Instead of reporting on the positive aspects of their city hosting the worldwide spectacle that is the Super Bowl, New Orleans stations focused on last night’s partial power outage early in the third quarter of the game.

The outage delayed play for more than 35 minutes and even managed to silence the CBS play-by-play team of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz for a short time.

>RELATED: TVNewser, CBS Knocked for Super Bowl Blackout Coverage

WWL, the New Orleans CBS affiliate had the most extensive coverage of the four network affiliates. After a quick recap of the evening’s events, Karen Swensen and Dennis Woltering tossed from the studio to live team coverage fronted by Katie Moore standing outside the Superdome. Read more

President Obama is sitting down for another round of local interviews at the White House today.

Obama will be interviewed by Karen Swensen of WWL in New Orleans; Vicki Dortch of WLKY in Louisville (pictured); Gary Metivier of KWQC in Davenport, IA; Josh McElveen of WMUR in Manchester; Debra Morgan of WRAL in Raleigh; Kent Wainscott of WISN in Milawaukee and Jim Synder of KSNV in Las Vegas.

Obama is calling today for an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for families making under $250,000 a year.  The interviews will air on the evening newscasts tonight.

Anchor Karen Swensen is back at New Orleans’s WWL, just in time to catch the final week of February sweeps.

Swensen, who was with the CBS-affiliate for 12 years before leaving to join Comcast’s NECN in 2006, makes her on-air debut today. She is set to anchor the station’s 9 and 10 p.m. newscasts, alongside Dennis Woltering.

Swensen took the job at NECN so that she could be closer to her parents, who live near Boston, while also having time to spend raising her young daughter. While she found success in New England, she couldn’t shake her desire to return to New Orleans.

“All those years ago, I said if ever there was a position that would allow me to come back to New Orleans and be the mom that I want to be and do the job I want to do, I would be back in a heartbeat,” she said told The Times-Picayune recently. “And, quite frankly, that’s about how long it took for me to make the decision to come back.” Read more

NECN, the New England cable TV network owned and operated by Comcast, is set to launch an overhauled morning show on Monday.

The new show, titled “The Morning Show on NECN,” will be hosted by Steve Aveson, a former anchor at Providence’s WPRI, and Taryn Winter Brill, a former “Good Morning America” correspondent.

“Our traditional morning news show has been an anchor at the news desk going over the morning news,” said Bill Bridgen, NECN’s general manager. “This is much more conversational, much more informal.”

NECN has invested in a brand-new set that eschews the standard news desk in favor of comfortable couches and chairs, reminiscent of network morning shows such as “Today.”

The fact that NECN’s new morning show set-up resembles network shows is not a coincidence.  “The Morning Show,” with a 7 a.m. start time, will be going up against the likes of Matt and Meredith in the mornings.

“It’s really an opportunity to capture the local audience when the broadcast networks go to their national programming,” Bridgen told The Boston Globe.

NECN’s aggressive re-invention of its morning programming has led to the departures or demotions of several established anchors. Read more

Karen Swensen, who has been working as a morning anchor for Comcast’s NECN since 2006, is set to return to New Orleans’ WWL, where she spent 12 years as an anchor and reporter.

“We pride ourselves on being a family here,” said Mike Hoss, WWL’s nighttime anchor and interim news director, “which makes it incredibly exciting to welcome back someone who meant so much to our family, to this station and this city during her time here.”

Hoss shared the anchor desk with Swensen for four years.  She is replacing Hoss’s former co-anchor, Lucy Bustamante, who left the station in October in order to work closer to her husband, a Navy SEAL stationed in Virginia Beach.

During her time in New Orleans, Swensen was awarded six Edward R. Murrow Regional Awards for investigative journalism, writing, and feature reporting.  She also won two Emmys while at WWL and is excited to be back at the station.
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