Blogs

Across The Media Universe: 'Increasingly Contentious' Edition

By Hillary Profita

January 25, 2007 / 12:40 PM EST / CBS News

(AP)

Ratings Up For Bush: Well, President Bush's numbers are up somewhere. The AP reports that viewership for the speech was up by 9 percent since last year. Who else saw a bump? "American Idol," whose numbers were up by 8 percent. The Bush speech – running on nine different networks – drew more viewers (about 45.5 million) than "Idol," which, on a single network, clocked in at about 32.6 million. As for Fox's airing of the Bush speech, 8.4 million people tuned in. But NBC won the day with 9.3 million viewers according to Nielsen research.

Rumble In The Situation Room: Another big public appearance from the Bush administration is eating up headlines: Vice President Dick Cheney's appearance on CNN's "The Situation Room." The interview was "turned increasingly contentious as it wore on," writes the Post in a front pager. (Wonkette's description: "In Which Dick Cheney Nearly Kills Wolf Blitzer With His Bare Hands.") Either way, check out the interview. Here's a media related snippet:

Wolf Blitzer: His number two, Ayman al Zawahiri is –

Vice President Dick Cheney: Zawahiri is much, much more visible. Yes.

Blitzer: I mean, he's on television almost as much as I am.

Cheney: Well, I don't know if anybody is on as much as you are, Wolf …

Libby Gets Blogified: Finally, for those of you who just can't get enough of the media-politics-CIA fiesta of intrigue that is the Scooter Libby trial – you're in luck. Broadcasting and Cable reports that the AP will syndicate a feed of blog coverage of the trial to more than 600 Web sites. "This is the first time the AP has syndicated a blog feed as part of its news service," writes B&C. A dozen bloggers are "taking turns" covering the trial, using two credentials that the Media Bloggers Association received from the US District Court.