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The economy dominated the headlines at the end of last week with deadline coverage of the federal government's budget. The late night compromise Friday over a formula to fund its operations through the end of the fiscal year defused that story. The new week started with a different economic worry--the rising price of oil. All three newscasts led with the Story of the Day: NBC and ABC, with substitute anchor George Stephanopoulos, chose the gasoline angle, now averaging $3.79 per gallon, even before the peak summer driving season begins. CBS took the broader view, with the impact of rising oil commodity prices on the economy as a whole.

Anthony Mason was assigned the lead spot by CBS and--just as his colleague Nancy Cordes did here and here in a couple of federal budget stories last week--his package include a spin across the country with stand-ups by a trio of correspondents offering vignettes on the impact of the price hike. Dean Reynolds in Chicago showed us how inflation turns up at the supermarket aisle; Bill Whitaker in California covered the increased cost of deliveries; Mark Strassmann in Atlanta told us that fewer office workers are driving to restaurants during the lunch hour. I like the wheel. It adds pace and variety to a regular package. Using correspondents in the field to illustrate a trend story with concrete examples tends to be pithier than unscripted soundbites.

The orthodox posting-that-giant-4-at-the-filling-station story was filed by Kristen Welker on NBC and Jim Avila on ABC. All three newscasts followed up on the federal budget story too: CBS' Nancy Cordes looked backwards to the cuts agreed on last Friday; White House correspondents Jake Tapper on ABC and Chuck Todd on NBC looked forward to the next big countdown showdown--the Congressional vote to raise the borrowing limit for the National Debt.

Andrew Tyndall 4/15/11 7:44:09 pm

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