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The second day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings again qualified as Story of the Day. The questioning of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was the lead item on both NBC and CBS but, oddly, ABC decided to start off with an airline emergency. A hole appeared in the roof of a Boeing 737 in mid-flight and the Southwest Airlines jetliner was forced to land short of its destination. Everyone on board was safe yet ABC thought the scare was newsworthy enough to take precedence over the would-be Justice in its line-up.

CBS' Wyatt Andrews heard "a tense series of challenges" from the Senate panel. ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg observed that the judge "never lost her composure" during a grueling session: "She took vigorous notes almost like she was trying to keep her focus by writing as they spoke." All three newscasts mentioned abortion among the issues that came up in questioning. NBC's Pete Williams noted that when Sotomayor called the Roe vs Wade decision settled law, "Republican nominees Samuel Alito and John Roberts gave similar answers." ABC's Crawford Greenburg and CBS' Andrews also checked off her answers on affirmative action and the Second Amendment. "On gun rights she walked a fuzzy line," opined ABC's Crawford Greenburg.

Andrew Tyndall 7/15/09 7:12:02 pm

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