Chairs are changing in broadcast newsrooms for 2009 from CBS to cable networks.
Byron Pitts was named a contributing correspondent to “60 Minutes” and will produce a minimum of six pieces a year. Pitts gave the keynote address at the 2008 OPC Foundation Scholarship Luncheon.
Ted Koppel’s production deal with the Discovery Channel ended in November, six moths before his three-year contract was due to expire in May. The Channel’s shift away from news content to non-news documentaries that have “longer shelf life and appeal to audiences around the world” created a split between Koppel and the Channel, The New York Times reported.
On January 9, Cable network Investigation Discovery signed former CNN anchor Paula Zahn to an exclusive deal to develop an investigative weekly newsmagazine.
NBC News selected David Gregory to moderate “Meet the Press,” and he moved into that anchor’s chair in December. OPC member Tom Brokaw filled in as temporary moderator after Tim Russert, the long-time moderator, died in June. Gregory, a White House correspondent, was anchor of the MSNBC talk show “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” David Shuster, who worked at the Fox News Channel for six years before joining MSNBC in 2002, replaced Gregory on “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Chris Matthews is staying put on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” After months of exploring a run for the Senate in Pennsylvania, he told producers on January 7 that he will not seek elected office.
Commentator Bill O’Reilly will give up his syndicated radio show this year in order to devote fulltime to his television program on the Fox News channel. “We’ve got to keep the TV show at the top level we have it now, and that means more and more time to keep it competitive and fresh” O’Reilly was quoted in the New York Daily News. “I’ve been working 60, 65 hours a week, and I just can’t keep doing that.” Carried on 430 stations, his radio program is estimated at drawing a weekly audience of 3.5 million, putting him in the national top 10.
After traveling the world as a foreign correspondent for 25 years, Christiane Amanpour will become a news anchor this year, starting a nightly program on CNN International. But she told The New York Times that she will continue to travel “because I’m a field person at heart, in my bones and in my DNA. I think that’s massively important, because you can’t just sit back and opine about the news; you have to actually go out there and cover it and report it.” Amanpour, 50, is married to James Rubin, a former Clinton administration official and now an adjunct professor of foreign policy at Columbia University. They are parents of an 8-year-old son.
John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent and longtime White House reporter, became host of a new Sunday morning news program in January that replaced “Late Edition,” anchored by Wolf Blitzer the past 15 years. Blitzer, who also hosts a three-hour weekday program, “The Situation Room,” signed a new contract that will keep him at CNN through the next presidential election. King’s Sunday program runs four hours, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.