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The week ended with disarray at the top of the news agenda. NBC led with the possibility that space may be opened as a new military frontier with Beijing's anti-satellite missile test. ABC led with recycled optimism in Baghdad from the US military. CBS chose a looming snowstorm in New Mexico that the other two networks did not bother to mention, even in passing. Yet none of these leads attracted enough attention to qualify as Story of the Day--that was an altogether different weather event, the gale force winds across northern Europe.

High winds carved a path from the British Isles through Holland and Germany to Poland. All three networks assigned reporters in their London bureaus to string together the videotape: ABC's Jim Sciutto (subscription required), CBS' Mark Phillips and NBC's Dawna Friesen. All showed the same English Channel lifeboat rescue, the same jet having trouble while landing in Manchester, the same tree lay waste to an English school, the same coastline battered by waves.

Weather porn supplied by pool video.

CBS assigned Kelly Cobiella to its lead on the domestic storm. On Monday, she covered the icestorm that blacked out Oklahoma. The state has still not recovered--"utility workers are still patching power lines"--yet faces six inches of snow this weekend.

Andrew Tyndall 1/21/07 12:06:33 am

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