nbc news

If you're a political junkie -- guilty -- you're likely looking forward to the upcoming conventions. Just the prospect of an election with no incumbent running sets 2008 up as an exciting election, and with only 24% of the country believing that America is going in the right direction, this is definitely a time for change.

NBC News is opting to insert an element of change in its convention coverage. The network announced today that the late Tim Russert's son, Luke, has been hired by NBC News and will be put on his father's beat, politics.

Luke Russert's first assignment is Decision 2008, where he will be correspondent-at-large at both the Democratic and Republican conventions. While this hiring smacks of nepotism -- or allegiance to the memory of Tim -- Luke is not without some journalistic skills. He's a Boston College graduate, majoring in History and Communications, and has been co-hosting a sports talk show on XM Satellite Radio. He shares the microphone for that program, 60/20 Sports, with political analyst James Carville.

According to this fascinating story at The New York Times Magazine (online several days ahead of its Sunday publication), that's what he is worried about.

Matthews has always been outspoken, from his early days when he was involved in several political campaigns to his current stint at NBC and MSNBC. He's worried that the "suits" at the network want him out and even says that several people at the network are wondering why he is being profiled in the Times instead of Keith Olbermann, who seems to be the top ratings getter at the network right now.

Arch, conservative, preppie guy Tucker Carlson has been ousted from his MSNBC show. Carlson's one-hour talk show, called Tucker, has been canceled. NBC News correspondent David Gregory will take over the hour slot, 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, which will be called Race for the White House. This week will be Carlson's last. Gregory starts on Monday, March 17.

MSNBC is reportedly making a series of changes, amping up the political chatter. Considering how much politicking is going on now, including Tucker, it's hard to fathom how switching Carlson for Gregory is going to increase the discourse.

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Chef Tell (Paul Erhardt): He was better known to TV viewers as Chef Tell, who cooked on several shows over the years, including his PBS series In The Kitchen With Chef Tell, Regis & Kathie Lee, Evening Magazine, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. According to some, the "Swedish Chef" character on The Muppet Show was based on Erhardt. He died of heart failure at age 63.

NBC is trying to save money everywhere.

Longtime Dateline host Stone Phillips is being let go by the network, for money reasons. Phillips' current co-host, Ann Curry, will continue to do the show. I guess NBC wants someone in there who is already under contract and does other stuff at the network. Curry is the newsreader on The Today Show too. She'll be joined by various NBC reporters as rotating co-hosts.

No word on what Phillips will do now. I wonder why they didn't just keep him on and have him do other things at the network and MSNBC? Maybe he didn't want to, who knows.

On the same day he shot 32 people to death on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Cho Seung-Hui sent a package to NBC News.

According to MSNBC, the package contained video, a photograph and a written communication. At one point in the video, Seung-Hui said, in reference to the massacre, "This didn't have to happen." The package was sent between the time he shot two people to death in a dormitory and before he killed thirty more in another building.

NBC News turned the contents over to the FBI, and in a blog post today anchor Brian Williams said that some of the contents of the package would be discussed on tonight's broadcast.

I'm not exactly sure what they mean by "powerful" whenever these lists come out. Does it mean influence? Does it mean the most-watched? Probably a mish-mash of both, since the list includes anchors and network executives. Here's the list, according to TV Week. Last year's rank is in parentheses.

1. Roger Ailes - Chairman and CEO of FOX News (1)

TV Newser reports that NBC News will begin shooting in HD beginning sometime next year, and that NBC Nightly News will be going high def starting next month. The other major networks, including NBC, also offer select shows in the HD format, and some local news affiliates also broadcast in HD.

I don't consider myself a technophobe, but all this talk of high definition ties my head in knots. I actually found a decent primer for HD virgins like myself on CNET, which is worth checking out if you're interested in making the jump to HD, which involves a lot more than simply purchasing an HD or plasma television set.

I also know a lot of our readers rock the HD, so share your wisdom in the comments for those of us who aren't quite so hip to this crazy new technology.

[via Lost Remote]

Like everyone else in the media universe, I was unfairly harsh to Katie Couric and the new CBS Evening News. At first, I said it was OK (based on a whopping one episode), and then after two weeks I gave the show a thumbs down. But I've been thinking about something lately.

What's the rush?

It's not often that TV news executives are well-known, but Gordon Manning was one of those people.

Manning was with NBC and CBS news for several years, involved in many of the top news stories of the 20th century, including the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989 for NBC, CBS' Watergate and Nixon's trip to China coverage in 1972, and even set up an interview between NBC's Tom Brokaw and Mikail Gorbachev in 1987, just before his meeting with President Reagan.

Manning was famous for something else we all see now: the color-coded election night map! NBC first did that in 1976.

Manning died Wednesday in Westport, CT of a heart attack.

On August 29, NBC will launch "NBC News on Stage" on iTunes, which will include the Today live summer concert footage of John Mayer performing three songs from some album I'm never going to purchase. If Mayer isn't your cup of tea, other programs to be added to the list include interviews with the Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia, U2, Judy Garland, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Madonna, and Ray Charles. NBC is not offering this or any of its news programming on iTunes for free, which, to quote Mother Theresa, is a big stupid load of crap. The John Mayer segment, which will also feature interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff, will cost $3.99 and will only be available for a limited time.

If you didn't notice (which is fine, people shouldn't obsess over things like this like we do), MSNBC debuted a new news crawl and new on-screen graphics this morning. So far, it's a thumbs down.

While CNN and FOX News have cleaner, squared off graphics, MSNBC has gone with funky, pointy boxes on the right hand side that show the time and the MSNBC logo, while the left hand side shows the stock report. It's great that they separated the time and stocks, so now both can be on the screen at the same time, but the way they've done the boxing, it looks odd (and the text on the screen sometimes overlaps the new graphics, which isn't good). The crawl is odd too, because it doesn't crawl across the entire screen, only half of it (the stocks block the rest of the screen), and since only so many words can stay on the screen at once, it takes several seconds to even figure out what the story is about (but maybe that's on purpose, to make you stick around longer).

The new MSNBC logo is good though. It keeps the colorful peacock but it's now a lot thinner. Too bad they didn't put good boxes and a better setup around it. And I think it's time to get rid of the "MS" part. Why not just make it NBC News Channel now?

Reuven Frank, the former NBC News president who helped create the Huntley-Brinkley Report and bring Tom Brokaw to NBC passed away Sunday due to complications from pneumonia.

Frank started with NBC in 1950 and stayed with the network for the next 38 years. After David Brinkley and Chet Huntley's coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1956, Frank teamed the pair up for the Huntley-Brinkley Report. The fifteen-minute broadcast remained a popular news program through the 1960s, and is still considered a watershed moment in television news, being the first show to use live anchors in two separate cities. Later, he would be the mind behind NBC's tenacious coverage of NASA's early space missions.

In the late 70s and early 80s Frank created a late night news show called Weekend, and another late night news program featuring Linda Ellerbee called NBC News Overnight. The show became known for Ellerbee's tagline, "And so it goes..." a line borrowed from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughter House Five.

In addition to his work in television, Frank also produced a number of documentaries. He was 85.