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A very light day of news saw complete lack of consensus between the three newscasts about the headline agenda. CBS chose to lead with an opinion poll; NBC with macro-economic trends; ABC with neurological research into the IQs of children. The Story of the Day was none of the above: for the first time since the end of March, the rebellion in Libya against Moammar Khadafy qualified as the most heavily-covered story. CBS' Allen Pizzey filed from the sniper-ridden streets of Misurata; ABC used its British newsgathering partner BBC to air the same angle from Orla Guerin. The Pentagon decided to send a couple of remote-controled, missile-armed Predator drones to the conflict, a development covered by ABC' Martha Raddatz and NBC's Richard Engel. Jim Axelrod rounded out the coverage for CBS with a video tribute to the photojournalism of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who were killed in Misurata. Check the Getty Image of the teenage soldier from Liberia.

The lead on CBS was its own in-house Where America Stands opinion poll: Jan Crawford, with her second story on the politics beat after switching from the Supreme Court, told us that 70% of Americans think the country is not standing at all, but heading in the wrong direction. Face the Nation anchor Bob Schieffer followed up by blaming gasoline prices.

NBC started with statistics about crude oil and gasoline prices before Kristin Welker veered into a general survey of high commodity prices--including wheat and cotton--being passed through to the consumer. So inflation is now back on the news agenda at all three networks: ABC had Jim Avila cover it; CBS used Anthony Mason. Before those three stories, inflation had not been deemed newsworthy since the summer of 2008. CNBC's David Faber followed up with skepticism that speculators in the commodity pits could be curbed. Driving up the price by betting on futures does not amount to gouging or fraud, he argued.

ABC, as it likes to do when there is no obvious lead, chose to kick off with an obscure survey raising lifestyle concerns. Earlier this month, for example, ABC picked up on surveys of babyboomers' nest eggs, and motorists' driving expenses, and snafus in hospitals. This time Jim Sciutto focused on studies of the IQs of children: they found that high levels of prenatal organo-phosphate pesticides seven years ago led to lower scores on intelligence tests now, even incompetence at rendering stick figures in drawings. It seems like in-house physician Richard Besser is especially worried about the effect of pesticides on the brain. Both after Sciutto's report and after Andrea Canning's coverage of a similar study a year ago, Besser offered advice on our fruits and vegetables.

Andrew Tyndall 4/23/11 6:05:38 pm

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