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The aftermath of a weekend of stormy spring weather was Monday's Story of the Day even though none of the three newscasts chose it as their lead item. All three networks sent a reporter to rural Mississippi to show us the damage wreaked by a giant tornado that had plowed through the state. As for breaking developments, NBC chose to lead with the widening slick of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico; ABC selected a massive class action lawsuit against Walmart alleging discrimination against its female workforce; CBS focused on the decision by Senate Republicans to block debate on a bill to regulate high finance.

The Mississippi twister had been almost two miles wide with winds that topped 170 mph. ABC sent Steve Osunsami to Ebenezer to show us torn-apart houses: he used stormchasing videotape of the funnel cloud from tornadovideos.net. Don Teague was in Yazoo City for CBS to tell us the sad story of 30-year-old Nikki Bradshaw Carpenter, who saved the lives of her three sons, aged seven, two and one, by covering them with a mattress: "She was found dead, still on top of the mattress." NBC's Kerry Sanders used his report from Weir to praise his network's sibling cable network, The Weather Channel, for its superior tornado forecasting formula developed by meteorologist Greg Forbes. The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel had filed from Little Rock on Friday to tell us that this year's tornado season was starting later than usual.

By the way, Norman Charles at The Nightly Daily teased NBC's producers for its graphic that located Seidel in Alaska (AK not AR), where tornadoes hardly ever happen.

Andrew Tyndall 4/28/10 6:25:34 pm

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