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Round Three of this year's continuing federal budget battle was Story of the Day, thanks to Barack Obama's speech on the looming Sequester. Round One, the so-called Fiscal Cliff, was top story back on New Year's Day; Round Two, extending the Debt Ceiling, made few waves, apart from Kevin Tibbles' light-hearted look at the platinum coin gimmick for NBC. Yet the President failed to qualify for lead story on any of the three newscasts: NBC and ABC both led with Unit 61398, the cyber-espionage unit of the People's Liberation Army based in Shanghai; CBS kicked off with a follow-up on from Los Angeles on last week's Christopher Dorner manhunt.

NBC's John Yang, who is based in Chicago, had the most detailed coverage of the looming sequester and its potential impact on domestic federal services. CBS had previously, on three separate occasions, made the case that Pentagon cuts would have an economic ripple effect. All three White House correspondents chipped in: CBS' Major Garrett looked at the President's lobbying tactics; ABC's Jonathan Karl pointed out that $82bn in annual cuts amounts to only 2.2% of all federal spending; NBC's Chuck Todd dismissed those worrying about the sequester as mere Chickens Little. A legislative band-aid would cover over any harmful impact by the end of March, he reassured us.

Now, look at the exchange between Todd and his anchor Brian Williams. Remember last month on immigration legislation, when Williams completely contradicted Todd's reporting? Well, he does it again: Todd reassured us about the band-aid; Williams willfully interpreted that as a "dire forecast."
Andrew Tyndall 2/20/13 5:50:06 pm

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