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Maybe the debate over the wisdom of the decade-long Afghanistan War is finally gaining serious traction. ABC anchor Diane Sawyer was responsible for Afghanistan being Story of the Day on Monday with her special report trip to Kabul. Now the United States Senate puts the war in the spotlight: NBC's Jim Miklaszewski covered the skeptical confirmation hearings for Ryan Crocker, the nominee as the next ambassador to Hamid Karzai's government; CBS' Nancy Cordes publicized a scathing report on the rathole down which $19bn in development aid for Karzair from the United States government has been poured. The proportion of the Afghan economy that depends either on foreign aid or on military spending, Cordes reported, is 97%. Astonishing.

It was such a light day of news that these two packages alone qualified Afghanistan as Story of the Day, so the coverage may not actually be a sign of renewed traction but merely evidence of a vacuum of other stories. Nevertheless, the Afghan war has attracted as much attention on the network nightly newscasts in just three days this week as it received during the entire month of May. There have been 20 packages on the war so far in 2011, of which six have been filed this week. CBS led with its in-house opinion poll on Barack Obama's approval rating; it found 64% support for a drawdown of troops.

CBS News' poll story by Jan Crawford, though, focused more on the President's handling of the economy than his war leadership, just as Jake Tapper's coverage of similar results from ABC News' in-house poll did Tuesday. The first three days of Scott Pelley's tenure as CBS anchor have so far seen two stories (here and here) on the real estate bust, one on long-term unemployment, one on labor relations, and two (here and here) on Obama's economic leadership. Maybe Pelley intends to examine the Great Recession as seriously as his predecessor scanted it in her valedictory of her five years in that chair.

NBC, with substitute Lester Holt, led with the public relations nightmare suffered by Delta Airlines, after soldiers returning from war to Fort Polk resorted to YouTube to publicize the $200-per-bag surcharge (later retracted) that Delta charged for their domestic travel. Here is Tom Costello's report on NBC and Jim Sciutto's version on ABC. ABC's lead from Jim Avila was the severe weather, combining the current heatwave with the winter's blizzards and the spring tornados, to illustrate the dangers of global warming. That is the third time in the last year that ABC has gone the extra step (Linsey Davis in the winter and Clayton Sandell in the summer), turning from incidental weather to longterm climate

The Anthony Weiner tabloid spectacle has almost run its course on the nightly news. Claire Shipman spun it out for another day with what amounted to a mash note to Huma Abedin, the embarrassed congressman's pregnant wife. Abedin has "always thrived in a high octane existence"…is a "master of discretion and propriety"…and a "wise young woman," ABC's Shipman gushed.

Andrew Tyndall 6/9/11 9:23:51 pm

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