Cnn

"It's one thing to try to get a movie out the weekend before Harry Potter - it's another thing to get [yourself] out the weekend before the invasion of Iraq. " That's Michael Keaton, talking about the "almost spooky" timing of HBO's Live From Baghdad (8 p.m. Saturday), a docudrama detailing CNN's live-behind-enemy-lines coverage of the 1991 Persian Gulf war against Iraq. "The reality [of another possible war with Iraq] just makes this film more intense and timely and pressing by the hour," Keaton adds.

CNN has fired anchor Rick Sanchez a day after he called Jon Stewart a bigot while on a radio show. Sanchez said on a satellite radio program Thursday that Stewart was bigoted toward "everybody else that's not like him. " The Daily Show host has frequently poked fun at Sanchez on the air. When radio host Peter Dominick pointed out that Stewart is Jewish, Sanchez said: "Just because someone's Jewish, they're not capable of...

Is Michael Moore not a nice man? Could Moore be a boor? The New York Daily News reports that the portly director of the dissentious anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 was unutterably rude to CNN staffers Monday in Boston after he gave an interview on the Democratic National Convention's main floor for the cable channel's American Morning show. To be on the floor, you need a coveted, priceless credential - and only a limited number are distributed. CNN gave Moore a floor pass so he could do the interview.

CNN commentator Robert Novak was indefinitely suspended by the network yesterday after he cussed and walked off the set of Inside Politics in response to needling by Democratic operative and fellow commentator James Carville. When Novak didn't come back, CNN correspondent Ed Henry said he'd been about to ask Novak about his role in the investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity. Novak and Carville were debating the Florida Senate campaign of would-be GOP candidate Katherine Harris when Novak suggested she might win as an "anti-establishment candidate.

THE WAR OF words between CNN and "fair and balanced" Fox News has expanded beyond words . . . to numbers. Phone numbers. While defending telemarketers during a segment on "Crossfire" last week, bow-tied "from the right"co-host Tucker Carlson was asked for his home phone number. Carlson gave out a number - for the Washington bureau of "fair and balanced" Fox News. Paybacks are a bitch. To get back at Carlson, Fox posted his unlisted home number on its Web site. After his wife was inundated with obscene calls, Carlson called Fox and complained.

News event or TV show? CNN will broadcast Ross Perot and Vice President Al Gore debating the North American Free Trade Agreement on Tuesday night. The faceoff will be staged not as a freestanding forum but as a segment of CNN's weeknight program "Larry King Live. " As a result, the 90-minute program, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. (EST), will not be made available to other networks to carry live, CNN said yesterday. "It's going to be your typical 'Larry King Live' format, with live call- ins," King spokeswoman Maggie Simpson said yesterday.

The CNN dilemma is a simple one to understand, but hard to solve. When big news breaks, ratings soar. When news isn't happening, its ratings aren't either. The network is in the throes of a management shakeup, signaling that the ratings struggle continues to plague it. The head of CNN's national operations, Rick Kaplan, is departing. CNN called a staff meeting in Atlanta yesterday to discuss the changes, said a network executive speaking on condition of anonymity.

As bombs began raining on Baghdad and America rushed to its television sets, no other network could match CNN's live coverage of the historic event. Even U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, in Washington when U.S. air strikes begin, relied on CNN to track the initial stages of the Persian Gulf war. Two hours after the bombing began, when a reporter asked Cheney what he'd heard from the front, Cheney replied, "The best reporting that I've seen on what transpired in Baghdad was on CNN. " From 7 p.m. until almost 10 p.m., without commercial interruption, CNN correspondents Bernard Shaw, John Holliman and Peter Arnett brought the sound of bombs bursting in air into American living rooms.

The idea that Ted Turner wants to lure top-dollar, high-profile network talent like NBC's Tom Brokaw and Bryant Gumbel to his long-standing Cable News Netork is anything but crazy. Having them jump aboard, though, would require a large leap of faith on their part, as well as very deep pockets on the part of CNN. With broadcasters all positioning themselves to launch rival 24-hour news networks, Turner is betting that his established outfit, coupled with newly purchased star power, will give him the advantage he needs to stay ahead of any emerging rivals.

As even Dan Rather, the macho master of anchor-weird conceded, watching our boys make a midnight amphibious landing live on the beach at Mogadishu, Somalia, blinded by TV lights, was one "Hollywoodish, even cartoonish" spectacle. Rather's wasn't the only media dear-me. Tuesday night live and for the next day's editions, electronic and print reporters waxed caustic about the quality of the circus they had starred in and promoted. The Pentagon picked up the refrain. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said his lines yesterday, harrumphing at CNN about reporters' dangerous intrusiveness and thanking heaven nobody was hurt.