Former LAPD Police Chief and Collaborate Or Perish! author William Bratton seems to have dropped something of a bomb on Current TV’s The Young Turks, telling host Cenk Uygur Tuesday night that his LAPD “had interactions with the CIA” to “to make them aware of our capabilities and our needs.”

While the CIA’s coordination with the NYPD has been big news, Bratton’s bombshell has proven a silent but deadly, barely registering with the news media.

The most frequently sent email tip we get here at Mediaite, other than fan mail meant for Geraldo Rivera, are pleas to feature MORE of Pastor James David Manning. You ask, we withhold. Then grudgingly oblige. Last week, we told you about some very important, highly exclusive intel Manning had obtained about Newt Gingrich and [...]

Ed Schultz, star of MSNBC’s primetime lead The Ed Show, is coming off of a year that saw his cable news fortunes rise considerably. On the strength of his years of broadcast experience, and his early catch of 2011′s populist protest wave, and a series of events that landed him in the 8pm timeslot on MSNBC, Schultz is now firmly embedded at the forefront of liberal media consciousness. In this portion of our exclusive interview, Ed discusses his views on hot-button issues like marriage equality, abortion rights, and gun control.

The enigmatic feud between Countdown host Keith Olbermann and his network, Current TV, has ended, not with a bang, but with a Sunday announcement that the fiery liberal provocateur has agreed to anchor the network’s election coverage following Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary, which isn’t quite the network’s preferred outcome, but close enough. Still unresolved is the reason for this dust-up, which Olbermann has implied had at least something to do with technical difficulties on his news hour.

During Current TV‘s Iowa caucus coverage Tuesday night, network founder and former Vice President Al Gore,tore into Rep. Ron Paul, telling The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur and host of the upcoming War Room former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm that Paul only has a chance in “fantasyland,” and calling Paul’s isolationist foreign policy positions “silly.”

While Gore’s diatribe won’t likely lose Current many viewers, it will likely earn him some hate mail from the Paul faithful.

Keith Olbermann has been manning the fort over at Current TV as its chief news officer since his departure from MSNBC last year, and yet at least one New York Times reporter noticed that, for his prominent position, he appears noticeably absent during the network’s campaign coverage. Brian Stelter went on a quest to find Olbermann outside of his time slot and found little answers, other than off-the-record tensions between Olbermann and the network’s administration.

Friday’s year-end review episode of Current TV’s The Young Turks was a veritable feast for longtime Young Turks viewers and noobs alike, as host Cenk Uygur gave each of his fellow Young Turks a turn in the spotlight. Among the treats was a piece of video, courtesy of longtime co-host Ben Mankiewicz, in which Cenk commits an act of supreme liberal heresy, and tells future boss Al Gore to stop contesting the 2000 presidential election. He does this in characteristically low-key fashion, imploring Gore “For the love of God, stop!”

In a heated interview discussing the role of money in politics, Current TV’s Cenk Uygur cut the mic of financial pundit Peter Schiff after he had interrupted him.

On Wednesday night’s The Young Turks (on Current TV), host Cenk Uygur took The New York Times to the woodshed for that most irritating of mainstream media foibles: “some say”-variety false objectivity. Uygur took apart the Times’ Charlie Savage for his coverage of Attorney General Eric Holder‘s Tuesday speech on voting rights in Austin, Texas, and even went so far as to accuse the Gray Lady of conservative bias. Uygur is 99.64% right, 0% wrong.

Current TV announced on Thursday that The Young Turks With Cenk Uygur, their new show starring former MSNBC anchor Cenk Uygur, now has an official start date: Dec. 5. The show, according to a release from Current, will air at 7 p.m., acting as the lead-in for Keith Olbermann.

Last Friday, I made my way down to Zuccotti Park to meet up with Current TV’s latest host, Cenk Uygur (who was taping a week’s worth of shows there), for a quick discussion about a variety of topics: the Occupy Wall Street movement, the role of corporate media in its coverage of the protest, and when and what we can expect to see his new Young Turks show on Current. A series of unfortunate events conspired to delay the interview, which lessened the total time to just a few minutes. However, Uygur packed a lot of observations about the OWS protests, the Tea Party, and the media into our short visit.

On the heels of its signing of The Young Turks‘ Cenk Uygur, Current TV has announced that former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm will star in a new show, called The War Room, that will follow ratings anchor Countdown with Keith Olbermann at 9pm. Former Vice President Al Gore, Chairman and co-founder of Current, is very high on Granholm, telling reporters this afternoon that, had it not been for her Canadian birth, she might have become the first female President of the United States.

Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, soon to join CurrentTV as Keith Olbermann‘s lead-in, lit into freshly-minted CNN OutFront host Erin Burnett over what he saw as a smug, fact-challenged segment ridiculing the Occupy Wall Street protest. Uygur delivered a blistering critique of Burnett on The Young Turks this week. When I asked him about the media’s coverage of the protests, he had praise for some, but slammed Fox News, and called much of the mainstream media’s reporting on this “abhorrent.”

On the heels of CurrentTV’s announcement that The Young Turks will join Keith Olbermann at the network as Countdown‘s lead-in, host Cenk Uygur and Current president Al Gore held a tele-press conference Tuesday afternoon. Gore talked about expanding Current’s lineup even more, and Uygur assured current Young Turks fans that he would be bringing the [...]

strong>Cenk Uygur is joining his fellow former MSNBC veteran Keith Olbermann and heading to Current TV. Uygur’s new show, The Young Turks, will be an original televised news program airing every weeknight at 7 p.m., capitalizing on the success of his internet talk show of the same name.

Current TV co-founder Al Gore has said that Uygur and his collaborators “have exploded in popularity because of ‘The Young Turks” authentic and passionate voice.” Uygur himself adds that he’s excited to join the network, calling it “the perfect home” for his show and… What’s this? A subtle dig at a certain cable news network, perhaps?

Although MSNBC has benefited, ratings-wise, from Al Sharpton‘s unpaid stint on the network, it has yet to make him a firm offer.

Sources have told The Daily that MSNBC head Phil Griffin is stalling on giving Sharpton a temporary position at the network, where he’s been filling in for the recently ousted Cenk Uygur at the 6 p.m. slot.

And Cenk Uygur said MSNBC wanted things “toned down.” Not hardly–at least not on Dylan Ratigan‘s show of late. As we’ve reported, MSNBC political commentator Jimmy Williams argued on Ratigan’s show this week that “anybody that thinks the Tea Party exists is smoking crack cocaine in America.” Well, turns out that wasn’t the only gem Williams had to offer, saying on the program that “one person is controlling the agenda of the United States of America right now, and his name is Grover Norquist.”

Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources to further explain his separation from the network and to speculate why he is likely being replaced by Al Sharpton. However, Howard Kurtz wasn’t really convinced by Uygur’s theories, and instead was curious why he gets “ticked off” by an employer giving him notes on his style?

The dust has hardly begun to settle in the wake of Cenk Uygur’s departure from MSNBC but already we can see the two distinct storylines being pushed by the respective parties involved. Uygur says MSNBC wanted him to tone it down and MSNBC says it wanted Uygur to tone it down but where they differ is what exactly needed to be toned down and who was concerned about the tone in the first place. However, ultimately none of that is relevant because it doesn’t matter what the truth is…what matters is what does the audience that Uygur catered to think is the truth. And to begin to answer that question we need to first look at how MSNBC went left in primetime.

While introducing his segment with departed MSNBC host Cenk Uygur Thursday night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann trashed MSNBC’s reported hiring of Rev. Al Sharpton to replace Uygur, and even suggested a quid pro quo between MSNBC and Sharpton’s National Action Network.

This week Cenk Uygur lost his spot as interim host of the 6pm slot on MSNBC; since then there has been something of a he said/he said surrounding the reasons behind Uygur’s departure from the cable news network. Last night, Uygur appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which now appears on the fledgling Current network, for an interview rife with hidden meanings, subtext, and almost Shakespearean tragic tones.

The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur has never been a man afraid to talk a big game, even now that he’s been dropped from MSNBC. In fact, much of the coverage surrounding Uygur’s six month stint for the network had been devoted to his own promises for the show, the most famous of which (to regular Mediate readers, in any case) came coupled with barbs aimed at rival network Fox News.

Back in February, our own Colby Hall reported that Uygur had directly targeted That Which is Fair and Balanced, telling AlterNet that he planned to “beat them in the ratings and make them fear me”… all before he had even secured the 6 p.m. slot on MSNBC.

In explaining his departure from MSNBC, Cenk Uygur related a conversation with the “head of MSNBC” in which he was told that “people in Washington are concerned about your tone.”

The story caught the attention of conservative website The Blaze, which asks “Is the White House Programming a News Channel?”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tells Mediaite, exclusively, that they, alas, are not involved in leaning the network forward, or in any other direction.

With the door at 30 Rock shut firmly behind him, ex-MSNBC host Cenk Uygur‘s version of events–that he refused to “tone down” his show in the face of political pressure–is getting sharply rejected by network bosses. “Cenk’s claims are completely baseless,” an MSNBC spokesperson told Mediaite. “It’s unfortunate that he’s decided to depart in such a negative fashion.” Uygur, host of the web talk show The Young Turks, had been hosting the 6 p.m. hour for MSNBC for nearly six months on a trial basis.

Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur‘s departure from the network earlier today was fairly quiet for a close-to-primetime host, and the network made it clear it was his choice to leave. It didn’t take long for the newly liberated Uygur to address his fans, however, and explain what exactly he was doing with his career, turning down a different role at the network and much money. In the end, he explained, it boils down to this: Cenk Uygur is a tiger, and MSNBC tried to cage him.