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A very heavy day of news saw a mixture of superpower diplomacy, domestic politics and an historic obituary. President Barack Obama was in Moscow, negotiating reductions in nuclear weaponry. Sarah Palin was in Alaska, facing fallout from her surprise resignation. Robert McNamara was dead, the architect of the United States' defeat in Vietnam. Yet, thanks to the warped news judgment of CBS, the Story of the Day turned out to be continuing coverage of the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death. Anchor Katie Couric jetted to Los Angeles ahead of Tuesday's memorial for the pop singer. She decided to devote fully two-thirds of her newscast (13 min v ABC 3, NBC 3) to celebrity trivia. NBC and ABC kept their heads, deciding properly, that Russia-US diplomacy should lead their newscasts.

White House correspondents Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper, respectively, led off the newscasts for NBC and ABC from Moscow, where Obama and his counterpart Dmitri Medvedev signed an agreement to renew and extend the START agreement. NBC's Todd predicted mutual cuts in nuclear warheads from 2,200 to around 1,600 and elimination of up to one third of the long range missiles designed to carry them. ABC's Tapper noted that these actions were intended to act as an example, aimed at "curbing nuclear proliferation around the globe," specifically in Iran and North Korea.

Medvedev and Obama agreed to increase their cooperation over logistics for the war in Afghanistan but failed to agree over the role of Russian troops in Georgia and a NATO missile defense in eastern Europe. For NBC's In Depth, Jim Maceda contrasted Medvedev, who "can hobnob with influential leaders" with Vladimir Putin, his predecessor and current prime minister. Putin has "morphed into more roles than a Hollywood star, from President Boris Yeltsin's shy obedient Yes Man, to the imperious leader, the action man, bomber pilot, artist." It is the populist Putin, Maceda suggested, who "pulls all of the levers behind the scenes."

Clarissa Ward landed a trip for ABC to a Kremlin-sponsored summer camp in the countryside near Seliger where "thousands of young people from across the country enjoy outdoor activities and are schooled in Russian nationalism." The youth calisthenics looked a little Aryan, to say the least. Let's just say the Ward's blond looks helped her fit in. This is how she covered anti-Asiatic skinhead gangs from Moscow in February.

Andrew Tyndall 7/10/09 9:09:12 pm

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