The news was first reported in a press release from ABC that announced a number of staffing changes at the network.

"Jake is leaving ABC News for an opportunity at CNN.  You’ll hear more about his new anchor role from his new network," wrote ABC. "For years, Jake has set the pace for the White House press corps.  A ferocious reporter – and now a best-selling author – he has built a reputation as one of the most prolific and multi-talented journalists on the beat, scoring scoop after scoop."

Mr. Tapper's new network released their statement moments after the ABC announcement came out.

“We are thrilled to have Jake join CNN and take the helm of a brand new weekday program,” said Ken Jautz, executive vice president of CNN/U.S. “Jake is an exceptional reporter and communicator, and we look forward to developing a program that takes advantage of all of his strengths, his passion and his knowledge of national issues and events.”

“With CNN’s impeccable reporting during the elections and the exciting changes in the works for the network, this is a perfect time to join the CNN team,” Mr. Tapper said, in CNN's release. “I am excited about the prospect of working with both the new leadership and some old friends and colleagues.”

Mr. Tapper made news yesterday when he asked Barack Obama where he has been on gun control during the president's press conference on gun policy.

President Obama, working up an appetite.

The Dog Days have come early to this year's presidential race with the revelation by the Daily Caller that our  president was fed dog meat by his stepfather as a boy living in Indonesia. President Obama disclosed this information in his little-known TIME Magazine top 100 non-fiction bestseller, Dreams from My Father, a 1995 memoir of his well-traveled youth.

If the Obama White House feels moved to complain about the hay their opponents are making (the Twitter hash tag #ObamaDogRecipes trended across party lines Tuesday night) out of this unfortunate nugget from his book they may have only themselves to blame. As ABC newsman Jake Tapper pointed out, Democrats have been relentless in promoting the tale of Mitt Romney's unfortunate dog Seamus, who reportedly rode on the roof of the Romney family vehicle from Boston to Canada in 1983:

Democrats have signaled they have every intention of making sure the American people — especially dog-lovers — know the tale. In January, senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod tweeted a photo of the president and Bo in a car, with the snide observation: "@davidaxelrod: How loving owners transport their dogs."

The real topper on the whole shaggy tale at this point would be if Mr. Romney chose to add former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as his running mate. While Mr. Huckabee's record towards furry friends appears to be on the up-and-up, one of his son's alleged acts against a stray dog was passing fodder for political opponents during Mr. Huckabee's 2007-2008 run for the Republican presidential nod.

If dogs really step up and form a lobby, perhaps even their own political action committee, everyone may be in trouble.

This Sunday, Bill Adair, Washington bureau chief of the St. Petersburg Times and editor of PolitiFact, will join ABC News to fact check the newsmakers (Hillary Clinton! Robert Gates! Rudy Giuliani!) appearing on ABC's This Week.

Fact!

Jake Tapper will be hosting.

Fact!

Mr. Tapper and Mr. Adair know each other from "fact-checking forums."

Fact!

Jay Rosen originally suggested the idea.

Fact!

Jay Rosen has lots of suggestions.

Fact!

Two weeks ago, ABC News began live-tweeting This Week.

Fact!

NBC's Meet the Press is still the dominant Sunday morning news show.

Today, Mr. Westin, the president of ABC News, officially announced that the network had hired Christiane Amanpour as the new anchor of the Sunday public affairs program, This Week.

The high-profile D.C. gig has been vacant since the fall when George Stephanopoulos replaced Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America.

During the intervening months, speculation has been rampant about who would fill the job made famous by David Brinkley. Along the way, everyone from Jake Tapper to Terry Moran to Jonathan Karl to Barbara Walters to Elizabeth Vargas to Matthew Dowd have taken turns filling in.

In the end, past was precedent and Mr. Westin bypassed the young up-and-comers, such as Mr. Tapper, in favor of a more established star, CNN's Ms. Amanpour.

In a note to staff today, Mr. Westin announced that Mr. Tapper would serve as the interim host until August, when Ms. Amanpour would take over.

"Christiane will join us from CNN where, for two decades she has reported from the world's major conflicts, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans," wrote Mr. Westin. "She has received every major broadcast journalism award.  A formidable interviewer, she has sat down in global exclusives with many of the world's leaders and military chiefs from the Middle East, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan to Africa, Europe and the United States."

Just as Mr. Stephanopoulos' appointment to GMA raised questions about his suitability for morning television, Ms. Amanpour's appointment to This Week is sure to raise questions about her suitability to the beltway-centric position after building a career based largely on reporting from overseas.

In his note to staff, Mr. Westin suggested that This Week would tweak its format once Ms. Amanpour comes on board. "With Christiane we have the opportunity to provide our audiences with something different on Sunday mornings," he wrote. "We will continue to provide the best in interviews and analysis about domestic politics and policies.  But now we will add to that an international perspective."

Whether that's a smart strategy for, at last, catching up with perennial Sunday morning ratings champ Meet the Press remains to be seen.

And so, here comes Ted Koppel. Maybe.

Politico reports that Mr. Koppel--who friends say would prefer to be secretary of state--is in talks with ABC News President David Westin about taking over for George Stephanopoulos on This Week.

It makes sense. Mr. Koppel isn't doing much these days, and Mr. Westin likes a big name. And it's not mutually exclusive with one of ABC's other reporters--cough, Jake Tapper, Terry Moran--eventually taking over. After all, NBC used Tom Brokaw for a spell in the wake of Tim Russert's death.

Of course, it may not be happening at all. As Steve Krakauer at Mediaite notes, the story's already changed several times. And a response like this, from Mr. Westin, doesn't inspire tremendous confidence:

I will pull back the veil to the limited degree of telling you - for the benefit of your readers - that just about every specific that you have is false.

"Body language Czarina" Tonya Reiman spoke to Fox News about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's blinking patterns and less animated hand gestures during the confirmation hearings.

U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd  told CNBC's John Harwood that he was "uneasy about the Fed assuming the systemic risk regulator that we're talking about in this modernization of financial regulations."

It was revealed that ABC News' Jake Tapper tried to get an interview with Governor Sanford in part by referring to NBC News' reporting as "slimy."

Dr. Nancy Snyderman asked President Barack Obama about his smoking habit. Mr. Obama told Ms. Snyderman that "the American people are going to have to participate in their own health."

And in Ghana, CNN's Anderson Cooper pressed Mr. Obama about "don't ask, don't tell."

This year's big winner? Andrea Mitchell! 

According to Mr. Tyndall's calculations, NBC's Ms. Mitchell pulled off a lopsided victory (355 minutes) over the reigning 2007 champion, ABC's Jake Tapper (330 minutes). CBS' Dean Reynolds (who was a no-show in 2007's top 20) rocketed up the charts with a strong showing in '08, finishing third (262 minutes).

Last year, on the heels of Mr. Tapper's upset victory, The New York Times' David Carr (who gave Mr. Tapper his first job in journalism, as a cub reporter at The Washington City Paper) had this to say about the relentless newshound: "If he worked for Tony Soprano, he'd be called an earner."

So what to call Ms. Mitchell?

For the time being, we'll settle for... Champion. Ms. Mitchell had quite a year in 2008, becoming a ubiquitous, must-see correspondent on the campaign trail, and breaking many big stories along the way (In November, to name just one example, she was the first to report that Hillary Clinton was "under consideration to be secretary of state.")

What makes her 355 minutes all the more impressive is that throughout the election season, Ms. Mitchell also regularly anchored an hour of daytime television for MSNBC.

Long time observers of Mr. Tyndall's "Most Used" list will be shocked to find that for perhaps the first time in modern history, NBC's hungry-hungry newsman David Gregory failed to crack the top 20. He has no one to blame but himself. In early '08, he decided to start anchoring the 6 p.m. hour on MSNBC, thus creating a timing conflict with the NBC Nightly News, and preventing him from gobbling up his usual jumbo share of broadcast minutes (we suppose he can console himself with having landed the most covetted job in TV journalism).

So can Ms. Mitchell repeat in '09? We predict that Mr. Tapper, whom ABC News recently named as its Chief White House Correspondent, will push to reclaim the crown. We'll also be keeping an eye on Chuck Todd whose dual role as NBC's Chief White House Correspondent and its political director could translate into big numbers in the year ahead.

In addition to his on air duties, Mr. Tapper also writes Polical Punch, which is arguably the best political blog by anyone in TV News. Presumably, he'll keep writing the blog after shifting over to the White House beat.

ABC News President David Westin also announced two other changes today. Martha Raddatz will become the network's new Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent, and Jonathan Karl will become ABC's Senior Congressional Correspondent.

"As we begin the transition to a new administration, we are fortunate to have in Jake, Martha and Jon three of the best beat reporters in journalism covering the White House, the foreign policy establishment, and Congress," said Mr. Westin in a press release. "Each brings uncommon expertise and reporting skills that will ensure our audiences learn all that they want to know about where our government seeks to lead us."

So, who'll fill in for Mr. Stephanopolous on his upcoming public affairs program on Sunday Morning?

Jake Tapper, of course.

Mr. Tapper broke the news this afternoon on his ABC political blog Political Punch.

"We have some great guests," wrote Mr. Tapper. "I can't think of two pols with whom I'd rather talk about energy and politics than Louisiana's GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal and New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson. We also have a great roundtable including George F. Will, Cokie Roberts, Torie Clarke, and Matt Bai, who has an interesting cover story about race and politics in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine...So be gentle with your post-show criticisms and hope you tune in!"

Manhattan has seen only one sale over $400 million since the end of 2007, a year when such sales poured forth on a monthly, if not weekly, basis. That one purchase, of 650 Madison Avenue by Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. for $695 million, follows a December when two billion-dollar buildings closed.

Larry Silverstein and the CalSTRS pension fund picked up 1177 Avenue of the Americas for just over $1 billion, and SL Green, along with a minority Canadian partner, took 388-390 Greenwich Street downtown for $1.575 billion. Also toward the end of 2007, Paramount Group bought 31 West 52nd Street for $540 million-plus and Global Holdings bought 120 Park Avenue for $525 million.

Buyers and sellers sealed these deals during the same credit crunch Manhattan real estate grapples with now on the cusp of spring. So why the two-month (and counting) dearth of mega-sales?

“In periods of uncertainty, people tend to not be that active, either on the buy side or on the sell side,” said Woody Heller, a top investment-sales broker with Studley.

One man could turn everything around, of course: Credit crunch poster boy Harry Macklowe. Unable to pay off billions in debt, Mr. Macklowe’s seven buildings he bought last winter for $7 billion are expected to soon hit the sales block as individual properties. And he is said to be taking final bids for his GM Building at 767 Fifth Avenue, which is likely to fetch a truly historic $3 billion-plus if sold in full.

It would be a welcome jolt. Aside from the 650 Madison sale, 2008 has seen only one other of note: SL Green announced on Tuesday that it closed on its $310 million sale of 1250 Broadway to Murray Hill Properties.