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Word leaked out about a couple of stories that will break next week. ABC and CBS gave us a heads up on the President's plan to rescind George Bush's ban on federal funding for some stem cell biotech research. NBC and ABC reported straws in the wind that Bernard Madoff, the disgraced financier, would plead guilty to fraud in federal court.
Beyond that, the Madoff tea leaves revealed pure confusion. CNBC's Scott Cohn anticipated a plea agreement so that "he could delay his sentencing as long as he is cooperating with prosecutors. That means Bernie Madoff could stay in his luxury penthouse a while longer even after he is a convicted felon." On ABC, Brian Ross had the opposite take: "New evidence apparently indicates several co-conspirators who were involved with Madoff, despite his plea that he acted alone in an effort, apparently, to save his accomplices and his family." Ross predicted that "certainly" his guilty plea "will end his luxurious house arrest in his $7m Manhattan penthouse."
There was subtler disagreement about the preview of Barack Obama's decision to permit the National Institutes of Health to fund more stem cell biotech research. At issue was the precise ethical objection that inspired the ban in the first place. The cells would be derived from the test tube embryos that human fertility clinics produce. CBS' Chip Reid overstated: "Opponents equate that with abortion." Not even the pro-life Family Research Council does that. Its statement in opposition, which Reid quoted, worries about government spending rather than terminated pregnancies: "Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for experiments that require the destruction of human life." ABC's Lisa Stark avoided the abortion comparison too, confining her description to controversies concerning the "altering or destroying" of embryos.
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