Bill O’Reilly took on President Obama‘s re-election campaign on Thursday night, over an ad that featured MSNBC’s Ed Schultz espousing the president’s stance on student loans. They’re using the network’s personalities in their presentation, he said — a network that is “in the tank” for Obama.

Even the tamest election nights tend to be a bit busy, and last night NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell sighed exasperatedly at the stress of her job– she had to follow both Mitt Romney‘s and Newt Gingrich‘s speeches simultaneously. Whether she was grumbling over the fact that she had to watch these two Republicans or merely over the strain of the job was a matter of contention on The O’Reilly Factor tonight, where Bill O’Reilly criticized the anchor for being blatantly liberal on many occasions.

According to a report from South Florida TV News, the person allegedly responsible for the misleading edit to George Zimmerman‘s 911 call was a local reporter/producer named Jeff Burnside, and he has been fired by Miami NBC affiliate WTVJ. The edited tape gave the false impression that Zimmerman told the 911 operator, unprompted, that now-slain teenager Trayvon Martin “looks black,” while the full tape reveals he was asked about the young man’s race.

President Barack Obama is taking his campaign once again to late-night television with a Tuesday appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. This will be the president’s first appearance on Fallon’s show. First Lady Michelle Obama appeared on Late Night earlier this year in a pre-taped segment from within the White House. The president will be sitting down with Kimmel in a segment to be taped at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Last night’s O’Reilly Factor opened with its eponymous host positing a theory: a schism had begun to form in the mainstream media between hard news and ideological fare, with ABC News’ coverage of the Trayvon Martin tragedy reporting objectively, and NBC News providing a subjective take. After Bill O’Reilly warned NBC News was acting “dangerously” with its coverage, he turned to a veteran of both news organizations, Geraldo Rivera, for his take on the coverage.

NBC has not exactly gotten the best press for its coverage of the Trayvon Martin story. The network broadcast an edited version of George Zimmerman‘s 911 call that left out crucial context, and questions have been raised about Al Sharpton‘s activism on the case while still working under NBC’s corporate umbrella. On his show tonight, Bill O’Reilly contrasted NBC’s coverage with ABC’s, giving much credit to the latter.

30 Rock actor Alec Baldwin lit into former Today Show host Katie Couric at the Washington Press Club, saying that the morning show anchor ruined the morning program for him when she performed “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” during a Halloween episode of the show, according to a report by the Washington Examiner’s Charlie Spiering.

“That was the day I turned off the Today Show and I never watched it again, it was over,” Baldwin said. “(I) didn’t need to see lip syncing at 7:30 in the morning.”

My personal favorite cast member, Taran Killam, got a featured sketch in for the last half hour of the show in a reprisal of his Piers Morgan impression. He was discussing the Trayvon Martin case and had many guests on to weight in, including Florida governor Jeb Bush (Jason Sudeikis, not being especially funny) and Law & Order: SVU star Ice-T (played by Fred Armisen in a goatee that made him so square-jawed I initially thought he was Josh Brolin).

In this sketch, Bill Hader and Andy Samberg approached Lorne Michaels about doing another “Lasercats” sketch (which I don’t believe the show has done in about a year). The premise was not bad, but what made the sketch noteworthy was certainly Steven Spielberg’s sudden appearance in Lorne’s office to plug “Lasercats 7,” which, as it turns out, he directed. Most of the sketch was a preview of “Lasercats 7″ itself — the film had amusingly Lo-Fi production values and another cameo by Spielberg, and liberally ripped off both E.T. and keyboard cat in one fell swoop.

Given the trajectory of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, the Downton Abbey parody was just a question of time. Following in the tradition of the Glee parody 6Bee, Fallon’s Downton Abbey sketch too is named after the study– Downton Sixbey– and follows parallel plot lines of a foreigner in the Dowager Countess’s midst and the quest for a new Kardashian joke.

It has been a fateful year for the cable news network MSNBC. It seems every month, another host – or even the network itself – is forced to apologize for reporting a factual error or overstepping the bounds of responsible commentary.

A frustrated Alec Baldwin took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to call out The Today Show for sending a television crew to camp out outside his apartment. “A story about stalking sure brings out the stalkers in the media,” he said — before adding in another tweet: “I think I’m leaving NBC just in time.” Say what now, Alec?

NBC has gotten into a bit of a hole with a broadcast their aired editing the 911 tape of George Zimmerman calling to report Trayvon Martin before he shot him. Jon Stewart played the edited tape today and listened in awe as a pivotal bit of the conversation simply disappeared. How egregious was the editing? Stewart demonstrated by taking clips of “Jeopardy!” contestants and wondering why they kept asking what totally commonplace words are.

NBC News president Steve Capus has finally come out and explained the full story behind the edited tape of George Zimmermans’ 911 call while following Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The producer of the edited tape has been fired already, and Capus said that others who were involved in the editing have been properly disciplined. He admitted first off that airing the edited call was “a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call.”

One of the biggest media stories of the past week was NBC’s decision to have Sarah Palin co-host The Today Show alongside Matt Lauer to try and compete with Katie Couric‘s star power on GMA or something. So naturally, it came up today as one of the big topics on CNN’s Reliable Sources. But TV critic David Zurawik absolutely tore into the whole thing, saying that NBC had a brand of journalism to protect, but abandoned it the second it decided to let Palin co-host the network institution.

During a Meet the Press panel discussion on the role of religion in the public and political sphere, David Gregory brought up the issue of Mitt Romney‘s Mormonism in the race. Republican congressman Raul Labrador, who is himself a Mormon, Labrador called out the media in general for being on the Democratic side on a supposed war on religion, but specifically called out one MSNBC host for his recent comments about the Mormon faith.

NBC News officially fired the unnamed producer who was heavily involved in editing and releasing the version of George Zimmerman‘s 911 call that he made as he was following Trayvon Martin. According to Brian Stelter in the New York Times, the producer was fired yesterday, and the news was independently confirmed by two individuals “with direct knowledge of the disciplinary action.” They declined to say who the producer in question was.

On Friday’s Happening Now, investigative journalist Judith Miller and Daily Beast columnist Kirsten Powers weighed in on NBC’s edit of George Zimmerman‘s 911 call before shooting Trayvon Martin — an edit that has inspired criticism for having made Zimmerman “sound racist.”

CNN’s Piers Morgan sat down with Carson Daly on NBC’s The Last Call, where he revisited his contentious interview with Toure. Morgan revealed he would’ve liked to have countered Touré’s mentions of his nationality by bringing up South African leader Nelson Mandela.

The open-ended question of Matt Lauer‘s fate finally has an answer. NBC has signed Lauer to a multiyear contract, keeping him as a co-host with The Today Show. The news will officially be announced Friday morning.

Appearing on the Today Show Wednesday morning, Ryan Seacrest announced he was joining the prime-time team for the 2012 Olympic coverage. Anchor Matt Lauer grilled Seacrest over reports that he was replacing him.

With NBC investigating how a tape of George Zimmerman‘s 911 call on the night he killed Trayvon Martin got edited to make him appear more racially aware than he was on the tape, many are wondering whether it was an intentional move. On tonight’s O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg discussed the matter, ending up on the topic of Al Sharpton‘s political rallies and Goldberg finally advising NBC to break off from its cable news wing, MSNBC.

In a move that’s sure to delight some people, shock others, and confuse the rest, NBC has booked none other than Sarah Palin to guest-host Tuesday’s edition of the TODAY Show. The network’s decision comes on the heels of ABC’s announcement that Katie Couric will be guest-hosting Good Morning America this week, whom Palin has an infamous media connection to.

NBC announced on Saturday that it would launch an internal investigation into a misleadingly edited 911 call that aired on the network which featuring George Zimmerman on the night that Trayvon Martin was shot.

New York magazine recently published a piece about Matt Lauer and his increasingly important role at NBC. Earlier this month we reported that Lauer was said to be close to a new deal with the network, which would put $8 million in his pocket. Now, Gawker is asking if Lauer’s deal included getting co-host Ann Curry off the gig.