Nbc News

When the Nielsen numbers rolled out yesterday, NBC News' flagship, the top-ranked "NBC Nightly News," had turned in its best year-round ratings in 32 years. So how come nobody says TV's No. 1 newscast is TV's best? Wrong question, says David Doss, the show's exec producer since 1996. "It's not a question of us not getting the recognition we deserve," he said. Doss would rather talk about his show's success, which he attributes in part to the success of NBC's "Today" and "Dateline" franchises and cable's MSNBC.

LOOKS LIKE Ed Rendell is being hired at NBC News, though in what capacity is not yet clear, sources say. Politico.com reported yesterday that Rendell was close to signing with MSNBC, for which he would become a "regular political contributor for the 2012 campaign cycle," according to Politico's David Catanese . We're told Rendell could be used on other NBC News broadcasts, too. An NBC News spokeswoman declined comment yesterday. "I'm doing it mostly because I want to continue to participate in the public dialogue and speeches and television are the best venues to do that," the former governor told Catanese.

ANTAKYA, Turkey - NBC News correspondent Richard Engel and his four-person crew were freed unharmed Monday after being kidnapped inside Syria and subjected to five days of forced moves and death threats. The journalists were released following a gun battle between their captors and Syrian rebels at a checkpoint manned by the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, NBC said. They crossed safely back into Turkey. Appearing on the Today show Tuesday morning, Engel, 39, said his captors were part of a government militia known as Shabiha, which is loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

R2D2 and C3PO are coming to the NBC Nightly News. Beginning in mid-February, NBC will use - gasp - robots to operate cameras on Tom Brokaw's Nightly News. A few months after that, the robotic shutterbugs will also surface on NBC News at Sunrise as well as on NBC specials and election reports. According to Tom Wolzien, the peacock's vice president for editorial production services, virtually all the in-studio camera work in those shows involves static head shots. He figures that using three robot cameras could save the budget-minded network almost $1 million a year.

"There will always be some errors in newsgathering, but the tricks that microphones, cameras and film make possible should never be contrived to document an event that we missed or may never have happened. " - Edward R. Murrow Yesterday's announcement that NBC News President Michael Gartner was stepping down was met with anything but surprise. Gartner, 54, relinquished day-to-day responsibilities for the news division and announced he will resign as president Aug. 1. The former Wall Street Journal editor is an apparent casualty of the fallout from a "Dateline NBC" report that featured a General Motors truck that network testers rigged with explosives.

NBC News president Lawrence K. Grossman, whose network leads the news ratings at night and in the morning, yesterday promised expanded service in 1987 even though the number of his employees has been cut. Grossman said NBC would air 15 one-hour documentaries this year, triple the number of 1986, and would begin a Sunday-morning newscast "in the middle of the year. " He said he also was planning to expand Today to seven mornings a week, although he gave no target date. During a 50-minute news conference before about 80 television critics at the Century Plaza Hotel, Grossman spent much of his time fielding questions about NBC's new owner, General Electric, and whether GE would supply the resources necessary to continue NBC's sweeping successes in news last year.

NBC News president Michael Gartner, whose career sustained devastating damage after one of his shows blew up a General Motors pickup truck, announced yesterday that he was resigning. Gartner, 54, a distinguished newspaper editor before he took over NBC News almost five years ago, acknowledged that the now-infamous Dateline NBC story contributed to the timing of his departure. In that scandal, the network faked crash-test results on a GM pickup truck and was forced into an apology Feb. 9 to settle a defamation lawsuit.

In the Region   Cabot begins Pa. fracking with gas   Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. became the latest exploration company - and the first in northeastern Pennsylvania - to use natural gas to fuel its hydraulic fracturing operations. The Texas drilling company, which is producing Marcellus Shale gas in Susquehanna County, announced that it has converted the compressors employed in fracking to use a combination of diesel and natural gas, displacing about 70 percent of the diesel typically used in the high-energy process.

NBC News and Comcast Corp. moved on Monday to fix brand confusion between the MSNBC 24-hour cable news show, whose ratings have surged with liberal commentators Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz, and the straight-news MSNBC.com news website. Comcast and NBC bought out Microsoft's 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million late last week. Readers logging on to MSNBC.com on Monday were redirected to NBCNews.com, a new website. NBC officials would not comment on the financial terms of buying out their 16-year partner in the venture.

Common Pleas Court Judge Juanita Kidd Stout spoke with guest speaker Andrea Mitchell of NBC News yesterday at a luncheon where Stout, 75, received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award from the Philadelphia Bar Association for her legal achievements.

In the Region   Cabot begins Pa. fracking with gas   Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. became the latest exploration company - and the first in northeastern Pennsylvania - to use natural gas to fuel its hydraulic fracturing operations. The Texas drilling company, which is producing Marcellus Shale gas in Susquehanna County, announced that it has converted the compressors employed in fracking to use a combination of diesel and natural gas, displacing about 70 percent of the diesel typically used in the high-energy process.

PHILADELPHIA 3 judges suspended from Traffic Court The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday suspended without pay three of the nine judges indicted Thursday for what federal investigators called a massive "culture of ticket-fixing" at Philadelphia's Traffic Court. The suspended judges are Michael Sullivan, who had been administrative judge until being removed from the leadership post in December 2011 by the Supreme Court while the federal probe was still going on; Michael Lowry, and Chester County District Judge Mark Bruno, who heard cases in Traffic Court.

British authorities have decided not to prosecute Aussie DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian , who impersonated members of the royal family in a prank call to London's King Edward VII's Hospital on Dec. 4. Posing as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles , they asked after the pregnant Kate Middleton . Jacintha Saldanha , the nurse who originally took the call, committed suicide three days later. (The reasons have never been clarified.) Reports suggested the DJs might be charged with manslaughter, but prosecutors on Friday said there were no grounds.

ANTAKYA, Turkey - NBC News correspondent Richard Engel and his four-person crew were freed unharmed Monday after being kidnapped inside Syria and subjected to five days of forced moves and death threats. The journalists were released following a gun battle between their captors and Syrian rebels at a checkpoint manned by the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, NBC said. They crossed safely back into Turkey. Appearing on the Today show Tuesday morning, Engel, 39, said his captors were part of a government militia known as Shabiha, which is loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

NBC News and Comcast Corp. moved on Monday to fix brand confusion between the MSNBC 24-hour cable news show, whose ratings have surged with liberal commentators Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz, and the straight-news MSNBC.com news website. Comcast and NBC bought out Microsoft's 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million late last week. Readers logging on to MSNBC.com on Monday were redirected to NBCNews.com, a new website. NBC officials would not comment on the financial terms of buying out their 16-year partner in the venture.

Former NBC president Julian Goodman, 90, who helped establish Chet Huntley and David Brinkley as a news team and led the network from 1966 to 1974, died Monday. He died of kidney failure in Juno Beach, Fla., where he lived after retiring as chairman of NBC's board in 1979. The native of Glasgow, Ky., joined the network at the night news desk in Washington in 1945. He rose to become executive vice president of NBC News at the time Huntley and Brinkley were competitors to Walter Cronkite on CBS. As network president, he gave Johnny Carson a long-term contract to stay on the Tonight show and helped make the American Football League a force by broadcasting the upstart league.

An Ohio man became the second purported victim of Jerry Sandusky to divulge his name and publicly accuse the former coach of child molestation in an interview Thursday with NBC News. Travis Weaver, 30, alleged that the former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach coaxed him into locker room showers, took him to bowl games, and often invited him to sleep over at his State College home. In all, he said, he was abused more than 100 times over a period of four years starting when he was 10. "I'd punch him in his mouth," Weaver said, when asked what he would do if he saw the former coach again.

Rob Zombie will write, direct and produce "Broad Street Bullies," a film about the 1970s-era Stanley Cup-winning Flyers, reports Deadline.com.   Zombie, the former White Zombie musician who became a successful horror filmmaker with "House Of 1000 Corpses" and "Halloween," tells the website that he has the rights to the Flyers story and the full support of the Flyers organization. "The backdrop of the turbulent year of 1974 is perfect for this ‘stranger than fiction' sports tale," Zombie told Deadline.com's Mike Fleming.

David Gomberg, 86, a legendary behind-the-scenes "idea man" and mentor in Philadelphia TV news, died Wednesday, May 30, at his home in Cherry Hill. Known professionally as Dave Neal, Mr. Gomberg had suffered from congestive heart failure and kidney failure, his family said. Mr. Gomberg worked for all four TV news operations in Philadelphia as well as KYW radio. He was an assignment manager, producer, or adviser to such luminaries as Larry Kane, Jessica Savitch, and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.

Camryn Drew Rollins is the newest Phillies fan. The baby girl was born to shortstop Jimmy Rollins and fitness trainer bride Johari Smith Rollins late Sunday night. The little lady weighed in at 5 pounds, 11 ounces. As we mentioned yesterday, Rollins had to leave a charity event Sunday night upon learning that Johari was in labor. He was out of the lineup on paternity leave for Monday's and Tuesday's games against the Washington Nationals. Jimmy and Johari wed in the Grand Cayman Islands in January 2010.