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At Press Time

Feb 17, 2003  •  Post A Comment

Fox reporters expelled
Los Angeles-Iraq told Fox News Channel Friday that its four staff members in Baghdad would have to leave the country. According to the Dow Jones Business News, John Stack, the network’s VP for news gathering, said Fox News wasn’t told why its staff would have to leave, but that they believed it was retaliation for the expulsion from the United States of Mohammed Allawi, a reporter for the Iraqi News Agency.
Fox News has appealed the expulsion and was scheduled to meet Saturday with Iraqi officials in Baghdad. Mr. Allawi, who has covered the United Nations for two years, received a letter Thursday signed by Deputy U.S. Ambassador Patrick Kennedy saying he is “harmful” to the security of the United States and giving him and his family 15 days to leave the country.
Four pilots for ABC
Los Angeles-ABC picked up four comedy pilots, including a still untitled project about an introverted New Yorker who marries into a large, gregarious family from Kansas. It’s produced by 20th Century Fox Television and Brad Grey Television.
ABC’s other three pilots come from Touchstone Television. “My Life With Men” centers on a woman struggling to raise her four sons, her father and her husband all at the same time. “Hope and Faith,” produced with Industry Entertainment, is a family comedy about a popular soap opera actress who moves in with her housewife sister.
Paramount Television and Storyline Entertainment have partnered with Touchstone to produce an untitled project about a man from a very conservative family and his girlfriend, the daughter of a gay couple.
O’Dell for country ‘Idol’
Los Angeles-“Access Hollywood” co-anchor Nancy O’Dell will host USA Network’s “Nashville Star” country music talent search series premiering March 8.
“Nashville Star,” produced by Reveille, conducted 48 local competitions and five regional finals in conjunction with radio stations across the country. The field was narrowed from more than 8,000 applicants to 12 finalists who will compete against each other live every Saturday night for nine weeks from the Acuff Theater in Nashville.