Changes at MSNBC

TVNewser has more information about the upcoming changes at MSNBC: “NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory is being tapped to anchor a new MSNBC program called Race for the White House. Gregory will take over the 6pmET time slot from Tucker Carlson who remains with the network as MSNBC’s Senior Campaign Correspondent, reporting for all MSNBC shows.

• NBC’s Andrea Mitchell becomes the anchor of MSNBC’s 1pmET program…

• Live with Dan Abrams re-launches as Verdict with Dan Abrams…

• Countdown with Keith Olbermann will now re-air at 10pmET (it had been re-airing at MidnightET)…

• The Doc Block moves back and adds a third hour. It will now air from 11pmET-2amET…

• Countdown gets a second re-air at 2amET…”

Marketing through message boards?

Kassia Krozser from Booksquare posted today about using social networking sites to target consumers.  One of her main points is that users are wary of the obvious pitch.  Although that’s not really news to any of us, it’s something we’re often thinking about and a similar issue came up last week when Rachel from DK gave an informative and entertaining presentation about O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference.  Someone asked about the value of message / discussion boards in promoting a book since she said she would be inclined to listen to a recommendation in such a forum — I would have to agree, having run right out and done a book trade for (which is pretty much buying when you work in publishing) a book someone mentioned on a message board I used to frequent.

We all agreed that it’s impossible for a corporate entity to use message boards without completely turning off users.  That doesn’t mean, however, that an individual author with expertise in a certain area can’t become a member of a community with such a message board (and perhaps mention his / her book in the process).  The key to being listened to on message boards is being a genuine and longstanding member of the community — many discussion boards have ranking systems for posters and even on those that don’t, members will only recognize / respect posters who have proven their interest and expertise over time.  So forget about the sleek marketing pitch and tell your authors to start planning ahead if they want to go down this road …

Roundup / Update your database

In the eternal battle between good and evil, I mean print and online, Minonline reports that print is not dying (according to a Time Inc. exec, at any rate).

Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 recently coined the term “link journalism” (basically, hyperlinks in an online article) and explains more here.  What this means for us book publicists is that even if a book or author is only mentioned in a piece, if that mention includes a hyperlink to the author’s website / blog / Amazon page, readers can click through and potentially buy the book.  Which is pretty much what a review or interviews does — only those are much harder to get.

TVNewser reports that MNSBC’s Tucker will be cancelled.  More details are expected later today.

XM Satellite Radio’s presidential election channel POTUS ‘08 launched a new show, Politics Nation, this past weekend.  The show is hosted by Real Clear Politics associate editor Reid Wilson and The Politico’s Josh Kraushaar.  The weekly radio show will air 10 a.m. to noon ET.  According to the release, Politics Nation “will focus on this year’s presidential and congressional races. The show will also carry the weekly presidential radio address and Democratic response.” 

Among the Sunday morning talk shows, NBC’s Meet the Press comes in first, CBS’ Face the Nation second and ABC’s This Week third.