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The main event over the upcoming weekend may derive from the show business -- but sports, not motion pictures, were the entertainment that took pride of place on the network newscasts to round out the week. ABC's David Muir attended a wrestling tournament in Teheran for his Inside Iran series. CBS led its newscast with bicycle racing and closed it with basketball. NBC became the third out of three networks this week to promote NASCAR's Daytona 500 race via Danica Patrick and her green godaddy.com car. And then, of course, there was accused murderer and Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, granted bail by a court in Pretoria, the lead item on NBC's newscast, and the Story of the Day for the third time this week. ABC was the only newscast not to kick off with sports, leading with winter weather for the third day running.

Let's hope that the end of the bail hearings breaks Pistorius Fever. Coverage, yet again, on all three newscasts, means that ABC's Bazi Kanani and CBS' Emma Hurd and NBC's Michelle Kosinski have each filed on the case on all five weekdays this week. CBS' Hurd offered a ray of hope, noting that both prosecution and defense have an interest in delaying the date of the trial proper.

As for the other sports stories, CBS anchor Scott Pelley again took an active role in reporting on the disgrace of Lance Armstrong. He has shouldered roughly half his network's load over the last few years, repurposing clips from 60 Minutes interviews. NBC anchor Brian Williams was so eager to demonstrate his passion for NASCAR that he hardly let the godaddy.com lady get a word in. ABC's Muir was more interested in relating the logistics of how he reported his wrestling story and how his presence was received inside the auditorium than he was in the tournament itself. Steve Hartman finds time to file one high school hoops story each season for his On The Road feature series on CBS. Each of his last three have been from Texas.
Andrew Tyndall 2/25/13 11:08:57 pm

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