News, please

Initially, we at IHAC were ambivalent about TV news’ focus on community service as news. Now, we’re getting nervous. We have Bush radically changing his energy policy to focus on conservation (conservation!) (link), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist conducting insider trading from his blind trust (link), bionic Dick Cheney steering the ship while jacked up in traction (link), Michael Brown defending FEMA's ignorance (link) and 2 recently-vacated Supreme Court seats. Can we get some coverage, please?

Plus, all that hammering in the morning is giving me a headache.

Campbell Couric?

We know you're still queasy from the sight of Larry King so early in the morning -- with his 10th(?) wife who we're convinced is actually his daughter -- but in other TV-journalist news, our namesake's name is back in the ring to be our next leading lady:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/articles/050926/26whisplead.htm

A Different Path for Hurricane Campbell

It's probably the most important story about the media's coverage of Hurricane Katrina that you didn ' t read: Today, Weekend Edition coanchor Campbell Brown 's gutsy and heartfelt reports cemented her position as NBC's top choice to replace the Today show's Katie Couric. "Campbell's stock has really surged," says a key network insider. While network suits hope Couric will stay with NBC next year, she is considered a leading candidate for the nightly news anchor jobs at ABC and CBS.

How Brown vaulted to the front of the pack is an unusual industry story, fully on display during Katrina. Long urged to "girlie up" her image, as her competitors have, Brown has chosen instead to report from places like Baghdad and New Orleans. "It's very hard," she says, "to take comments like that seriously when you're standing in the aftermath of a hurricane and you haven't showered for three days." Brown's not just a news junkie but also a hurricane hound: Last year's Ivan leveled her parents' Florida home. Even before Katrina hit, she flew south, lived out of a car, and ate PowerBars and SpaghettiOs. Her big score was finding 9-year-old Charles Evans, who guided her around the ghastly convention center. "I was in tears," she says. Ironically, it was her undolled-up looks and go-get-'em attitude that jazzed NBC insiders. Groupies loved the T-shirts and wrinkled shorts, too. "What," she joshes, "you had a problem with that?"

She's in Love with the Boy...

... And now she's married to him! As with every other Today-Throws-A-Wedding couple of the past few years, we followed their wedding-planning frenzy each week, voted on the dress, the cake, the location, the honeymoon... and finally, watched with tears in our eyes as they exchanged their vows today. (Does anybody know if they got married at the same place in MD where Wedding Crashers was filmed?)

We sighed with relief that Trisha Yearwood's first song was not the song that some days, seemed to be eternally stuck in our head: "she's in love with the boy". At the IHAC household, we're not big country music fans but even we can appreciate the beauty of "How Do I Live" at a wedding.

Things we know about Trisha Yearwood:
1) Married to Garth Brooks, or is it Chris Gaines? (We think Gaines was hotter)

slightly hot: definitely not:

2) There used to be a whole lot less of Trisha Yearwood -- NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THERE BEING SO MUCH MORE OF HER NOW, but given how used we are to only seeing stick-figures on TV, you have to admit that seeing someone who isn't a size -2 (and who used to be considerably thinner) will make you do a double-take. Perhaps we should praise her for challenging society's notions of what a woman should like like (a la the Dove "Real Curves" campaign) but we're not so sure about that either.

before: now:




*If the size increase is a result of some kind of medical condition, we apologize in advance for being so insensitive.

3) She has a very beautiful voice (clearly I'm trying to make-up with all the folks who might get all riled up by point #2)

Speaking of skinny people, we believe we caught Maria Menounos making her premier appearance today with a preview of this weekend's Emmys. Her title was "West Coast Correspondent" which sounds like she'll be in charge of covering all the "news" from Hollywood.

Where we've been: yes, we know AC has been out of control lately...did anybody see her riding a bike around the plaza yesterday? Could somebody PLEASE chain her to the news desk? It seems everytime they let her out of her cage she goes a little crazy.

With all of the KATRINA domination of the news, we thought it might be a bit crass to poke fun at AC. She did do some ~okay~ reporting from New Orleans (although the PETA folks are pissed off that she let a dog drown instead of picking him up on her boat), but barring another catastrophe of weather and FEMA, we'll try to post more frequently...

Until then...