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The brouhaha about Chris Christie's waistline looks like a media concoction rather than a legitimate news story. Just look at the coverage by Dan Harris on ABC and Andrea Mitchell on NBC. Both used clips from David Letterman's Late Night and soundbites from CNN. Harris threw in Jimmy Fallon and his own anchor Diane Sawyer for good measure; Mitchell inserted a gratuitous plug for her own network's Biggest Loser reality show in primetime. CBS decided there was no news here.
Much of the rhetoric in the debate over gun control legislation has concerned the effectiveness of current restrictions. Last week, Chip Reid at CBS offered an eye-opening peek into the shambolic BATF tracing facility in West Virginia. Now his colleague John Blackstone rides shotgun in Stockton Cal to show us the logistical nightmare of disarming convicted felons and the mentally ill.
Fast food restaurants hold a fascination for ABC that has eluded its two rivals over the past couple of years. Case in point: Abbie Boudreau just gushes over the cult status of In-N-Out Burgers, and Lynsi Torres, its thirtysomething billionaire owner. Boudreau swears that much about Torres is a mystery -- and then contradicts herself by showing how the late Huell Howser managed to get up-close-and-personal on PBS' California's Gold three years ago.
Usually, I pay NBC no respect for its coverage of the Olympic Games. Since the broadcast rights to these events are owned by NBC Sports, usually purported journalism amounts to no more than crass self-promotion. Jim Maceda's preview trip of next year's winterfest is an exception. In Sochi, he finds a Vladimir Putin vanity project just south of mountains infested with Chechen guerrillas. "What could possibly go wrong?" asks anchor Brian Williams.
Kudos to Elizabeth Palmer of CBS for introducing us to abdul-Kader Haidara, preserver of the priceless manuscripts of Timbuktu. See Haidara's smile. It is as wide as the Sahara.
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