NBC News just announced that retired Nightly News anchor and eminence grise Tom Brokaw will moderate "Meet the Press" through the 2008 election. NBC News president Steve Capus said, "A lot has been said in recent days about what 'Meet the Press' means to NBC News and to the nation. To have someone of Tom's stature step up and dedicate himself to ensuring its ongoing success is not only a testament to his loyalty to......

That just happened! Senator Barack Obama won the Democratic Iowa Caucus with at least 37% of the vote (projections are changing). Former Senator John Edwards got 30% of the vote while Senator Hillary Clinton got 29%. The media is playing this as a huge failure for the Senator from New York, given how powerful the Clinton machine has seemed. Also stunning: There were 82% more Democratic voters in this year's caucus compared with 2004,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a staircase collapse on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn, an unusual escort on Van Wyck and Atlantic Aves. in Queens, and a person fatally struck by a train at 170th St. and Jerome Ave. in the Bronx. 2007 marks the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 PC. The computer, which attached the primary system with the monitor and the keyboard, had a whopping 64K of memory. 17 million were sold.......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., HBO) A look at America's favorite insult comic and last surviving member of the “Rat Pack”, the octogenarian Don Rickles from director John Landis. Everyone from Chris Rock to Bob Newhart to Clint Eastwood to Sidney Poitier talk about the comic. 1968 (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., History Channel) 1968 was a turbulent and tragic year and Tom Brokaw not......

The best part of Mayor Bloomberg's maybe, maybe-not presidential aspirations is that we can debate about whether they are going to happen until the Democratic and Republican conventions next year! The NY Times now reports that the "excitement seems to have fizzled" about the idea of Candidate Bloomberg. It's a bit more detailed that Dan Rather's August proclamation that the Mayor would not run for president. Why? Mainly because of the "mayor’s unorthodox approach to......

Mayor Bloomberg is back from London, just in time to deliver an address at Cooper Union while the world's media is milling about NYC for the U.N.'s General Assembly. Bloomberg will be appearing as part of a panel near Astor Place to discuss national policy matters. According to The New York Sun, an online site is attracting a growing number of supporters to draft Mayor Bloomberg as a third party candidate in the 2008 Presidential......

The Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Center's observations decks, opens today after being closed for 19 years, and it will soon become something anyone visiting New York for the first time or someone who has lived here for ages will want to do. We've been excited about this since reading the NY Times article in March, and Gothamist was able to head up there before today's opening and we weren't disappointed. It truly is......

Peter Jennings, the ABC News anchor up until this past April when he announced he had lung cancer, died last night at his Central Park West home. The NY Times obituary describes him as "urbane", which definitely rings true: Of the Big Three anchors, Dan Rather was blunt and straight-talking, Tom Brokaw was more paternalistic, and Jennings was simply smooth. Jennings was an international journalist at heart, relishing the opportunity to report from overseas, notably......

CBS News announced that Dan Rather will give his last evening news broadcast in March 2005. At 73, Rather has had a long and storied career, which was recently marred by the whole Bush National Guard incident. Rather is 73, which makes soon-to-step-down Tom Brokaw look like a spring chicken at 66. And if you asked Gothamist which newsman would be arrested over a meatloaf, we would have said Dan Rather, not the 86 year-old......

Gothamist used to remember when we'd have a good idea of who would be president around dinner time. However, the very special episode of "America Picks A President" in 2000 had special guest appearances by "Hanging Chad," "James Baker," and "Overanxious Journalists Who Wanted To Call The Election." So this year, we must wait before we know who will be kicking his legs up in the White House come next January. Will it be......

A few major telelvision critics weigh in about the Democratic National Convention coverage so far: The Daily News' David Bianculli like old footage of Tom Brokaw on the convention floor in 1976 (the election is Brokaw's swan song, before he retires) but didn't like how CNN showed the empty seats at the Fleet Center; he also notes that Fox News covered the disappearance of pregnant Lori Hacking a lot. The Washington Post's Tom Shales thought......

When Tom Brokaw reported that White House officials said that many of the images from President Bush's speech last night, aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, would appear in re-election commercials, it became clear that's what this speech was: Ostensibly to talk about Iraq, but really the first stump speech Bush is giving. And the setting alone was artful and dramatic. Forget the speech, his Bush's handlers and the Republican party seized an awesome moment:......

It's Day 2 of Polls at Gothamist, and it seems that President Bush's approval rating is pretty high here in New York State. He is even viewed more favorably than Senator Hillary Clinton (which doesn't seem THAT hard), let alone the Democratic hopefuls for President, Senators Joe Lieberman and John Kerrey. Analysts attribute that to Americans feeling glad the war is being handled swiftly, and, the Democratic analysts especially, expect his ratings to drop......

Gothamist saw funeral mourners starting to gather outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral today, to remember David Bloom. We were surprised that the police were setting up barricades, as David Bloom, while a popular journalist, was not the most famous. But, as parts of his funeral was covered on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, it's clear that he symbolizes something bigger than just journalism: a passion for his work, rapport with the audience, the public's......