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The week ended on a light day of news when no single story was considered newsworthy enough to warrant coverage by a reporter from each of the three networks. All three newscasts included some Campaign 2008 coverage with NBC selecting the upcoming Indiana primary as its lead. On the day that President George Bush announced the release of federal payments to households in his bid to inject fiscal stimulus, ABC and CBS both chose to kick off with the economy. ABC led with the state-by-state prospects of a recession and CBS' wheel-format coverage singlehandedly made oil prices qualify as the Story of the Day economy as the cost of a barrel of crude rose to $118.

CBS anchor Katie Couric introduced a trio of correspondents to cover the high price of gasoline. Jeff Glor covered energy politics from the New Jersey Turnpike: George Bush wants households to use their federal payments to offset the high price of fuel; John McCain wants a summer vacation from federal gasoline taxes; Hillary Rodham Clinton believes the tax holiday "may be in order;" Barack Obama blames 30 years of federal inaction on fuel efficiency standards for the high cost of driving. Cynthia Bowers illustrated the ripple effects of the high price of diesel for trucks by describing the trade off at a Chicago food bank: an annual increase of $40,000 for fuel means 30 fewer tons of food to give away. From Los Angeles, Ben Tracy saw its carcentric population "considering a very radical idea--public transportation." Annual expenditure on gasoline for an average household has risen from $1,600 to $3,800 since 2001, he noted.

Besides oil, falling home prices and rising food prices have been the other two economic preoccupations in the news this spring. ABC's Bill Weir (embargoed link) covered a survey by the National Conference for State Legislatures. It found that nine states--in the west, the industrial north and Florida, which account for fully one third of the national economy--are in an economic recession, with housing being "the common factor in all their struggles…foreclosures in California, unsold developments in Nevada, sinking condo prices in Florida." Meanwhile states that produce food and fuel are still growing: Texas, North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska and Louisiana.

As the price of rice is rising, the UN's World Food Program has had to cut back on deliveries. CBS' Allen Pizzey traveled to Palwong, a Ugandan village where the civil war is "still simmering," to find a tin-roofed schoolhouse where WFP has had to eliminate breakfast, now serving only lunch. The food it can distribute is provided by freerice.com, the online vocabulary Website that doubles as food fundraiser. CBS' Daniel Sieberg and NBC's Kevin Tibbles have already publicized the site's developer in Indiana. Now Pizzey shows us the recipients: "The kids who learn words in freerice can no more imagine where their rice goes than those who receive it can understand where it comes from--two ways of learning, worlds apart, joined by lunch."


Andrew Tyndall 4/28/08 11:29:14 pm

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