Hotline website works on WETA news projects Originally published in Current, Oct. 22, 2001 By Steve Behrens Washington's WETA-FM/TV is developing three projects with The Hotline, the National Journal Group's highly clued-in, $5,250-a-year subscription website that summarizes the day's political news as reported by other media for a loyal readership of news junkies in government, lobbying and media. WETA is already trying out one of projects on the air in Washington. Since Oct. 9, the public TV station has aired a two-and-a-half-minute briefing called Hotline World Extra every night at 10:56 p.m., according to Jeff Bieber, executive producer for the station. Unlike the Hotline website, which concentrates mostly on federal and state politics, the nightly TV briefs deal only with overseas developments related to terrorism. Craig Crawford, executive publisher of The Hotline and a familiar talking head on CBS This Morning, anchors the newscasts. Simon Marks, head of Feature Story News, is a frequent guest. But these short newscasts could be seen as a tryout for a bigger project, Hotline TV, with a mostly-politics scope similar to the website's. WETA is developing plans for a weekly half-hour for national broadcast. Crawford would co-host the series with Dee Dee Myers, the commentator who was President Clinton's first press secretary. Though Hotline TV is proposed as a weekly, Bieber says it would be ideal for nightly broadcast. The program is "hipper and edgier" than most public TV, with a late-night feel, and is "definitely being fashioned to appeal to younger viewers," he says. Project No. 3 is a public radio spinoff of the Hotline website, under development at WETA-FM. To make an hour-long block for public radio, the 30-minute weekly broadcast could be bundled with WETA-TV's Washington Week roundtable, according to Bieber.

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	Outside links: Free sample of The Hotline website and WETA's Hotline TV website.

Web page posted Oct. 25, 2001
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