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For the second straight day the frigid cold on the northern plains was the lead item on the newscasts of ABC and NBC. CBS decided not to make it unanimous as anchor Katie Couric traveled to Washington to interview President-elect Barack Obama in preparation for her Inauguration Day primetime special Change and Challenge. She kicked off her newscast with excerpts from her q-&-a, which she titled Exclusive, even though Obama has hardly been the shrinking violet towards the mainstream news media. Anyway, the double-digit temperatures below zero Fahrenheit still qualified as Story of the Day.

All three networks took the opportunity of the cold snap to showcase their morning programs' weathercasters. Dave Price of the Early Show filed CBS' report from a frosty Green Bay. He could have been in International Falls or Flint, each of which recorded their coldest January 14th on record. On NBC, Al Roker of Today followed up Lee Cowan's lead from Chicago with a forecast filed from New York City's Rockefeller Center. ABC's weather coverage was filed by Chris Bury in Chicago, but it included a soundbite from Sam Champion of Good Morning America.

ABC's Bury explained why this winter weather happened to be newsworthy: "This cold snap is unusual for two reasons. Temperatures are reaching lows not seen in decades; and this bitter blast of Canadian air is really sticking around, making life miserable." NBC's Cowan reached for comparisons. "A meat locker is actually warmer than most of the midwest," he complained. "Even breathing is painful, like you are taking a bite out of ice cream only to find you have got a cavity."


Andrew Tyndall 1/16/09 8:41:14 pm

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