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John King will host a new political show at 7 pm. ET starting early next year.

Washington (CNN) – Heading into the critical 2010 midterm elections, CNN will launch a new weekday political program that will be hosted by award winning correspondent John King.

"I'm thrilled to have the opportunity, at this busy and consequential time, to have a platform to discuss and explore the big issues of our time," King, chief national correspondent and anchor of the network's Sunday program "State of the Union," said in a statement released Thursday by CNN.

Early next year, King will move into the 7 p.m. ET time slot that was previously held by longtime CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, who announced Wednesday that he was leaving the network.

"The program will reflect what CNN is all about: straight facts from our anchors and the widest range of opinions from across the political spectrum," Jonathan Klein, president of CNN/U.S., said in the network's statement. "John has enthralled CNN viewers with his vast political knowledge, and he has spent the past year reporting from beyond the Beltway on pressing policy issues and the real people they impact. Every night, he'll share his passion and his insights about what is really going on in Washington and across America."

CNN did not announce the name of King's new program and in the statement said he would "continue to anchor 'State of the Union' until early next year."

Follow Mark Preston on Twitter: @prestoncnn

Eleven year-old journalist Damon Weaver tells Time Magazine that he'd like to be Wolf Blitzer.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Child journalist Damon Weaver, who landed a coveted interview with President Obama, said Wednesday that CNN's Wolf Blitzer is his role model.

In an interview with Time magazine after his interview with the president and a subsequent media blitz, 11-year-old Weaver said he didn't get a chance to tell Blitzer that he wants to be like him after his interview on CNN because "it was my first time meeting him and I tried to answer his questions."

Read: Damon's Q&A on Time.com

"I would like to be Wolf Blitzer," Weaver told Time in an interview published on Wednesday.

And what did he think of his interview with Blitzer?

"It was very fun," said Weaver. "He was nice. He was asking me questions like, 'What was it like with the President? How could I get in touch with him? And can you put in a good word for me?'"

Candy Crowley will be honored in June for her outstanding political coverage during the 2008 election season.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Next month, another member of the Best Political Team on Television will add an award to her already long list of honors.

Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley, along with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, will be among the honorees of the Women's Media Center's first annual Media Awards at the Sackler Foundation in New York on June 17.

Crowley is being honored by the WMC for her outstanding political coverage during the 2008 election.

The Women's Media Center was founded in 2005 by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan to promote women in the media.

In June, Crowley also will be accepting a Gracie Allen Award from AWRT for outstanding feature - hard news program for her coverage of Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House.

CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Bohrman, anchor Wolf Blitzer, Political Director Sam Feist and Vice-President of Special Events Jane Maxwell receive CNN's Peabody Award for 2008 campaign coverage.

(CNN) - CNN received a Peabody Award Monday for the network's "distinguished achievement and meritorious public service" in its coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer accepted the award in New York on behalf of the network's political team.

The award – which recognizes achievements in radio, television, and cable – was presented to CNN for its "unparalleled coverage of a historic presidential election process," according to the Peabody Board.

The board specifically hailed CNN's "state-of-the-art technology and…small army of reporters, producers and analysts."

Earlier this year, CNNPolitics.com was recognized as the best television-affiliated Web reporting of the year by the National Headliner Awards.

The CNN Political Ticker has been named the best political blog.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The CNN Political Ticker Thursday was named the best political news blog by Editor & Publisher and Media Week Magazines.

The magazines also named CNN.com the best news Web site with over 1 million unique visitors a month.

The annual "EPpy Awards" were announced this afternoon during a luncheon ceremony during the annual Interactive Newspaper Conference and Trade Show in New Orleans.

"The 2009 EPpy Awards mark the 14th consecutive year of the program, which honors the best Web sites in the media world, including newspapers, TV/cable, radio and magazines," according to Editor & Publisher.

The nearly 400 entries in this year's contest were evaluated by almost 50 judges.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - After more than a decade covering politics at CNN, Senior Political Producer Sasha Johnson is leaving the network to join the Obama administration as press secretary for the Department of Transportation, which is headed by former Republican Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois.

"CNN is losing a great friend and colleague," said CNN Political Director Sam Feist. Johnson started at CNN's Washington bureau in August of 1998. She served first as a researcher and then associate producer for CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider. Johnson then moved over to the show production side, first as a producer and then a senior producer for Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics. Since 2003, Johnson served as a senior political producer, working alongside Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley and Political Producer Mike Roselli through two presidential campaigns.

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(CNN) - CNN has been awarded a Peabody Award for the network's "distinguished achievement and meritorious public service" in its coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, CNN President Jon Klein announced Wednesday.

The award - which recognizes achievements in radio, television, and cable - was presented to CNN for its "unparalleled coverage of a historic presidential election process," according to the Peabody Board.

The board specifically hailed CNN's "state-of-the-art technology and…small army of reporters, producers and analysts."

The award comes days after CNNPolitics.com was recognized as the best television-affiliated Web reporting of the year by the National Headliner Awards.

(CNN) – CNN's online political coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign has been recognized as the best television-affiliated Web reporting of the year by the National Headliner Awards, one of nine wins for the network.

The Best Political Team's New Hampshire primary, Democratic National Convention and post-election coverage also drew nods from the judges.

CNNPolitics.com - with its news and analysis, interviews, live streaming video, original reports and user-generated content - drew a record number of readers last year, as the network coverage of the epic primary season and fall campaign consistently broke previous ratings records.

The Special Investigations Unit's reporting on the nation's mortgage crisis, health care woes and other massive challenges facing the nation were among other CNN winners.

The National Headliner Awards are one of the oldest annual journalistic prizes in the country, stretching back three-quarters of a century.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta will continue his work as a surgeon and for CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta has withdrawn his name from consideration as the nation’s next surgeon general, opting to continue to devote time to his reporting and his medical career.

Gupta will discuss his decision, and the president’s health care agenda, tonight on CNN’s Larry King Live.

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CNN announced Thursday that CNN Political Director Sam Feist has been named Vice President of Washington-based programming.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sam Feist, CNN’s political director, was named vice president of Washington-based programming, the network announced Thursday.

Feist will oversee all political programming originating from the nation’s capital, including the launch of CNN’s new four hour Sunday political affairs program “State of the Union with John King” and the three hour weekday news program “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

Feist will continue in his role as the network’s political director.

Full CNN announcement after the jump

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CNN's Wolf Blitzer will continue to anchor political coverage through the next election.

(CNN) - In the wake of its highly acclaimed coverage of the presidential election campaign, CNN is redeploying some of its Washington-based correspondents in preparation for the new Obama administration and the incoming 111th Congress.

"During the election, CNN's political reporters established themselves as the class of television news, both cable and broadcast," said David Bohrman, CNN's senior vice president and D.C. bureau chief. "Now we're positioning them in key roles that will ensure the most thorough and informative coverage as President Obama and Congress tackle the thorniest problems America has faced in our lifetimes."

The changes come on the heels of the announcement that CNN's lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer will remain with the network through the next presidential election cycle and chief national correspondent John King will anchor a four-hour programming block on Sundays starting in January.

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Watch Wednesday's episode of CNN=Politics Daily, The Best Political Podcast from The Best Political Team.

(CNN) – A top enemy of the United States has weighed in on the next president.

In the latest episode of CNN=Politics Daily, Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr reports on a message that surfaced Wednesday that is purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second-in-command. The message insults President-elect Barack Obama using a derogatory term for African-Americans.

White House Correspondent Ed Henry reports from Chicago with the latest on the reaction from the Obama camp.

State Department Correspondent Zain Verjee also takes a look at how former President Bill Clinton’s business deals, speaking engagements, and views on foreign policy issues might impact his wife’s diplomatic work should she ultimately be named the next secretary of state.

Finally, watch Chief National Correspondent John King and several other familiar faces from CNN as they take part in The Daily Show’s spoof of CNN’s Magic Wall.

Click here to subscribe to CNN=Politics Daily.

CNN's Jessica Yellin appeared live as a hologram before anchor Wolf Blitzer Tuesday night in New York.

(CNN) - It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious - the selection of the nation's first black president - Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.

"I want you to watch what we're about to do," CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer told viewers early in the evening's coverage, "because you've never seen anything like this on television."

And he was right. Cue CNN political correspondent Jessica Yellin.

"Hi Wolf!" said Yellin, waving to Blitzer as she stood a few feet in front of him in the network's New York City studios. Or at least, that's the way it appeared at first glance.

In reality, Yellin - a correspondent who had been covering Sen. Barack Obama's campaign - was at the now president-elect's mega-rally along the lakefront in Chicago, Illinois, more than 700 miles away from CNN's Election Center in New York.

It looked like a scene straight out of "Star Wars." Here was Yellin, partially translucent with a glowing blue haze around her, appearing to materialize in thin air. She even referenced the classic movie on her own, saying, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia. It's something else."

Full story

The scene in New York's Times Square on Election Night. CNN's coverage on air and online shattered records. (CNN Photo)

(CNN) - The numbers are in, and CNN's election coverage broke records across every platform.

On-air, CNN beat every broadcast and cable network Tuesday night from 8-12:30 a.m. ET with an average of 13.3 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

ABC trailed with 12.5 million, NBC had 11.9 million, Fox News Channel posted 8.1 million, CBS averaged 7.5 million, MSBNC had 6.4 million, and FOX posted 4.7 million. In all, close to 80 million viewers tuned in to watch election night coverage.

CNN’s 2008 Election Night coverage also resulted in the highest primetime ratings in the network’s 28-year history. With an average of 12.3 million total viewers tuning in during primetime (8-11p), CNN had 36 percent advance over Fox News (9 million) and an impressive 109 percent over MSNBC (5.9 million). CNN also easily won the 25-34 and 18-34 demos. Compare to 2004, CNN also had the largest gains in prime time for ages 25-54, doubling its audience, up 102 percent, while FNC only increased 4 percent and MSNBC was up 87 percent.

On Election Day, CNN.com delivered the largest audience in its history with 282.5 million page views and 30 million unique visitors, more than doubling the previous record of 103.2 million and 13.4 million unique visitors on Super Tuesday, according to Omniture SiteCatalyst. CNNPolitics.com also saw record-breaking traffic with 30.1 million page views - a 43 percent increase over its previous record. The Political Ticker, the No. 1 political news blog according to Nielsen Online, generated 8.7 million page views

Meanwhile, CNN.com Live, the Internet's only multi-stream, live video news service, smashed previous records - nearly by three-fold - serving 5.3 million live streams on Election Day, with an additional 6.8 million on-demand video streams.

(CNN) - Watch this clip of CNN Correspondent Jessica Yellin as she's beamed into CNN's Election Center in New York City via hologram from Chicago.

Also, Watch: Singer will.i.am speak with CNN's Anderson Cooper about his impact on Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.

(CNN) - Coming into the home stretch, voters’ views of Barack Obama and John McCain seem relatively locked in place, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday.

With just one full day of campaigning left, 59 percent of voters feel Obama is someone who can bring change; roughly the same number say McCain is not. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed think McCain has the right experience to be president, but voters remain less certain about Obama: Half the country says the Illinois senator has the experience he’d need in the Oval Office, and nearly the same number do not.

Working in Obama’s favor is the perception that he is as strong a leader as McCain: the two are essentially tied, at 64 and 62 percent.

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CNN turned down the Obama campaign's request to air a 30-minute campaign ad tonight.

(CNN) – The Obama campaign asked CNN to air its 30-minute campaign ad, scheduled for Wednesday evening, but the network turned them down.

“CNN was approached by the Obama campaign and declined their request,” the network said in a Tuesday statement. “We did not want to pre-empt our programming lineup with a 30-minute campaign commercial. We prefer to use our air to continue to cover the campaign, candidates and issues like we always do from all points of view with the best political team on television.”

Fox News Channel – which is a separate network from FOX – was not asked to air the ad. The half hour infomercial which will be airing on CBS, NBC, FOX television, MSNBC, Univision, BET and TV One at a reported cost of $3 million to the campaign. ABC said it couldn’t come to an agreement in time to meet the Obama campaigns requirement to run it in that time slot.

The Obama camp’s purchase drew headlines when the GOP blasted Major League Baseball’s decision to delay the start of its World Series broadcast on FOX television scheduled for that night, if the series were to call for a sixth game, to accommodate the buy. A Fox executive responsible for the buy said the infomercial would replace pre-game programming, but would not delay the airing of the game. Nonetheless, the Republican candidate took a swing. "No one will delay the World Series game with an infomercial when I'm president," John McCain said Tuesday.

The last pre-election programming of this type came during the 1992 race, when Ross Perot paid for similar time blocs on network television shortly before Election Day.

CNN's new Electoral Map.

(CNN) - CNN has shifted the battleground state of New Mexico into Barack Obama's column Wednesday, on the heels of a just-released survey showing the Illinois senator holding a double-digit lead there.

CNN had considered New Mexico a "tossup state," but the re-designation was prompted by a new CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Wednesday showing Obama with a significant 53-40 point lead in the state President Bush narrowly carried in 2004.

The change results in 5 more electoral votes for Obama in CNN's estimate, bringing the Illinois senator's lead over John McCain to 37 electoral votes. (Obama has a total of 226, McCain stands at 189, and 123 electoral votes remain up for grabs).

The CNN Electoral Map is based on analysis from the CNN Political Unit and takes into account a number of factors, including polling, state voting trends, ad spending patterns, candidate visits, and guidance from the campaigns, parties, and political strategists. The list will be updated regularly as the campaign develops over time.

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CNNPolitics.com has received more than a billion page views since launching less than a year ago and the Political Ticker had a record day last Friday.

(CNN) – In less than one year, CNNPolitics.com has registered more than 1 billion page views – another sign that readers are turning to the Internet and CNN to stay current and gain insight into the 2008 race for the White House.

“Just as CNN.com is where people go to find out what’s happening in their world, their communities and their lives, CNNPolitics.com is where people go online to find out what’s happening in politics,” said Manuel Perez, senior supervising producer for CNN.com.

The highly trafficked political news gateway serves as the online destination for the latest news and information happening inside the Beltway and beyond, particularly along the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, on Friday, just days before the start of the Democratic National Convention – the CNN Political Ticker – the one you’re reading right now – broke its all-time one-day traffic record with 2.7 million page views. The Ticker is the No. 1 political new blog on the Web according to Nielsen Online and serves as the nervous center for CNNPolitics.com’s coverage, providing users with a constant stream of political news – as it happens – from hundreds of CNN journalists 24 hours a day every day.

“The ratings success CNN is enjoying on television this election cycle is bolstered by the incredible traffic generated through CNNPolitics.com,” said Alex Wellen, CNN’s deputy political director for digital content. “We’re proud to be the news organization people turn to for the latest political news, whether it’s on television, laptops or mobile phones.”

(CNN) - The Election Express is CNN's mobile bureau. Meet the bus, producer, and captain.