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CBS had fun this Friday with its features. Anthony Mason spiced up his report on real estate woes by offering a plug to Nashua Video Tours, a firm that shoots homes for sale in a flattering light and posts them online…Steve Hartman's Assignment America profiled a pair of nine-year-old best friends in Medford Ore. Dominic Ramos saved Harrison Weidman's life when he started choking on a tortilla chip. Their classmate called it the Heimlich Remover…Sharyl Attkisson pursued her Follow The Money quest to eradicate earmarked funding from the federal budget by targeting the Center for Grape Research in the Finger Lakes. The $11m to help make wine taste better was defended by Rep Maurice Hinchey (D-NY): "The cost of this building is what we spend in Iraq in two hours." Replied Attkisson: "But if you compare anything to the cost of the war in Iraq you can make it sound very tiny"--which seems to indicate that her future Follow the Money features should be on Iraq nor earmark.
Most fun, however, was Jeff Greenfield's skewering of FEMA for its phony press conference in which public relations bureaucrats posed as journalists to ask questions of their boss. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell covered the fake session too--it was carried live on MSNBC--but not with Greenfield's gusto. Instead of the standard graphics identifying participants, Greenfield used balloons, pop-up video style. "I would be glad to take some of your questions," declared FEMA's Harvey Johnson. "Well, of course he was happy to answer questions. Know why? Because the questions were not being asked by real reporters," muttered Greenfield. "Can you talk a little bit about what it means to have the President issue an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration?" asked a flack, causing Greenfield to expostulate: "He is not a reporter but he is playing one on TV--and he has asked a question only a bureaucrat could love."
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