Fourth time around

It's time to check in on what's new with the world's greatest internet reporter - heck, greatest anything - Ms. Abbi Tatton. You see, she co-hosts the Inside the Blogs segment, formerly on CNN's Inside Politics, now on CNN's the Situation Room. Apologies to her co-host Jacki, but hey, this is Ms. Tatton's site after all.

We've been tracking the evolution of the segment in its new home, and while on Monday they had 4 segments spread over all three hours, they seem to be slowly settling for two segments in the last two hours, usually starting past the halfway mark. I think that's a good way of doing it since, let's face it, internet-related stories can be hard to come by, unless you're talking about blogs or Amazon.com. Maybe Ms. Tatton will branch out into general correspondence, but perhaps it's not her cup of tea.

So let's get on with it, "it" being relating the highlights of today's show. There was a nice surprise: as I fast-forwarded through my tape looking for the start of the segment, I saw the clear signs of a teaser! Even as a blur, Ms. Tatton stands out. The teaser wasn't even a real one, since host Wolf Blitzer made no mention of it; the camera just panned around and happened to capture Ms. Tatton and Jacki standing there waiting for their turns. Ms. Tatton seemed to be chuckling at something off-camera, then turned and began moving towards where she'd be reporting from. I noticed how slim she looked, and also wondered how much her open-toe platform sandal shoes added to her height. She had her black capri pants, which generally drive me to shame, and did.

After a long piece by Jacki, we got a long intro by Ms. Tatton, which was wonderful. Usually she is relatively brief before going to the screen, but this time she set up the story (Cindy Sheehan) quite extensively. As she was yesterday, she was quite expressive, leaning in towards the camera during one moment, and sticking out a hip in another (oh what a hip). The blogs she cited were Joe Trippi and Michael Moore, both of which were helping Sheehan get out her message. Ms. Tatton also cited Michelle Malkin as a conservative site with another view.

And that was that. But not long after that segment concluded (close to 5), they had another one, at about 5:13. Now that's more like it. And the best thing? This segment was only Ms. Tatton. I'd feel bad that Jacki didn't get one, but she had her own earlier this week. So it was Tatton tv. Actually, I think the whole thing was shorter than Ms. Tatton's intro in the previous segment, but whatever. The topic was the current smog problem in Malaysia. Ms. Tatton showed us Haze Haters in KL, which was organizing an online petition to try to stop the cause of the smog. Now that is some far-afield reporting, I must say. Foreign reporting must be hard enough, what with all the cultural and language differences, but finding a blog is really going the extra mile. Of course, we know not to expect anything less from dear Ms. Tatton. Although I will add that I'm unsure of the necessity of a blog report on that as opposed to another topic, like Palmiero.

So this new portfolio of Ms. Tatton's - that of internet reporting - is working out pretty well. I hope they keep up the political reports (since let's face it, 90% of blogs seem to talk about that), but they also range over whatever areas the internet beat takes them. Seeing more of Ms. Tatton's reports will assuredly be a good thing.

Ok, that's it for today. Tomorrow will mark the conclusion of the first week of the new show; here's hoping Ms. Tatton lets herself celebrate a job well-done.