White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Photos: The Daily Beast Bipartisan Brunch

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Over the Inaugural, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company did the impossible in D.C.: they got both the left and the right to compromise. Not at the Capitol, however, but at Café Milano in Georgetown thanks to brunch. The “Bipartisan Brunch” went toe-to-toe against a luncheon hosted Google, Elle and Center for American Progress‘”Leading Women in Washington,” featuring leading women including the top elected representatives and ABC‘s own soiree at the Top-Of-The-Hay.

Hosted by Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, Presidential Inaugural Committee Co-Chair Eva Longoria, The Weinstein Company’s own Harvey Weinstein, Mark McKinnon and Pamela Thomas-Graham. Why do it?

‘It was just absolutely time that the sharks and the jet had a party,” Brown told Yeas & Nays, making her way through the packed restaurant.’

Other notables include actress Rosario Dawson, Piers Morgan,Andrea Mitchell,Kerry Washington,Gayle King and more are just behind our slideshow.

Barbara Walters producer to Piers Morgan

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Katie Thomson with Nicholas Kristof at Goldman Sachs Reception in NYC, September 2010

Katie Thomson, one of ABC News‘ top producers is named Senior Broadcast Producer for “Piers Morgan Tonight.” Here is an excerpt from the CNN press release:

Thomson joins CNN from ABC News where she spent 15 years working primarily with legendary journalist Barbara Walters, delivering and producing award-winning interviews for 20/20 and The Barbara Walters Specials.  She has produced interviews with the last four presidents, celebrities, and top newsmakers of the day including Barbara Walters’ interview with Monica Lewinsky which was seen by more than 70 million viewers and was the highest-rated news event ever broadcast by a single network.

“I’m thrilled Katie Thomson is joining the Piers Morgan Tonight team. She brings unmatched experience and leadership in the booking and producing of big-name interviews and she will be instrumental in helping lead a talented team of bookers and producers,” said Jonathan Wald, executive producer of Piers Morgan Tonight.

To read the full press release go here.

Long Live the New King

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Piers Morgan with Sarah Brown (wife of former UK PM Gordon Brown) and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of the World Bank

WHC Insider’s Tammy Haddad for the Huffington Post:

Dear Piers,

Don’t listen to the critics. If Larry King had given a thought to the naysayers back in 1985, he would have returned to radio after the first week. When we launched the show 25 years ago, no one liked the idea of an hour-long interview program.

Ted Turner figured out the advantage of television for long-form interviews. I remember the night Ted was our guest on the Larry King Radio Show, broadcast from the bowels of Mutual Radio headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia.

It was such a thrill to finally score the bigger-than-life media mogul and winner of America’s Cup. At the time, Larry King was an established radio host, but Turner saw the primetime potential.

The producers’ biggest fear switching to TV? How to go from three-hour interviews (one hour interview, two hours questions from listeners) to just one. Imagine that concept now? Good interviews don’t happen by accident, but are a complicated dance between interviewer and subject. The best interviews are ones where the audience doesn’t see the individual dance steps, but a sweeping verbal theater. You are the lead, the director and choreographer. You get people talking from their head and their heart.

People don’t just want to hear what their favorite stars have to say; they want to watch them squirm, fidget, freeze… and yes, sometimes cry. In your first week, you have shown your star guests to be real and relatable, abrupt and self satisfied, and sometimes fragile. I learned something about each one.

Ignore the critics who are stuck on the fact that you’re taping the interviews. The additional research, the ability to pluck out the most interesting bits, to weave together the complete package, is invaluable. You’re right to put your viewer’s interests first.

And for those that think the interviews should be shorter: Ross Perot didn’t announce he was running for president on Larry King Live until about 35 minutes into the show — and he changed an election.

Piers, thanks for crossing “the pond” to get some really big stars and headline newsmakers back on TV with all their foibles and follies. We are watching, tweeting and laughing along with you and the critics.

Tammy Haddad is President of Haddad Media and was one of the creators and executive producer of Larry King Live, and MSNBC’s former Washington VP.

Gordon Brown’s D.C. Book Bash

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Gordon Brown, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and wife Sarah, were in Washington this weekend to launch his U.S. book tour. The Browns were greeted by top politicos, global financial leaders and media types at a stately affair held at the Jefferson Hotel. The party was co-hosted by long-time friends Connie Milstein, owner of the Jefferson Hotel and her husband, J.C. de La Haye St. Hilaire, and Tammy Haddad.

Brown charmed the A-plus crowd, including the Obama Administration’s David and Susan Axelrod, Austan and Robin Goolsbee, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, Bill Burton and Laura Burton Capps, Stephanie Cutter, Bruce Reed, Eric Lesser and Katie McCormick Lelyveld, as he had a little fun describing his post PM life as well as giving his assessment of the global economy.

Here are Brown’s comments as reported by Politics Daily on AOL —

“In brief remarks, Brown — among the first world leaders to rescue troubled banks at home in 2008 — warned that “for the time in 200 years, America and Europe are being out-produced, out-invested, out-traded and out-exported” by other nations, and that the solution to the global crisis was to tap into a billion middle class consumers in Asia who in 10 years will have twice the buying power as Americans.”

Brown repeated that same message on ABC News “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” saying that while Asia and China had to consume more, “Europe’s got to reform its markets. America is prepared to invest in the future, while doing its fiscal consolidation. And that would mean, in my view, that you would have this exit strategy from a crisis based on high growth and high employment and not low growth and what I fear is high unemployment for a decade.”

The former prime minister — who earlier in his career spent a decade as finance minister — warned that the immediate danger “is that people cut back in education, which is vital for the future, that people cut back on their international contacts, because they think the solutions lie in national answers to their problems, when they lie in global cooperation. And I think the danger is, you have a ’30s-style protectionism where people relapse into currency wars, as we’re seeing, or trade wars or banning takeovers that have got cross-border ramifications, or simply a protectionism in of the mind, where anti-immigrant sentiment gets to the point that we’re not really talking to each other in a way that means that we have a coordinated world.”

A crowd formed around media celebrities including new CNN host Piers Morgan and his wife Celia Walden, Arianna Huffington and Glee’s Matthew Morrison.

Notables in the crowd: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of World Bank; Ambassador Capricia Marshall; Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell; Terry McAuliffe; Rima al Sabah, Bob Barnett and Rita Braver; Bruce and Bonnie Reed; Robert and Ellen Bennett; Hilary Rosen and Kate Harold; Sam and Danielle Feist; Dan and Rhoda Glickman; Shelby Coffey; Anita McBride; Sally Quinn; NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, and the BBC’s Rome and Amy Hartman.

“Beyond the Crash” is published by Free Press/Simon & Schuster.

CNN's Prime-Time Lineup

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CNN has announced new details about its prime-time lineup. No surprise, but it’s official: Piers Morgan is taking over the “Larry King Live” time slot in January. The British TV host, known on this side of the pond as a judge on “America’s Got Talent,” will be based in New York.

Morgan’s new boss, CNN-US President Jon Klein, quoted on CNN.com: “Piers has made his name posing tough questions to public figures, holding them accountable for their words and deeds…He is able to look at all aspects of the news with style and humor with an occasional good laugh in the process.”

The show will air live on CNN-US at 9 p.m. ET and in more than 200 countries worldwide on CNN-International. While Morgan’s show has yet to be named, CNN revealed what the new 8 o’clock hour will be called: Parker Spitzer.

That would be Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Kathleen Parker and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. The show will premiere Monday, October 4. Check out the video announcement:

Piers Morgan Takes King's Throne

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[picappgallerysingle id=”4991269″]Long live the king of CNN’s prime-time block: Piers Morgan.

The rumored hopeful was confirmed as headed to the cable news network according to The Wrap.  Jeff Gaspin, president of NBC Universal TV, confirmed the former host of America’s Got Talent joining the network during a press tour earlier today.

The rest of the details aren’t publicly available yet;  Gaspin gave a brief answer to Morgan having  dual duty at NBC and CNN (“Yes,” Gaspin  said.)

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Fingers Crossed for This Week and This Fall on TV

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[picappgallerysingle id=”4987232″ align=”center”]The Beltway’s TV presence is going wider–if not global–in the coming weeks

TVNewser confirms August 1st as the start date for Christiane Amanpour’s premiere at This Week, which sadly ousts Jake Tapper from the temporary position. Meanwhile, Rick Sanchez is being bumped up to 8 pm on July 22nd until the Fall premiere of the Untitled Eliot Spitzer/Kathleen Parker Show.

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Larry King: "Hanging Up the Nightly Suspenders"

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Larry King announced on Tuesday that he will step away from his CNN chair in the fall after a remarkable 25 years on the air, earning the Guinness Book of World Records title for the longest running show with the same host in the same time slot on the same network.

“It’s time to hang up the nightly suspenders,” he told viewers, confirming what his Twitter followers learned just before showtime. As the host of the first-ever worldwide phone-in TV talk show, the breaking news reached the realm of new media as “Larry King” quickly became a trend in the social web.

While King, 76, will no longer be hosting his nightly program Larry King Live, he has signed a contract with CNN to do specials for the cable network. King hopes the new schedule will allow “more time for my wife and I to get to the kids’ Little League games.”

There will be plenty of time to head down memory lane; it’s estimated King has done about 50,000 interviews. Tammy Haddad, Larry King Live Executive Producer from 1985-1993, told NBC’s Today Show that King’s secret to success was that “people would get so comforable with him they would say things they didn’t plan on saying…he engaged them at such a level.”

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The months ahead are also sure to be full of speculation over who will fill King’s seat. Rumors hint at British talk show host Piers Morgan, but King disclosed on Tuesday’s broadcast that American Idol host Ryan Seacrest would be his choice.