 |
         
|
Brian Ross has owned the Bernard Madoff story on ABC, accounting for 13 of 20 World News reports since the Ponzi scheme was exposed two years ago. The agreement by Barbara Picower, the widow of Madoff's biggest investor, to repay the billions of dollars that her husband Jeffry withdrew from Madoff's fund was covered both by Ross and his investigative counterpart on CBS, Armen Keteyian. Ross' speculation was the juicier. Citing the "belief" of unidentified investigators, Ross reported that Madoff may have paid Picower such astronomical rates of return as hush money, because Picower knew about the fraud and was blackmailing him.
A trio of consumer trends, one on each newscast: NBC's Lee Cowan was unimpressed by the class action lawsuit filed against McDonald's for luring children into poor nutrition with the promise of Happy Meals toys. "For parents, sometimes, a No has to be a No," he instructed firmly…ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi followed a tenfold increase in credit card marketing, much of it targeted at borrowers with bad credit ratings, charging usurious interest rates, as high as 30%...Taking the conventional route, CBS' Anthony Mason checked the jewelry counter at a mall in Scarsdale NY for spending trends this Christmas. It is the strongest year for retailers since 2006, with a marked increase in selfishness--6% more so-called "self-gifting."
Los Angeles Times got a tip of the hat from NBC for its front page coverage of the so-called Grim Sleeper case. Kristen Welker told us that Lonnie Franklin, aged 57, is under arrest for the suspected serial killings of ten women in South Central starting in 1985. The newspaper printed a pitiful gallery of thumbnail photographs of 180 additional women, images found on film and on videotape in Franklin's home. "There may be more victims," warned Welker chillingly.
On a much jauntier note was John Blackstone's tip of the hat to Google on CBS. He walked us through its latest word-search chartmaker from a database of five million digitally scanned books. He toyed with groovy teenagers, and dogs and cats. Yet, disgracefully, Blackstone never bothered to give us the link or even to supply it at the cbsnews.com transcript of his story. CBS had to rely on a considerate commenter to perform that simplest piece of Internet etiqutte: here it is.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
