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The influenza outbreak continues to get overcovered. ABC and NBC both filed an update on the shortage of the vaccine against the H1N1 swine strain. NBC's Robert Bazell found "huge frustration about getting the vaccine" while ABC's John McKenzie reported that "tempers have flared as people waited for hours only to be turned away." McKenzie's A Closer Look had the advantage of the dynamic wheel format, in which we whiz round the country checking on the vaccine's status through the eyes of ABC's correspondents: Clayton Sandell in Colorado, Barbara Pinto in Missouri, Steve Osunsami in Florida plus online research into how to find shots in five other states. The public health operations in Mississippi and Alabama were rated worst.
CBS' substitute anchor Harry Smith was joined by his Early Show colleague Jennifer Ashton, a practicing gynecologist. Her report on the dangers facing pregnant women who are infected by the H1N1 virus evinced their morning roots. Ashton went for the emotional human interest angle rather than the public policy question. She told us the tale of Aubrey Opdyke, who was six months pregnant when she was infected. "She spent five weeks in a drug-induced coma suffering collapsed lungs, kidney failure and seizures."
The Early Show angle is to focus on her husband Brian, who had to make "a life and death decision" to authorize a premature Caesarian section to save his wife's life. An Evening News angle would have been to examine whether H1N1 is leading to an increase in late-term abortions, including the often-denounced so-called partial birth method, to save the lives of pregnant women. Ashton did not even mention the word abortion. Perhaps speaking the A-word, instead of restricting herself to the C-section, would have made her story seem less heartwrenching. By the way, the Opdyke daughter, untimely ripped from her mother's womb, survived for seven minutes.
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