My Active Debate

NEW YORK (AP) -- John King is replacing Lou Dobbs on CNN.

John Klein, CNN president, said Thursday that veteran reporter King will move into the 7 p.m. EST slot that's been vacated by Lou Dobbs. King will host a show about politics beginning early next year.

That puts him in direct competition with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, whose "Hardball" is also about politics. Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith, who does a more general interest newscast, dominates the cable news ratings in that hour.

Dobbs announced abruptly Wednesday evening that Wednesday would be his last show on CNN. He said he wanted to pursue more advocacy journalism, a route that was no longer available to him on CNN.

The liberal research group Media Matters, which had urged CNN to drop Dobbs, also welcomed the news. "This is a happy day for all those who care about this nation of immigrants and believe in the power of media to elevate the political discourse," said Eric Burns, its president.

Although he joined CNN in 1980, Dobbs left the network for two years in 1999, after angrily complaining on the air about a decision by then-CNN President Rick Kaplan to switch away from his show to a live news event. An Internet venture failed and when Kaplan left CNN, Dobbs returned.

Dobbs' ratings had cooled from the height of the immigration discussion. But his 879,000 viewers on Tuesday still eclipsed MSNBC's Chris Matthews (Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith had more than double the audience) and even beat Campbell Brown's CNN show, which followed Dobbs at 8 p.m. ET in prime-time, according to the Nielsen Co.

Associated Press writers Mark Kennedy and Suzanne Gamboa contributed to this story.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TV_LOU_DOBBS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Looks like CNN is still playing it safe.  At least they didn't replace him with Larry King!