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The parents of the Connecticut elementary school marked their month-long grief by announcing an anti-violence activist group, the Sandy Hook Promise. NBC's Anne Thompson filed a straight news report from Newtown, while CBS assigned Seth Doane to an affecting lead-off feature with Jackie and Mark Barden, the parents of Daniel, a dead seven-year-old. Listen to Jackie contrasting guns and kittens. At first, you think she is going to be mawkish but then…
All three White House correspondents covered Barack Obama's press conference. On NBC, Chuck Todd allowed the President to set his own agenda, covering the topics as he raised them. Both Jonathan Karl and Major Garrett, on ABC and CBS respectively, decided that the presser was a gun control event, tied to Newtown. I prefer the latter, less deferential, approach.
France, the former colonial power, may have decided to go to war in the Saharan wastelands of Mali, but none of the newscasts deemed that newsworthy enough for a correspondent. The day's lone report from overseas was filed by ABC's Gloria Riviera in Beijing, where breathing is as unhealthy as smoking.
In domestic health news, Tom Costello made this the fifth straight weekday that NBC has decided to lead with influenza: Costello was spelling his network's in-house physician, Dr Nancy; Snyderman had taken NBC's lead Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week. ABC stayed with its in-house physician, Richard Besser, for its 'flu story; CBS went to Ben Tracy in Los Angeles, where the outbreak has yet to spread. CBS also checked in on Anna Werner in Austin, where she allowed herself an I Told You So for Gov Rick Perry in her follow-up on her report of last March.
Last Monday, in her Real Money feature, Paula Faris lavished unwarranted free publicity on secondipity.com and thredup.com. Now SaveLoveGive.com comes in for a Faris lavish. Publicity-hungry Websites now know whom to contact at ABC News.
Both NBC and ABC agreed that Coca-Cola's mea culpa advertising campaign and Jodie Foster's self-outing should be treated as newsworthy events. The soda story was no surprise at ABC, since such stories are a regular beat for Jim Avila; that NBC's Chris Jansing covered it too was less predictable. The Golden Globe story was no surprise at NBC, since Kristen Dahlgren was merely shilling for her bosses' entertainment division; that ABC's Nick Watt covered it too, was also somewhat predictable. Last year, ABC filed more stories with a Hollywood dateline than NBC and CBS combined.
Meanwhile, at CBS -- it is highly unusual for the appointment of an admiral to be newsworthy enough to attract scrutiny on the network nightly newscasts. Yet while NBC and ABC were closing their newscasts with the inconsequential frivolity of the Golden Globes, David Martin examined the nomination of Timothy Dorsey. Should a catastrophic error 25 years ago disqualify him? Check it out here.
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