Read More of the Same Day's Blog

The only explanation for the selection of a local breaking news event from the Chicago suburbs as the Story of the Day was that it reminded the national networks of last year's calamity at Virginia Tech. The details of the violence on the campus at Northern Illinois University were still sketchy at the news hour. A gunman had shot up a lecture hall, injuring 15-or-so students and killing himself. None of the networks had information of any further fatalities apart from the suicide. Nevertheless, each newscast decided to choose the campus shooting as its lead.

"Terrified students hid behind the stadium seating and crawled into the hallway to safety," narrated ABC's Barbara Pinto. CBS anchor Katie Couric interviewed one of them, a student who identified herself only as Katie: "I just immediately dropped down to the ground and started crawling on the ground, pulling myself up toward the back of the classroom toward the exit." CBS' Cynthia Bowers gave good grades to campus security: "Most students say university police and school officials responded quickly and were on the scene within minutes and the university's Website had a yellow alert." NBC's Kevin Tibbles offered a cursory tick-tock, showing the online alert at 3:20pm and the all clear at 4:14pm.


Andrew Tyndall 2/15/08 7:53:47 pm

© 2010 Tyndall Report