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Late-breaking news changed the running order at all three networks. The Story of the Day--on the prescription diabetes drug Avandia--was pushed into second place by reports from Maine that Chief Justice John Roberts had fallen while on vacation and had been taken to hospital. The fall may have been caused by a seizure but no network had time to compile a rounded report so each led with a brief live stand-up, not from the scene but from Washington DC.

By the time the newscasts started Roberts was in the Penobscot Bay Medical Center. "We have no information that the Chief Justice suffered a seizure," stated Jan Crawford Greenburg on ABC, although she did report that some of his neighbors in Maine said that they believed they saw him foam at the mouth. At the White House, CBS' Jim Axelrod (no link) did not know "what the cause of the fall may be," while he mentioned that Roberts had once before suffered a seizure, on a golf course in the early '90s. On NBC, Pete Williams (no link) opened the newscast with a report on the fall on a public boat dock; later in the newscast anchor Brian Williams offered an update that the cause was indeed a seizure.

Andrew Tyndall 8/5/07 12:57:49 am

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