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Barack Obama tried to make his government's actions to revive the economy dominate the news agenda for the third straight day. Both CBS and NBC cooperated, leading their newscasts from the White House as the President traveled to Capitol Hill to negotiate the federal budget with Senate Democrats. Mother Nature prevailed, however. ABC decided to lead from Fargo where sandbags are being piled high, even as fresh snow falls, to try to contain the Red River. Its waters are expected to crest at the weekend some 23 feet higher than flood stage. North Dakota's twelve miles of improvised dikes qualified as Story of the Day.

ABC's Barbara Pinto warned that bitter cold temperatures can make sandbags less effective at holding back flood waters so the levees may not work even if they turn out to be tall enough. Nevertheless, "local universities canceled classes; high schools did too. The city needs the manpower." On CBS, Early Show weathercaster Dave Price added prison inmates and National Guardsmen to the effort. Price has become CBS Evening News' go-to guy for weather disasters--floods, blizzards, icestorms, hurricanes, wildfire, tornadoes--for almost the past year now, more than Today's Al Roker on NBC or Good Morning America's Sam Champion on ABC.

NBC put its focus on sandbagging volunteers, treating Fargo's crisis as an inspirational Making a Difference feature rather than a hard news story. Kevin Tibbles introduced us to out-of-towners from Duluth and St Paul and Iowa. Some were rounded up by craigslist.com; others put the call out on Facebook; a Fargo native who returned home to help out "followed the volunteer efforts on Twitter."


Andrew Tyndall 3/26/09 9:21:32 pm

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