No stranger to controversy, the Reverend Al Sharpton looks he'll be like the newest member of MSNBC's left-leaning talk show crew. Last week, TV Newser reported that Sharpton, filling in for usual 6 p.m. host Cenk Uygur, had higher ratings in a key demographic and now the NY Times says, "Mr. Sharpton’s imminent hiring, which was acknowledged by three people at the channel on condition of anonymity because the contract had not been signed, is significant in part because MSNBC and other news channels have been criticized for a paucity of minority hosts in prominent time slots." more ›

our-next-tattoo, Eliot Spitzer, as a show host, which he denied interest in at the time. But today comes news that both CNN and MSNBC executives have approached Spitzer about jobs hosting programs on their networks. "He's got personality, he's got smarts, he's got an edge and he's got enough controversy about him that the name means something," said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief. more ›

As expected, CNN came out yesterday and ate crow for Kathy Griffin after a live New Year's Eve broadcast alongside Anderson Cooper featured the closest moment a major TV broadcast has come to hearing someone being told to eat a bag of dicks. A CNN spokesman told the press, "We recognize that the comment made by comedian Kathy Griffin during the live broadcast was inappropriate...She did not know she was on the air at the time and we removed [the comment] from the [West Coast] rebroadcast." That raises the question: do west coasters have to spend every new year's counting down to midnight alongside footage they all know was recorded three hours ago? In any case, CNN has little to worry about from the FCC since this all aired on cable and the network would not comment on whether Griffin was likely to be back next year. The Hollywood Reporter points out that earlier in the telecast, Griffin lampooned former CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck and asked for a pap smear given by medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. more ›

Photoshop skills are necessary in the bitter cable news wars. more ›