 |
         
|
The Brazilian nightclub fire was so awful that both NBC and ABC made the unusual decision to dispatch a reporter to the scene. ABC's Matt Gutman traveled from Miami, NBC's Keir Simmons from London. CBS passed on the expense, conducting an interview with Simon Romero of The New York Times instead.
CBS also decided not to assign a correspondent to gay boy scouts, mentioning it in passing instead. NBC claimed that its Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams had broken the story, but decided not to lead with it. ABC's lead, by David Muir, included hat tips to The Ellen DeGeneres Show and to glaad.org.
CBS Sports has the rights to broadcast the NFL Super Bowl this weekend, which is being played in New Orleans. The network was admirably circumspect in its cross-promotion when it aired Mark Strassmann's feature on the slow pace of rebuilding after the floods of Hurricane Katrina. However discreet, I wager that Strassmann's will not be the last story with a Big Easy dateline on CBS before the game is played.
There is something about wired education that appeals to NBC. Kerry Sanders' Making a Difference feature in praise of Estella's Brilliant Bus, the traveling Florida classroom, follows Lester Holt in South Carolina, Ron Mott in Arkansas and Kevin Tibbles in Colorado.
All three in-house physicians were called in. As usual ABC did not report onthe breast cancer research that both Dr Nancy on NBC and Dr Jon on CBS covered: ABC has covered the disease less than half as much as either of its rivals over the past couple of years. ABC's Dr Richard, instead, used clips from his network's The View to share about the chicken pox, the childhood illness afflicting his colleague Barbara Walters, at the age of 83.
Speaking of age, the breast cancer research that NBC and CBS covered concerned a study of surgical treatments in women aged 50 years and over. So what on earth did NBC's Snyderman think she was doing when she decided to illustrate the story with a 40-year-old patient?
David Wright, on ABC, may be cute, but he is no Colin Firth. He is certainly no Lawrence Olivier. As his sardonic anchor Diane Sawyer commented as he finished his Regency-era fantasy as Mr Darcy: "Come back to earth, David."
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
