby Terminal 5 event space on New York’s West Side. Attendees were welcomed with the CBS News logo and “eye” on the building across 56th Street.

Bob Schieffer (far left), host of “Face the Nation” adorned himself in a red sequined shirt and a black cowboy hat as he crooned for the crowd with his band, “Honky Tonk Confidential.” CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager took the microphone to pay tribute to retiring CBS News executive Jim McKenna (center left), the longtime Vice President Finance, Administration and Business Affairs. CBS News President David Rhodes (far right) also addressed the crowd, congratulating CBSers on a great year.

Schieffer invited CBS News staffers to join him on stage — including “48 Hours” EP Susan Zirinsky and CBS’s Northeast Bureau chief Terri Stewart sang and danced onstage.

New CBS Newser Gayle King introduced herself to her new colleagues. After their remarks, Fager and Rhodes could be found on the dance floor with National Editor Bill Felling, Evening News EP Patricia Shevlin, and Weekend Evening News EP Jennifer Siebens and many others.

Anyone want to forward along pictures from the photo booth?

CBS News is reviving “Person to Person,” the classic interview series hosted by Edward R. Murrow from 1953-1961. The revived “Person” will run as one-hour specials on CBS, with the first edition of the program airing Wednesday, February 8 2012.

“CBS This Morning” co-anchor Charlie Rose and CBS chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan will host the program, which is expected to originate from the new studio being constructed for the CBS morning program.

Susan Zirinsky will EP “Person,” in addition to her role as EP of “48 Hours Mystery,” Judy Tygard will also serve as EP.

“We have dreamed about bringing a modern version of this great program, ‘Person to Person,’ back to CBS for years – and now it is happening,” said CBS News chairman Jeff Fager in a statement. “It is an exciting new development for us, particularly because it will be led by two of our most accomplished producers and two of our best interviewers.”

More information about the series, after the jump.

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Longtime CBS News executive Lane Venardos was fondly remembered Wednesday in a moving service at the Paley Center in New York City.

Venardos who died August 19 at his home in Maui, spent 30 years at CBS News producing live news, special events and documentaries. He would go on to produce the “Survivor” live finales for Mark Burnett on CBS.

More than 200 luminaries from across the television industry attended the memorial, including CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, News president David Rhodes; Charles Osgood, Scott Pelley, Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl, and Rita Braver; current “CBS Evening News” EP Pat Shevlin, CBS News VP Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews (who currently has the job Venardos once held) and “Sunday Morning” EP Rand Morrison.

Also Diane Sawyer, now with ABC News, who worked with Venardos during her time at CBS and from NBC: Brian Williams, News president Steve Capus and former CBSer, now EP of “Rock Center” Rome Hartman, were there, as was former CBS News president Andrew Heyward. ABC’s “This Week” EP Rick Kaplan, and former “GMA” boss Jim Murphy, both former CBS Newsers, attended.

Former CBS News and CBS, Inc. president Howard Stringer, who worked closely with Venardos during his years at CBS and who is now CEO of Sony, spoke via video. Other speakers included Pelley, Stahl, Williams and Venardos’s daughter Kelly who is a producer for “NBC Nightly News.” CBS News “48 Hours” EP Susan Zirinsky presented a video tribute (after the jump). The service concluded with a vocal solo performed by Venardos’s son, Kevin.

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Mary Noonan is leaving W 57th and headed for Englewood Cliffs.

Noonan, who spent 23 years at CBS News most recenly as director of talent development, is joining CNBC’s documentary unit as senior producer. Many CBSers, current and former, turned out for her going away party last night, including “48 Hours” EP Susan Zirinsky, Bravo’s Andy Cohen, who stopped over before his “Watch What Happens Live” show and ABC News president Ben Sherwood.

Noonan had worked at CBS News since her senior year in college, when she was an intern on the network’s overnight news broadcast.

While ABC and NBC battled it out head-to-head in primetime Friday night covering both the royal wedding and southern storms during expanded “20/20″ and “Dateline” broadcasts, CBS News’s 8pm special “The Royal Wedding: Modern Majesty” was the night’s #1 program in A18-49 viewers and tied CBS’ “Blue Bloods” as the night’s #1 program in A25-54 viewers. The show, hosted by outgoing CBS News anchor Katie Couric also won the hour in Total Viewers (8.79 million) and delivered the time period’s best A25-54 rating since January. The special was produced by Susan Zirinsky and her “48 Hours” team.