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Nightline's Terry Moran told us that, increasingly, the opposition in Syria is perceived to include "warlords, gangsters and religious fanatics." Moran is not the first ABC anchor to be contacted by Bashar al-Assad for favorable coverage. Here is Diane Sawyer reminding us of her experience with outreach. Here is Barbara Walters' visit to Damascus. Such efforts aside, ABC has covered the Syrian story significantly less (93 min in 2011-2012 v CBS 342, NBC 168) than either of the other two networks.
CBS anchor Scott Pelley took himself off on a rare network newscast trip to Togo to cover the Africa Mercy charity hospital ship. Incredibly, the disfiguring tumors he showed us are caused by runaway teeth.
Both Tom Costello on NBC and Linzie Janis, a newly arrived reporter on ABC, tried -- unsuccessfully -- to turn the average price of gasoline into a riveting story. Both were mostly a yawn, although I did like Costello's phrase for coast-to-coast: "from Portland to Portland." On the other hand, his graphics spelled out "roll" when they meant "role." ABC stayed on the energy beat with David Kerley's explanation for a Jon Stewart joke on The Daily Show: why are heavier blizzards a symptom of global warming? On CBS, Mark Strassmann introduced us to Julia Crawford, the tall Texas rancher with grit who is stymieing the Keystone XL pipeline.
Stephanie Gosk's deadpan delivery of the Venezuelan cow punchline was spot-on in her NBC follow-up on the Russian meteor. On ABC, Kirit Radia felt compelled to inform us that a Bruce Willis movie had not actually rendered a realistic method to prevent space rocks from hitting. Really? You mean Armageddon was a fantasy?
Diana Alvear's dynamic marine video in NBC's closer came courtesy of DolphinSafari.com.
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