Studio B guest host Trace Gallagher talked with Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace and ask him about CNN’s John King‘s controversial opening debate question on Newt Gingrich‘s “open marriage” scandal. “Yeah, I would have!” Wallace exclaimed.

Thursday’s South Carolina debate started off with a bang when moderator John King swiftly and immediately tackled the elephant in the room, asking former Speaker Newt Gingrich about his ex-wife’s ABC News interview about his affair and the dissolution of their marriage.

You may have heard that Newt Gingrich opened Thursday night’s GOP debate with some fireworks, accusing CNN and moderator John King of asking an “appalling” question to start the debate, and blasting, “the destructive vicious negative nature of much of the news media.” On Thursday morning, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy expressed his displeasure at CNN, introducing a segment on the debate by suggesting that his rival news network would never open a Democratic debate with a question that personal in nature

During CNN’s South Carolina debate, the audience erupted in jeers when John King tried to switch topics from abortion before letting Congressman Ron Paul give his two-cents. “All right, let’s take another question,” King said, before being interrupted by the crowd to let Paul respond. “Let’s take a question now from social media question — before we move on, you want in on this issue?”

Have you been watching this debate, people? Hoo boy. At one point, moderator John King asked Rick Santorum to respond to Newt Gingrich‘s assessment that he and former candidate Rick Perry would do well to drop out of the race, citing their lack of “knowledge” to do anything on a grand scale.

During CNN’s South Carolina debate, moderator John King asked the GOP candidates to weigh in on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Bill being discussed in Congress, and all of them expressed disapproval.

Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich excoriated CNN’s John King at Thursday’s South Carolina debate for asking if the former Speaker of the House wanted to respond to the allegations by Gingrich’s ex-wife that he had asked her for an “open marriage.” “I am, frankly, astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate,” Gingrich fumed.

Appearing on John King USA on Wednesday evening, Rick Santorum denied he said he didn’t want to make “black people’s lives better” during a pre-caucus campaign event Sunday in Sioux City, Iowa. “I’ve looked at that quote, in fact I looked at the video,” Santorum argued. “In fact, I’m pretty confident I didn’t say black. I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — mumbled it and sort of changed my thought.”

CNN had a few great moments way past midnight tonight– the loosening of the proverbial tie happening somewhere around 1:30 AM. But the votes had still not come in, and an industrious producer put Wolf Blitzer in contact with the Clinton County, Iowa Republican Chairwoman, Edith Pfeffer, and the woman who woke her up to get the votes to CNN, Carolyn Talett.

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

Thursday evening, CNN’s John King reported on the Saga of Siri. For those of you who require a recap: Siri is the personal assistant the iPhone 4 uses to help you answer your questions, find directions, make you feel loved, etc. Siri’s inability and/or apparent unwillingness to provide information about nearby abortion facilities caused a [...]

Republican frontrunner Newt Gingrich has an extensive resume, outperforms most of his peers in debates, and has a solid conservative record. But his one weakness among social conservatives– his checkered personal past–has now taken a backseat to the potential personal failings of his rival Herman Cain, who faces yet another accusation of sexual misconduct from Georgia businesswoman Ginger White. Gingrich appeared on tonight’s John King USA for a campaign update, and responded to the new allegations.

Sen. John McCain has been one of the most vocal Republicans speaking out against mistreatment of enemy combatants since the topic became salient once again upon the beginning of the War on Terror and, naturally, he was not happy to see his party so willing to use waterboarding techniques in interrogations in last Saturday’s debate. “Of course I am disappointed,” he told host John King on CNN today, arguing that waterboarding was “an affront to all the standards that we believe in” and clearly illegal as per the Geneva Conventions.

Texas governor Rick Perry stopped by John King USA to offer his reaction to Mark Block‘s recent allegation that his campaign had a role in leaking information about Herman Cain‘s sexual harassment charges to the media. Block, you’ll recall, recently pointed a finger at Curt Anderson, a former Cain employee who is now part of Perry’s campaign, adding that Perry and his staffers owe an apology to Cain, his family, and to the American people.

Many conservatives have taken to defending Herman Cain with strong words for those that have reported the story, harkening back to the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and using the Justice’s term, “high-tech lynching,” to describe the sexual harassment charges that have come to light. On John King USA tonight, the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell tried to explain the acceptability of the use of the term to Roland Martin, who found it profoundly offensive to the victims of actual lynchings over the past century.

Appearing on John King, USA Wednesday night, Rick Perry‘s communications director, Ray Sullivan, suggested that Perry might skip some of the debates, believing that he would be better served campaigning in key states instead of trying to get a message out in 60-second clips. “When you’ve got eight or nine candidates and 30 seconds to a minute, it takes valuable time away from campaigning,” Sullivan said, pointing out that there are 18 more debates in the works.

Human Events editor Jason Mattera appeared on Wednesday’s John King USA and got into a dustup with King over his unconventional interview methods in ambushing Vice President Biden. “You misrepresented yourself, you said, ‘can I take a picture with you?’” King scolded. “A journalist can’t take pictures with the Vice President?” Mattera asked. “I actually think it’s unethical,” King responded, “…At a public place, to say, come pose with me, I’m your buddy, then ask a question. Do you think that’s fair?”

On Thursday’s edition of John King USA on CNN, Senator John McCain graciously congratulated President Obama for the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. “The fact is this is another success for the Obama administration,” McCain acknowledged.

This morning on talk radio, John King received rare praise from Rush Limbaugh for pointing out the suspicious chronology in between the first time President Obama discussed the burgeoning Fast and Furious arms scandal and the time frame Attorney General Eric Holder gave for hearing about it himself. On tonight’s program, King thanked Limbaugh for the kind words, but refused to allow his report to corroborate conservative plotlines he considered to be “a huge stretch.”

On CNN this evening, John King took Anita Perry to the cleaners over her comments that her husband was being “brutalized for his faith” and her assertion that President Obama was to blame for her son losing his job. “Brutalizing Rick Perry because of his faith?” King asked incredulously. “Well, not exactly, actually, not even close.”

CNN’s John King called out Mitt Romney for making false claims of Obama apologizing while making speeches abroad, something he has repeatedly claimed before. “While (Obama) has said some things that make Republicans mad and are fair game for criticism, President Obama has not apologized for America in the way Governor Romney and many other Republicans assert.”

“When writing this book, I don’t mean to sound morbid,” CNN’s John King began, while interviewing former VP Dick Cheney at the Reagan Library, “but were you thinking, ‘My days could be numbered?’”

Mission: not accomplished, Mr. King, but Cheney followed up with a retort that would drop the temperature on Hoth by a couple of degrees: “So are yours.”

Say what you will about Cheney, he owns his persona.

Earlier this week, we reported the failure of several trained journalists to challenge Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s dangerously irresponsible claims about the HPV vaccine, and while Bachmann’s claims eventually became big news, attended by fact-checking segments of varying quality, the journalists who allowed her to ring that bell got off scot-free. Reliable Sources‘ Howard Kurtz weighed in on the subject Sunday morning, but even his criticism amounted to little more than a soothing wrist massage.

Earlier today, we told you about Democratic strategist James Carville‘s CNN.com op-ed piece, which offered some characteristically blunt advice for the President: “Panic!” CNN’s John King aptly described Carville’s advice as “the political version of a family intervention.” Carville explained that dire times call for more drastic measures, opining that it is high time the White House demonstrates to the American people that it “gets it” by supplying “something different” — like, for example, holding people accountable.

Within the past 24 hours, I have watched at least three different mainstream journalists allow Rep. Michele Bachmann to claim that the HPV vaccine is “dangerous,” and that it might cause “mental retardation,” without challenging her, or notifying their audiences (of millions) that the vaccine is safe. These journalists are failing their most important function, to act in the public’s interest.