Lance Armstrong finally had his confessional moment Thursday, acknowledging in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey that he had used performance-enhancing drugs for much of his career. Juliet Macur writes in an analysis in The New York Times that the cyclist mixed humility and regret with a resolute rejection of some of the charges against him. Alessandra Stanley, reviewing the show as television fare, called the interview “strangely low on energy and emotion,’’ and that while Ms. Winfrey got some answers, she didn’t “pierce his armor.’’ Brian Stelter writes that getting such a high-profile interview could be a breakthrough moment for Ms. Winfrey’s struggling network, OWN.
Two and a half weeks after emerging from bankruptcy, the Tribune Company got a new chief executive, Brian Stelter reports. It named Peter Liguori, a longtime television executive, to the position. Mr. Ligouri previously worked, among other companies, at News Corporation, where he oversaw the popular FX channel then became chairman of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting. Tribune Co. is expected to sell off some of its newspapers and focus more directly on its television stations.
The real-life hoax involving the fake girlfriend of the Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o has a striking parallel in the television entertainment world, Mary Pilon reports. An MTV show called “Catfish’’ deals each episode with a case of digital duplicity, when a person who has hooked up in a relationship online discovers that the other person has been deceptive about his or her identity. A so-called catfish is the person who orchestrates the fake online identity.
Politico reports on the debut of Dennis Kucinich on Thursday night as a contributor to Fox News, a pairing that matches the famously liberal former congressman with the conservative news network. Mr. Kucinich, who will be a regular paid contributor, called himself a “rooster in Fox lair’’ while the host, Bill O’Reilly, called his guest “the same left-wing nut we know and love,’’ the article reports. The two engaged in a discussion about gun control.
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