Cynthia Littleton On The Air

This and that...

Among the guests on the next seg of CNBC's "Conversations with Michael Eisner" is the peacock's Ben Silverman. Episode is set to air Sept. 26 and also features L.A.'s hizzoner Antonio Villaraigosa and celeb blogger Perez Hilton....

Among the events of particular interest (to me) on the Paley Center for Media (fka the Museum of Television & Radio) sked of events for the 2007-08 season include seshes at the New York outposts with the writers from CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman," set for Nov. 9; a so-long-farewell-Auf-Weidersehn-etc. to "Scrubs" (Nov. 10); and an "Evening with" sitdown with the inimitable Angela Lansbury (Nov. 14), pictured left. At the Bev Hills branch, good times outta be had at the Oct. 1 "Inside 'Robot Chicken' panel -- that's gotta be a bizarre 90-minutes; the 100th-seg salute to "Two and a Half Men" (Oct. 3); and the "Lou Grant" reunion (Nov. 16)...

Kinda sad to see that Don Bellisario didn't appear to make it to the "NCIS" 100th-episode cake-cutting photo op on Tuesday. I never did figure out the story behind Bellisario's abrupt exit from the drama he created (one of many) at the start of last season -- some reports blamed it on a clash between him and star Mark Harmon. Oh well, Bellisario will soon (one day?) be able to take comfort in his syndie residual and profit-participation checks.

Mirthala Salinas and her bosses face up to cardinal journo sins

The tawdry story of the local TV anchor/reporter who was reporting on Hizzoner Antonio Villaraigosa even while having a romantic relationship with him -- reporting the news of the breakup of his marriage, no less -- has come to something of a close with the hammer coming down from the top brass at NBC Universal-owned Telemundo. (For the details read the Variety.com report.)

The upshot is a bunch of suspensions, reprimands and job reassignments for following a three-week probe of the sticky situation involving Mirthala Salinas (pictured), an anchor/correspondent for Telemundo O&O KVEA-TV, and Villaraigosa, whose smiling mug until recently was on local TV enough to earn him an AFTRA card. Here's what I don't understand: How can these folks come back to their jobs with any kind of editorial credibility whatsoever?