Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Covering the SOTU
A special two hour edition of The Situation Room was anchored Tuesday night by Wolf Blitzer and Paula Zahn. Blitzer and Zahn were joined by member's of CNN's political team to provide complete coverage of the State of the Union address. TSR was simulcasted on CNN- International.
# posted by ATN @ 9:37 PM 
Monday, January 22, 2007
CNN Receives Four GLAAD Nods
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has announced its 2007 media awards. CNN picked up four as follows:
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWSMAGAZINE
"Will Gay Debate Tear Church Apart?" Larry King Live (CNN)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWS SEGMENT
"Same-Sex Marriage" Live From… (CNN)
"Secret Love: Gay Life in the Middle East" Inside the Middle East (CNN)
"Transgender Teen" Paula Zahn Now (CNN)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWSMAGAZINE
"Will Gay Debate Tear Church Apart?" Larry King Live (CNN)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWS SEGMENT
"Same-Sex Marriage" Live From… (CNN)
"Secret Love: Gay Life in the Middle East" Inside the Middle East (CNN)
"Transgender Teen" Paula Zahn Now (CNN)
# posted by ATN @ 6:43 PM
CNN Debunks False Report About Obama
Source: CNN.com Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting.Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times, reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam.
Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971, with his mother and step-father and has acknowledged attending a Muslim school, but an aide said it was not a madrassa.
Insight attributed the information in its article to an unnamed source, who said it was discovered by "researchers connected to Senator Clinton." A spokesman for Clinton, who is also weighing a White House bid, denied that the campaign was the source of the Obama claim.
He called the story "an obvious right-wing hit job."
Insight stood by its story in a response posted on its Web site Monday afternoon.
The Insight article was cited several times Friday on Fox News and was also referenced by the New York Post, The Glenn Beck program on CNN Headline News and a number of political blogs.
School not a madrassa
But reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.
He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.
"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."
Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.
"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."
Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."
"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."
The Obama aide described Fox News' broadcasting of the Insight story "appallingly irresponsible."
Fox News executive Bill Shine told CNN "Reliable Sources" anchor Howard Kurtz that some of the network's hosts were simply expressing their opinions and repeatedly cited Insight as the source of the allegations.
# posted by ATN @ 6:29 PM
Blitzer to Interview Vice President Dick Cheney
Source: CNN Press Release In an exclusive television interview, Vice President Dick Cheney will speak with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, Jan. 24. The interview will take place the day after President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address. Cheney will answer questions on the Iraq war, politics and the State of the Union speech.
Portions of the interview will air in the 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. hours of The Situation Room. The executive producer is Eric Sherling.
Portions of the interview will air in the 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. hours of The Situation Room. The executive producer is Eric Sherling.
# posted by ATN @ 5:10 PM
CNN Anchor Visits Smithsonian For "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon" Exhibit
On Friday, January 19, on CNN Newsroom, anchor Betty Nguyen reported live from the "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon" exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute. The exhibit is the first Vietnamese-American historical exhibit at the Smithsonian. “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon” tells the story of the Vietnamese experience in America , from their significant influx in 1975 after the fall of Saigon to the present. Nguyen, whose own family fled Vietnam and found refuge at Camp Pendleton , will be featured in the exhibit as the first Vietnamese-American anchor for a national news network. She is joined by other accomplished Vietnamese Americans who include actress Kieh Chinh (Joy Luck Club), Chloe Dao (winner of Project Runway), and Tom Lam (the first Vietnamese-American elected official).Nguyen's inclusion in the exhibit also highlights her philanthropic endeavors which include "Help the Hungry," (www.help-the-hungry.org) an organization she co-founded which provides humanitarian relief to poverty-stricken families. Her philanthropic work earned her recognition in the Philanthropy in Texas Hall of Fame. Nguyen will emcee the Smithsonian’s VIP opening reception on Thursday, January 18.
# posted by ATN @ 10:38 AM
Sunday, January 21, 2007
TWC Climate Expert Addresses Critics Over Recent Global Warming Remarks
The Weather Channel's Dr. Heidi Cullen addresses her critics on her recent comments about global warming. Cullen blogs:"I wrote a post recently that has generated some pretty strong reaction and I wanted to take a moment to stop the spin.
I am a scientist. And I'm a skeptic.
AND after more than a century of research -- based on healthy skepticism -- scientists have learned something very important about our planet. It's warming up -- glaciers are melting, sea level is rising and the weather is changing. The primary explanation for this warming is the carbon dioxide released from -- among other things -- the burning of fossil fuels.
With that knowledge comes responsibility.
Here at The Weather Channel, we have accepted that responsibility, and see it as our job to give YOU the facts on global warming.
Our position on global warming is supported by the scientific community ... including the American Meteorological Society. Their official statement says:
"There is convincing evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activities, resulting in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other trace constituents in the atmosphere, have become a major agent of climate change."
I've read all your comments saying I want to silence meteorologists who are skeptical of the science of global warming. That is not true. The point of my post was never to stifle discussion. It was to raise it to a level that doesn't confuse science and politics. Freedom of scientific expression is essential.
Many of you have accused me and The Weather Channel of taking a political position on global warming. That is not our intention.
Our goal at The Weather Channel has always been to keep people out of harm's way. Whether it's a landfalling hurricane or global warming.
Consistent with this goal, on this site and on The Climate Code we aim to help our viewers better understand why scientists are so concerned about climate change -- and then to decide for themselves what they want to do about it.
The bottom line is ... this issue isn't going away.
That said, I would like to extend invitations to any of my colleagues in climatology or meteorology to join this discussion by posting a blog on this site or even coming on The Climate Code.
However, know that we here are focused on moving this discussion forward."
# posted by ATN @ 6:00 PM
Warrior One Comes Under Fire While on Auction Block
Before being auctioned off for 1.25 million dollars Saturday, CNN's overhauled "Warrior One" caught fire. The vehicle's engine was the source of the fire, as it flooded with fuel, no damage reported. Watch the video HERE.
# posted by ATN @ 5:33 PM
