TVSquad

Remember the brouhaha with Sesame Street over their alleged swipe at Fox News? Sesame Street has officially extended an olive branch.

Sherrie Westin, executive vice president of the Sesame Workshop, appeared on The O'Reilly Factor to explain the "Pox News" joke and unveil a new character that pays homage to "Papa Bear" as part of the show's long-standing Grouch journalism homages. Just so there's no confusion, the new Sesame Street character is the guy in the suit on the left, not the right, I think.

If you're playing a TV news drinking game wherein you and your dumb little buddies have to do a shot every time someone posts fake footage or film for a story, you might want to think about switching to Tang.

Now MSNBC's Morning Meeting has been caught dipping their hand in the Photoshopping jar when they aired rather obvious fake photos of Sarah Palin while doing a diss-session on the former VP candidate and her never ending book tour. Seriously, why is there this much coverage over one book? Even The Never Ending Story has an ending.



Dylan Ratigan issued an official apology to the viewers, Palin and her family for "mistakenly" using the doctored images. He also said he and the network took the weekend to ensure this would not happen again. I guess that means there's one less email forwarding fratboy on MSNBC's research payroll now.

Remember the old saying, "Fool me once (awkward pause), shame on (another awkward pause), shame on you (another longer and more awkward pause). Fool me, we can't get fooled again"?

Less than a week after Fox News host and conservative pundit Sean Hannity apologized for accidentally using the wrong footage from Glenn Beck's "9/12 Rally" as footage for Rep. Michelle Bachmann's "Super Bowl of Freedom" rally, the network used the wrong footage in another story. This time, they used the wrong footage for a story on the "crowds" that showed up during Sarah Palin's book tour.

Think Progress, a blog created by the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, discovered the footage. The dead giveaway was the "Country First" campaign signs indicating the footage was taken during Palin's campaign run with John McCain back in 2008. The network called the clip mix-up a mistake and issued another apology. Hold on, are we sure that they aired the right apology this time?

First there was the Lincoln-Douglas debate. Then came the Nixon-Kennedy debate. Now Fox News' Geraldo Rivera continues that great American tradition of the public debate with the Cheech and Chong-Coulter debate.

It might sound like the world's most lopsided episode of Celebrity Deathmatch, but the world's most famous pot comedy duo squared off against the famed conservative pundit on Rivera's "Geraldo at Large" show recently to discuss the opening of the country's first cannibus club in Portland, Oregon and the legalization of marijuana. Despite the craziness of the casting, they actually have a very frank, civilized and enlightening discussion on the subject.

Walter Cronkite's passing didn't mark the end of an era in the TV news business. The era he helped produce and prolong died long before he did.

It's hard for me to ever imagine a time when people considered a major network news anchor as America's most trusted source for anything. Claims of bias and political persuasion being injected into every story with a meat syringe created a thick fog that made it very hard to cover anything with a modicum of honesty.

Cronkite, however, was the man people turned to when something blew up, exploded, imploded, launched, landed or any other number of descriptive verbs, because his goal wasn't to make news every time he stepped in front of a camera. His goal was just to report it.

As the White House staff shakeup continues a name has been mentioned as a replacement for outgoing Press Secretary Scott McClellan: FOX News Channel weekend anchor and political analyst Tony Snow.

Snow, who was previously a speech writer for the elder president Bush, is currently in negotiations with White House officials to take over the position. The New York Times is reporting that Snow is also waiting for a clean bill of health from his doctors (he had surgery for colon cancer in 2005) before he makes a final decision.

Snow is not the first personality to leave politics then jump back in again. Back in the early 1970's Fred Dalton Thompson was an active lawyer during the Watergate hearings. He then appeared in such television shows as Wiseguy, China Beach, and Roseanne and the movies Die Hard 2 and The Hunt For Red October before returning to politics as Senator of Tennessee from 1994 til 2003. He is currently playing Attorney General Arthur Branch on Law & Order.

[via the New York Times]