Aly’s Back: Back Again!

Aly on New Day: Fox & Fiends? Today, former Fox & Friends Weekend co-anchor Alisyn Camerota vied with her FNC usurper F&F co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: The erstwhile queen of the F&FW curvy couch had a new perch, i.e., one of the New Day reflecting-table chairs. Unfortunately, Aly could not do battle with Elizabeth on quite equal footing: After all, it was ND, the latest version of the CNN morning show that seems not yet to fathom that the dawn is a time for edutainment (not a boring retro rendition of “straight news”).

Inviting a former “fiend” into the CNN camp as ND began, co-host Chris Cuomo introduced Aly, saying, “We welcome Alisyn Camerota, joining us. Thank you for being with us this morning.”

In response to Chris (and newsreader Michaela Pereira), Aly exclaimed, “My pleasure! Great to be with both of you!”

And, it was a pleasure for the ND audience as well. At last, Chris’s match was sitting next to him–no schoolgirl who was continuously vying for his attention and approbation: This Italian lady in red was more than ready for Mario Cuomo’s media scion. Even though she playfully wondered if she could “remember how to do” morning TV in a Tweet to her followers, she proved anew that she has the “A” game for morning news–even if Bill Shine inanely snubbed her for his team.

As the show ended, Aly clearly had won Chris over: Like a schoolboy, he was giving Aly googly eyes (and bumping her affectionately), declaring, “It’s great to have you here, by the way.” Smiling at her new admirer, Aly answered, “Thank you so much. Great to be here. I’m going to see you guys tomorrow!” As if playfully pulling her pigtails on the playground, Chris responded, “What! I have to talk to management!” Coquettishly, Aly purred, “Can’t scare me away, Cuomo!”

“Guess who’s back: Back again!” Aly: at least, for tomorrow. And, hopefully, for a long time to come.

Aly Debuts on CNN Tonight!

Not the best fit: But, a good start. Last night, former Fox & Friends Weekend co-anchor Alisyn Camerota made her grand debut on CNN–on CNN Tonight. Giving her fans little notice, she Tweeted an early evening missive, saying, “Thanks for asking when I’ll be back on-the-air. The answer is…tonight. 10pm – midnight et.w/@donlemon on #CNN. Hope you’ll tune in.” Of course, this long-time fan of Aly did just that.

As the two-hour special began, co-anchor Don Lemon and Aly introduced themselves and the two stories of the night, the downing of the Malaysian airline in the Ukraine and the “Showdown in Gaza.” Then, Don turned to Aly, saying, “And, Alisyn, I want to welcome you to CNN. It is an honor to work with you tonight, and it’s good to have you here.” Smiling, Aly answered, “Thanks so much! I’m happy to be here on such an important story.”*

As always, Aly was on her game–prescient, incisive, and sure-footed. However, she and Don seemed as if they were feeling each other out. And, Don appeared not necessarily quite ready to accede to Aly her equal billing.

According to Politico, Aly, Don, and New Day co-host Chris Cuomo have piloted a show called “The 10 o’clock Show”–perhaps, a play on FNC’s The Five. Last night, adventitiously or not, Chris appeared on CNN Tonight and Aly commended him on his “great reporting.” In the author’s opinion, Aly, Don, and Chris seem like an odd platonic melange a trois for a CNN evening whereas Aly, John Berman, and Kiran Chetry would make for a much more dynamic trio at the dawn of a “New Day.”

*CNN Tonight – 07/18/14 (@ 10:01 p.m. ET).

Aly to CNN! A la Kiran?

Fox’s finest foxes have left the building: But, the vixens did it different ways. Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Kiran Chetry was unceremoniously escorted out of the FNC den sans her personal belongings according to NYMag.com whereas whilom F&FW co-anchor Alisyn Camerota was given an “emotional @FoxNews send-off” with her belongings packed by her colleagues. Happily for their respective fans, they both subsequently found a home–at CNN.

As long-time Fox News viewers may well remember, Kiran was a rising star at FNC as co-host of both Fox & Friends Weekend (and Fox & Friends First) in 2006 and she was widely expected by her phalanx of fans to take over for E.D. Hill whenever she left her center seat on the curvy couch: However, FNC Senior VP of Programming Bill Shine dashed her and their hopes when he selected the rather awkward and too oft solipsist Gretchen Carlson for the position on September 22, 2006. Later, in early  2007, Kiran negotiated for a new contract with a high-powered agent who, according to FNC, wanted a term for Kiran to replace Gretchen by a certain date: Conversely, purportedly, she simply wanted a provision that she could escape her contract if she were not awarded that position by a certain date. Consequently, FNC cut off contract negotiations with Kiran in a royal row, and eager CNN’s Prez Jonathan Klein hired the prized journalist that day within an hour of learning of the “extraordinary circumstances.” (According to NYMag.com, a less impressed FNC had the Nepalese lovely escorted out of the building without her personal effects in her office and hubby FNC weatherman Chris Knowles had to “raid her office” to get them–before being “released from his Fox News contract” the very next day.)

Similarly, Kiran’s former FNC colleague, Aly, has been a shining star in the Fox News constellation, deftly doing double duty as the captain of Fox & Friends Weekend and ably subbing for Gretchen on the F&F “A-Team” at the drop of a hat during even the most momentous moments. When Gretchen renegotiated her contract and received her own show, viewers naturally assumed Aly would finally be coronated as F&F weekday queen. Using the same “wisdom” that inanely snubbed Kiran seven years earlier, Shine chose The View‘s discarded damsel Elisabeth Hasselbeck for the role over fan fave Aly: Shortly thereafter, he sent Aly “out to “pasture” with Bill Hemmer for a short while on America’s Newsroom and replaced her on F&FW with his new hire, Anna Kooiman. Subsequently, with Kiran’s purportedly ill-conceived forced exit in mind, FNC and Aly crafted a happier meme: Aly Tweeted a pic of her in her office with her files (with a sweet note that @lauraingle, @JennRiveraTV, and @rickreichmuth had helped her pack) and another of her in the hallway hugging one of many in a gauntlet of FNC colleagues. To any doubting Thomas,  she returned to the building to guest on Kilmeade and Friends, telling her fans, “I left on great terms. I love everybody here: I think the feeling is mutual. And, it’s fun to be back in the building.” But, not for long: On Monday, CNN Worldwide Prez Jeff Zucker announced that he had grabbed the “seasoned journalist with a great curiosity and passion for the news…[that]…has a presence on camera…[that]…is very hard to find.”

Who knows? Maybe, Aly and Kiran fans will be treated to a double espresso of the arousing Aphrodites in the morning. When one Twitter follower Tweeted, “You and @kiranchetrytv should team up again. You two were great,” Aly answered, “That would be a blast.”

Indeed, it would. Vintage Fox & Friends Weekend on CNN? Aly and Kiran: A real “New Day”!

[Author’s aside: It may be no anomaly that Kiran (CNN’s former American Morning co-host) made her return to the CNN morn Sunday on Reliable Sources as a guest journalist in a segment entitled “Women, TV News, and Attractiveness.”]

 

Heather Nauert’s Fake I.D.

“And my parents never knew!” Last Thursday, seemingly straight-laced Fox & Friends news reader Heather Nauert let viewers in on a little secret–she has not always been such a good girl. During an F&F Throwback Thursday segment, Heather showed a facsimile of her first car, a white station wagon with faux wooden side panels.* Elaborating, she said, “This is the mighty wagon that was actually not my car: My friend found this mighty wagon in Illinois about a week ago [and] she took a picture and sent it to me.”

Grinning mischievously, she remarked, “The best story I have about this [is] one day we skipped school, a friend of mine and I did: We went to downtown Chicago to get fake I.D.’s.”

When F&F co-anchor Steve Doocy interjected, “How very Ferris Bueller!,” Heather replied, “Yeah, very Ferris Bueller! Coming back on the expressway, I jumped a median because I had missed my exit, got the car stuck on that median–this is during rush hour in Chicago, right–and so one of those big highway crews then comes by: It’s like this huge truck like the size of a, an ambulance or something and it pushes us off the median. We head home to Rockford, Illinois, and my parents never knew–until now!

Laughing, she exclaimed, “Sorry, Mom!”

As a epilogue, she added, “I think I was seventeen or eighteen….”

Good gal Heather Nauert: I can be bad–really!

* Fox & Friends – 07/10/14 (@ 8:41 a.m. ET).

FOX-y Kiran Returns: CNN Glam?

Chetry: “Are we perfect?”* Kiran Chetry looked luscious this morning as the former American Morning co-host returned to CNN as a guest on Reliable Sources. Paired with older beauty Judy Woodruff, co-host of PBS News Hour, Kiran seemed to make a deliberate decision to glam down, i.e., less makeup, flatter hair, and a more demure dress (sleeveless but with a higher collar and a lower hem). Perhaps, she or CNN’s makeup mavens decided to pander to a more politically correct meme and/or audience.

In his segment [vid via J$P], a  “must-see discussion about women, television news and attractiveness”** (based on a HuffPo article about a British news anchor “who should hike up her skirts”), RS anchor Brian Stelter remarked, “Kiran, you’ve brought some notes with you all of the different things you have been told about how you to dress over the years.” Kiran answered, “When you…called and said…do you want to come join us to talk about this, I laughed.” Elucidating, she explained, “I think that attention to women’s appearance, I think that it’s not just news: I think that’s just sort of society, and we can take it with a grain of salt or we can get very insecure about it.

Sharing her own experience, Kiran explicated, “But, I laughed over the years: People said that I should buy a wig–which I’m actually thinking that I probably should have because my hair is too thin for TV, they didn’t like that–and then I was told not to bare arms but Michelle Obama changed that for all of us.” Of the proffered advice, she added, “Dye your hair blond, wear your skirts shorter…don’t wear pantsuits.”

Subsequently, as Judy bemoaned the inevitable emphasis on the looks of female journalists, Kiran responded, “There is a huge amount of emphasis put on looks: I don’t necessarily think [that] it’s a horrible thing [but] it’s definitely, it’s trying.” When Brian asked for specifics, Kiran related that when she was a twenty-two old anchor in an NBC affiliate (WICU-TV) in Erie, Pennsylvania, she posited the adiaphorous example of being encouraged to wear shoulder pads and “pouffed out hair” to look older.

Hoping for a more apt example, perchance, Brian asked, “When you were at Fox News, was there a more of a focus on your looks than there were at other places?”

Smiling and tilting her head alluringly, Kiran replied, “Yeah, one of my favorite quotes ever: Never mind, I can’t say it. I can’t, I just realized that I can’t say it. I’ll tell you later!”

Don’t hold out, Kiran! As to whether you look perfect, to paraphrase Alabama for your steadfast fans, “you’re close enough to perfect for me.” And, when you really return to TV, the author has a feeling you just might be.

* Reliable Sources – 07/13/14 (11:17 a.m. ET). [Re the subtitle, supra, Kiran asked at the beginning of the segment, “Are we perfect because we’re both wearing sleeveless?”]

Kiran Back–on CNN!

Comely Chetry: “Hope u watch!” This afternoon, former American Morning co-host Kiran Chetry proclaimed that she is back–Sunday on CNN Reliable Sources. After roaming two years in the desert, the Nepalese lovely has finally returned to her “Promised Land” of cable news. In missives to her Twitter followers and to her FB friends, she proclaimed, “Heading back to NYC after taping a segment w @brianstelter @CNN in DC for this week’s @CNNReliable. Hope u watch this Sunday 11AM est!”

The author shall indeed, Kiran. And, it is about time that you graced the airwaves anew! After arousing your acolytes for over a decade on both FNC (Fox & Friends First & Fox & Friends Weekend) and CNN (American Morning) from the embrace of Morpheus, you’ll be a sight for sore eyes.

Welcome back, Kiran–and stick around for a while!

 

Cheryl Casone: Holiday Honey?

Lady in red lacking: But, four for Fourth! Today, blond beauty FBN anchor Cheryl Casone did double duty subbing for fellow towheads Ainsley Earhardt on Fox & Friends First and Martha MacCallum on America’s Newsroom. As Cheryl filled in ably for her vacationing FNC counterparts today, she seemed to think that today was all business and to forget that it is a fun national holiday.

Dressed aptly in a patriotic red dress, she wore it just a little too long o’er the knee–at least, by Ainsley’s standard and even the more demure Martha’s metric.  If was almost as if the tyro co-host were saying, “If you’re tuning in to F&FF and AN on Independence Day, you are such an FNC diehard that you are going to watch regardless of what I don or don’t.”

Nevertheless, it was delightful to see Cheryl finally sit in the F&FF and AN co-anchor chairs. The FBN jobs babe proved that she definitely has the potential to be an FNC anchor: I.e., she has the beauty–and brains. But, she may well want to remember that a visibly leggy blond goes a long way on the channel–especially, during the holidays.

Break a leg, Cheryl: Or, show ’em a bit more!