Fox News has canceled its long-running show "The Big Story:"

Fox News Channel, tinkering for the first time in eight years with its popular early evening lineup, is replacing its 5 p.m. news broadcast, "The Big Story," with an election-theme program for the foreseeable future. The network confirmed this week that "America's Election HQ," a program that displaced "The Big Story" temporarily last month, would continue indefinitely. The program's hosts, Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly, also anchor the network's mid-morning newscast and are seen as rising stars on the channel. The change was first reported by the blog TVNewser.com. John Gibson, the longtime host of "The Big Story," will continue to have a role on television, the network said, although it appears that his future for now lies mostly on radio.

A former MSNBC host, Gibson has become known for semi-frequently attacking his former employer, particularly its left-wing host Keith Olbermann, whom Gibson refers to as "Bathtub Boy." The reference is to Olbermann's extreme reluctance to cover the Monica Lewinsky scandal of then-president Bill Clinton. According to Gibson, Olbermann preferred to stay at home and sit in the bathtub rather than come in to work.

The woman who got her big break on network TV thanks to the firing of Don Imus now apparently wants another host to lose his job over some tasteless remarks.

Morning Joe is the show that took over MSNBC's early-morning time slot after Imus was bounced for his offensive observations about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Mika Brzezinski, a regular member of the Morning Joe crew, has now left little doubt she would like to see John Gibson fired for the callous comments about the death of actor Heath Ledger the Fox News host made on his radio show.

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As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann went on a ridiculously disgraceful rant during Monday's "Countdown" claiming, amongst other things, that "[T]he presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush."

On Wednesday, Fox News's John Gibson, during his radio program, took issue with Olbermann's tirade, and actually called the former sportscaster a liar for misrepresenting what former acting Attorney General Daniel Levin wrote about the interrogation procedure known as waterboarding.

Gibson accurately pointed out (audio available here courtesy our friend Johnny Dollar):

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Neal Gabler implied on FNC's "Fox News Watch" that he wanted the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol to go to Iraq and be killed so that he could attend the conservative writer's funeral.

On Monday, FNC's John Gibson took issue with Gabler's despicable comments during his radio program, calling Gabler a "lowlife," and "a coward" because "he will not come on the air to defend the things he says."

But that was just the beginning (audio available here courtesy our friend Johnny Dollar):

FNC's John Gibson opened Tuesday's The Big Story by looking at the “gall” of liberal Democrats condemning Rush Limbaugh for supposedly insulting as “phony soldiers” Iraq war veterans who oppose the war. During a segment with former Republican Senator Rick Santorum and Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online, on how liberals have deliberately misconstrued Limbaugh's remark, Gibson played soundbites, critical of troop performance, from Senator Harry Reid, Senator John Kerry, Congressman John Murtha and Senator Dick Durbin. Following each clip, FNC displayed a bumper with a sound effect: “Who said that? Not Rush Limbaugh!” Gibson explained after the four videos aired: “None of those things were uttered by Rush Limbaugh. I mean, in a way you wonder where do they get the, I don't know, gall to be going after him over this?”

Video clip (1:20): Real (2.2 Mb) or Windows Media (2.6 Mb), plus MP3 audio (450 Kb)

NewsBusters editor Brent Baker has done a superb job reporting on the smear job against Bill O'Reilly from the liberal group Media Matters. Fox News's John Gibson does an awesome job at tearing them apart. If you haven't heard the audio from his show yet... you should definitely take a listen.

Quoting Gibson:

This thing about Rush is really crystal clear. You can see how they lie. In this case, they said Rush said something, posted an audio recording of it and an audio transcript and cut it off at the precise moment where the next thing he said proved them wrong. Heres how it went down. I'll play this bit and you can hear what Media Matters posted of what Rush said and then I'll play you what he said next....the words that came next. The words that came right after they cut it off....and you will see...here...because this is radio...you will hear the live admission by this Soros backed group called Media Matters.

With the announcement of Karl Rove resigning his position from the White House, it is time to revisit that infamous report by MSNBC's David Shuster who on Keith Olbermann's Countdown show on May 8, 2006 flatly stated:

I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted.

When a month later it was announced that Rove would not be indicted, a sheepish Shuster came up with several lame excuses for his monumental misreporting as chronicled by NewsBusters editor Brent Baker in his June 13, 2006 post. Under questioning by Countdown substitute host, Brian Unger, Shuster began by blaming the defense lawyers for his embarrassing error: