In an impressive scoop, The Guardian has acquired a cache of emails from embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. While many emails shed a light on Assad’s personal life or the crackdown of his people, they also shine a light on his dealings with Western media outlets. Two U.S. networks, CNN and ABC News, are mentioned in the Assad emails.

ABC News’ Barbara Walters of course had an exclusive interview with Assad last December. The email in question is from ABC News managing editor of international coverage, Tom Nigorski. Nigorski was corresponding with  one of Assad’s media advisers (see below) about the details of the interview. It looks as though the new ABC News/Yahoo! partnership played a big role in the pitch:

Wonderful to hear from you, Sheherazad.

To answer your questions:

We hope for an hour-long interview, in the first days of December if possible.

The interview will be broadcast across ABC News platforms – including World News, Good Morning America, This Week, ABC Radio, a full edition of Nightline, and full-length treatment across the digital space (for ABC News this now includes Yahoo as well –which means you can reach as many as 100 million people. ABC News and Yahoo recently joined forces – which is another reason why so many people now bring their interviews to us).

The exact dates/times for all these broadcasts depends on when the interview is done. When it was scheduled for November 13 we had planned to begin the broadcasts on our return to New York two days later (would have been today, actually), along with release of the full interview.

Once again, if you have any follow-up questions you can call me anytime.

All the best and please be in touch.

Tom

As for those media advisers: both of them were Western-educated women, and one of them boasted that a fake Twitter account spewing pro-Assad messages was featured on CNN:

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Bill O’Reilly has Bernard Goldberg. And increasingly, Sean Hannity is bringing on former MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan as a media commentator.

He was back on Fox News last night during coverage of the Mississippi and Alabama primaries in a segment that seemed to be an attempt at a counterpoint to the criticism Rush Limbaugh continues to receive over the Sandra Fluke flap but sold as a discussion of a left wing media takeover. It began with a series of talk radio clips from left-leaning hosts, including Ed Schultz, who Buchanan referred to as “my friend from MSNBC.”

Hannity added about Schultz, “there’s a lot more out on him, which I’m sure people will be able to find, if they’re interested.”

“I prefer the old Crossfire days, Pat,” said Hannity concluding the segment. “I prefer more speech, passionate speech, debate, dialogue.” What Hannity didn’t mention was he used to host a Crossfire-like show, with Alan Colmes for 12 years.

Shortly before 12:30pmET, the cable networks went live to the White House Rose Garden, where President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron delivered a joint press conference.

After both Obama and Cameron gave opening statements, they opened it up to questions:

1. Ari Shapiro, NPR — Afghanistan
2. Joey Jones, Sky News — Afghanistan
3. Alister Bull, Reuters — Iran (“Can I just point out that somehow Alister gets to ask a question on behalf of the U.S. press corps?” Obama asked, noting Bull’s British accent. “What’s going on with that, Jay [Carney]?”
4. Tom Bradby, ITV News — Syria

After his book part last night — which Alex attended and writes up here — CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta is making the rounds today to promote “Monday Mornings,” including an appearance on a competing network.

“He finally found himself on the right network,” joked Brian Kilmeade on Fox & Friends. Toward the end of the interview Kilmeade asked, “If you had a choice of hanging out with Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer, who would you choose?”

Kilmeade gave him a chance to duck the question, but Gupta shot back: “Wolfman. Every single time.” Gupta is appearing on Cooper’s syndicated show today and was on with CNN’s Carol Costello this morning as well.

The “Fox and Friends” trio also asked Gupta about his “60 Minutes” report Sunday on Khan Academy. Video after the jump…

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GOP Presiential candidate Rick Santorum was on “On the Record” last night, and anchor Greta Van Susteren confronted him about comments he made yesterday about Fox News “shilling” for Mitt Romney.

“On behalf of my staff, who have been calling Governor Romney every day trying to get him back on our air ever since out last interview in South Carolina, they want to know if you can help them a little bit because they don’t feel like they are shilling, he won’t even do our show!” Van Susteren said.

Santorum clarified that he was referring to FNC’s news programs, though he declined to name which ones:

“Greta, you have been awesome, and Sean [Hannity] has been awesome. When I was talking Fox News I wasn’t talking your show or Sean’s show. your two shows have been exemplar, and even some of the afternoon shows. I am just looking at the news coverage that goes on at that network, and the amount of time that Governor Romney and some of his surrogates have been getting on the air.”

WATCH (8:45 into the video):

Just how well-liked is CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta? So much so that his book release party, held at The Setai Hotel last night, had more boldface names in attendance than many TV premieres. Gupta’s first novel, Monday Mornings, was released this week.

Former President Bill Clinton, former CBS News anchor Katie Couric, daytime talk-show host Dr. Oz, “The Daily Show” correspondent Aasif Mandvi, Fox News Channel’s Bill Hemmer and former CNN anchor Kiran Chetry were all there. And that is before you get into the CNN contingent, which included Soledad O’Brien, Don Lemon, Ivan Watson, Jeffrey Toobin, Ashleigh Banfield and Christine Romans, among others.

Nearly every top CNN executive was there, including CNN Worldwide chief Jim Walton, CNN U.S. chief Ken Jautz, CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker, CNN International chief Tony Maddox and HLN chief Scot Safon. We also spotted CBS News president David Rhodes mingling with the crowd.

Clinton held court close to the entrance to the bar, with guests approaching him to chat throughout the night. Gupta worked through the crowd, saying hello to everyone, posing for photos and signing copied of his book. “Enjoy your stay in Chelsea General!” he wrote in one, referring to the fictional hospital in the book.

Gupta also said that the television adaptation of his novel for TNT continues to progress, and production started this month.

“Clearly Sanjay is a man of many many talents, he is possibly the busiest human being I have ever met,” said Walton during the reception, before quipping “Here is his book by the way.”

Many more pictures below.

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• B&C’s Paige Albiniak reports that former CBS Television Distribution president Terry Wood is working as a consultant to ABC News. “Wood has a good working relationship with ABC after years of collaborating with ABC’s owned television stations on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which CTD distributed. Since Wood left CTD in November 2010, she’s been developing projects on her own, including shows for daytime.”

• Al Jazeera will televise an extremely unusual documentary about Syria tonight. The entire doc was shot on an iPhone by an undercover correspondent, and chronicles what the Syrian resistance fighters are dealing with. As we have noted, essentially all foreign news outlets have pulled their people out of Syria due to the danger.

• B&C‘s Albiniak also scoops that Kathy Samuels, a veteran of “Rachael Ray” and “Access Hollywood,” will become co-EP of the upcoming ABC talk show “Katie,” joining Jeff Zucker.

In its first week on the air “Fox & Friends First” is not only beating its competition head-to-head, it’s besting a cable competitor down the dial and much later in the in the day.

The new 5amET hour averaged 411,000 Total Viewers and 165,000 in the key A25-54 demo for its first week on air (March 5-9). Not only did that number beat the other 5am cable news shows combined in Total viewers, but it also topped CNN’s 7pmET show, “Erin Burnett OutFront” in viewership (408,000 / 124,000). It’s also interesting to note the homes using television (HUT) levels are three times greater at 7pm than at 5am. (HUT level at 5am – 18%. HUT level at 7pm – 54%.)

Network	Program	Viewers (Total / A254-54)
FNC	Fox & Friends First	411,000 / 165,000
MSNBC	First Look/Way Too Early	202,000 / 93,000
CNN	Early Start	143,000 / 75,000

25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

• Total day: FNC: 281 | MSNBC: 154 | CNN: 99 | HLN: 95

• Primetime: FNC: 462 | MSNBC: 264 | CNN: 152 | HLN: 110

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:	12a:
FNC	TheFive:	Baier:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:
	316	281	361	572	454	360	292	197
MSNBC	Matthews:	Sharpton:	Matthews:	EdShow:	Maddow:	O’Donnell:	EdShow:	Maddow:
	165	156	197	257	275	260	151	150
CNN	Blitzer:	KingUSA:	Burnett:	Cooper:	Morgan:	Cooper:	Burnett:	Morgan:
	102	90	115	148	139	169	142	96
HLN	Special:	Prime:	VelezMitchell:	Grace:	DrDrew:	Grace:	Showbiz:	DrDrew:
	78	104	109	96	134	103	115	103

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Despite “Super Tuesday,” not much changed among the cable networks for the week of March 5-11. As usual, Fox News was the top ad-supported cable news channel, placing third in primetime behind USA and History. In total day FNC placed fourth overall.

MSNBC placed 21st in primetime and 23rd in total day, with CNN placing 29th in primetime and 30th in total day. HLN placed 41st in primetime and 40th in total day.

Among the business networks: CNBC placed 49th in total day, while FBN placed 80th. In primetime, CNBC placed 56th, with FBN placing 88th. Bloomberg TV is still not rated by Nielsen, despite launching more than 15 years ago.

Current TV placed 91st in primetime and 94th in total day.

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