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Last weekend's shooting at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson completed a clean sweep for the week. It was the lead story on all 15 of the week's nightly newscasts (five weekdays, three networks). It occupied 57% of the week's three-network newshole (168 min out of 291 total) with little difference in the amount of attention among the three newscasts (CBS 58 min, NBC 58, ABC 52). Friday, Tucson was Story of the Day yet again (20 min total--ABC 8, CBS 8, NBC 4), more from the continuing momentum of an already-established storyline than from any interesting new development. Oh, by the way, there was a revolution in Tunisia. No network had a foreign correspondent on the scene to cover the drama. ABC anchored its newscast from Washington DC for no apparent reason since it offered no special Beltway coverage. NBC used substitute anchor Lester Holt.

Pam Simon, an aide to Rep Gabrielle Giffords, who was also injured in Saturday's gunfire, got her moment in the spotlight. ABC's David Muir covered her release from hospital and her "triumphant return" to Giffords' district office. Simon, a former schoolteacher and an advocate for students with social behavior and mental health problems, also sat down for an interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric: "I have no malice toward this young man at all," she commented, referring to Jared Loughner, the accused killer of six. "I only have sadness that we, as a society, are not able to help him.

More salacious tidbits dribbled out about Loughner, this time from the photo-processing laboratory at Walgreens. Both CBS' Ben Tracy and NBC's Mike Taibbi described Loughner's self-portrait snapshots yet neither showed us his poses with a bright red G-string, pistol at his crotch, then at his buttocks. How such gratuitous gossip does not qualify as prejudicial and unethical pre-trial publicity is beyond me.

Meanwhile, NBC's Kristen Welker and CBS' Tracy filed routine medical updates on the injured and the crowded, yet private, funeral of Federal Judge John Roll. ABC's week-ending Person of the Week offered vox-pop comments from mourners and those standing vigil outside the hospital.

Andrew Tyndall 1/18/11 7:11:27 pm

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