CBS News Brings Nancy Cordes to White House Beat From Capitol Hill

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorSmartmatic, a maker of voting technology whose name has been the subject of disparaging commentary from a handful of conservative-news outlets, on Thursday said it had sued Fox News and three of its popular on-air personalities — Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro — for more than $2.7 billion, citing efforts made on Fox News programs to disparage the company’s business.Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, two attorneys who had been working for President

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorLinsey Davis is helping to tie things together at ABC News.You might not see the string during one of her recent hours on the Disney unit’s ABC News Live. On Tuesday evening, Davis’ “ABC News Live Prime” took viewers to Russia to examine how the government was cracking down on citizen protests and spent time looking at Congress’ effort to devise pandemic relief and hold an impeachment trial.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorLinsey Davis and Whit Johnson have been named co-anchors of the weekend broadcasts of ABC News “World News Tonight,” filling roles in the wake of the departure of anchor Tom Llanas.In a memo sent to ABC News staffers Monday, James Goldston, the unit’s outgoing president, said Johnson will anchor Saturdays, while Davis will anchor Sundays. They will commence their new duties this weekend.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorCBS has set in motion “an external investigation” into allegations of racist and misogynist behavior by senior executives at its local-TV unit, a sign that the ViacomCBS company continues to grapple with these issues even though it has probed them in the recent past.In a memo sent to staffers Friday, George Cheeks, CEO of CBS Entertainment Group, said the company had hired Keisha-Ann Gray, an attorney from the law firm Proskauer Rose, to examine recent

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorJames Goldston, the president of ABC News, will leave the Walt Disney-backed unit at the end of March, the latest in a recent series of changes among top national news executives.“It’s a really tough decision,” Goldston said in a memo to staffers.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorEven in tough times, advertisers still want a Super Bowl.CBS is “virtually sold out” of all its commercial inventory for Super Bowl LIV, according to a spokesperson for parent company ViacomCBS, a sign that Madison Avenue remains interested in the Big Game despite some of the rockier economic conditions surrounding it.The network has been seeking around $5.5M for a 30 second in-game spot and has been grappling with decisions by some stalwart sponsors to bench

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorTom Llamas, the ABC News anchor who leads the unit’s weekend “World News Tonight” broadcast and is its chief national affairs correspondent, is jumping from the Disney operation to NBC News.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorFox News Channel held talks with Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House Press Secretary whose performance in the role earned sharp criticism, about a possible position at the cable-news outlet, according to a person familiar with the matter.Those conversations have yet to bear fruit.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorTwo of CBS’s two top local-TV executives were placed on administrative leave Monday night after the Los Angeles Times raised issues about their conduct over the weekend in a two-part report that examined their treatment of people of color at specific TV stations, among other allegations.Peter Dunn, president of the CBS Television Stations, and David Friend, senior vice president of news for the stations were placed on the leave “pending the results of a

After a month of non-stop news culminating with President Joe Biden's inauguration, NBC News this weekend officially moved in to its long-planned new Washington D.C. bureau and studios.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs NBC News’ newly minted chief White House correspondents, Kristen Welker and Peter Alexander have the sort of job that rarely ends neatly for the week on Friday at 5 p.m.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorTom Brokaw, the NBC News anchor who rose from an early stint at a station in Sioux City, Iowa to anchor three of the nation’s best-known TV-news programs – “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and, for a short time, “Meet the Press,” is set to step down formally from NBC News, where he has worked since 1966.Brokaw’s time on air has dwindled in recent years, while he has served as a special correspondent for the NBCUniversal-owned outlet.More to come….

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorFox News is laying off some employees who work for its digital operations, part of an ongoing examination of its overall business that has been in place since the fall.“As we conclude the 2020 election cycle, Fox News Digital has realigned its business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era,” the company said in a statement.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorABC News named Cecilia Vega and Jonathan Karl to new senior roles in its Washington operations, naming Vega the Disney news unit’s chief White House correspondent and Karl its chief Washington correspondent, as well as a co-anchor of the Sunday public-affairs program “This Week.”In a memo to staffers Tuesday, ABC News President James Goldston also named Mary Bruce a senior White House correspondent and MaryAlice Parks a weekend White House correspondent.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMaria Bartiromo will be among the Fox News Channel personnel taking a crack at leading “Fox News Primetime,”  the cable-news outlet’s new opinion hour at 7 p.m.Bartiromo and contributors Katie Pavlich, Mark Steyn, Rachel Campos-Duffy and former U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy are among those who will rotate as anchors on the program.

CBS News is the latest TV news division to shuffle its Washington D.C. correspondent corp.

CBS News announced a series of changes to its lineup of assignments for correspondents in Washington, D.C.

Ray Brady, who covered business, economics and Wall Street for CBS television and radio for nearly three decades, has died. He was 94.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorRay Brady, a longtime CBS News correspondent who focused on business and the economy, died Jan. 12 at his home in Manhattan.

For the first time in United States history, a sitting president has been impeached twice. President Donald Trump, 75, was impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13 on one article of “incitement of insurrection” following the January 6 siege on Capitol Hill that left five people dead.