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Pope-watchers are getting geared up for the Conclave of Cardinals. All three newscasts filed from Vatican City, making their preview the Story of the Day and the lead item on NBC. Gradually, we are being introduced to the networks' in-house experts: consultant George Weigel talked to Anne Thompson on NBC; Father John Wauck supplied color for ABC's David Wright; on CBS, Allen Pizzey relied on author John Thavis, allowing him to plug his book The Vatican Diaries. ABC's Wright, like his colleague Dan Harris on Ash Wednesday, observed that Vatican intrigue reminded him of a Dan Brown novel. That is two Brown mentions so far. I bet we get to double figures before the white smoke tells us that habemus papam.

ABC is stuck in a rut for its selection of lead item. For the fourth straight weekday it decided to notify us that it snows in February. This time substitute anchor David Muir introduced meteorologist Ginger Zee as she offered News You Can Use about how to behave when your car gets stuck in a blizzard. NBC deferred to its sibling network, the Weather Channel, and Mike Seidel. CBS relied on KWCH-TV, its local affiliate in Wichita, and reporter Michael Schwanke.

As for CBS, anchor Scott Pelley made special note that emphasizing dietary and nutritional tips is not what his newscast prides itself on -- before capitulating to in-house physician Jon LaPook's pitch. Dr Jon lavished publicity on the heart-healthy properties of the Mediterranean Diet. ABC, too, had Richard Besser, its in-house medic, go Mediterranean. NBC's white coat, Nancy Snyderman, also landed a Monday assignment: hers was a warning that many ear infections in toddlers are not caused by bacteria, meaning that antibiotics are often inappropriate, yet prescribed anyway.

You would think that the fact that each newscast made a call on its in-house physician would be ample health-and-medicine coverage for one day. You would be wrong.

ABC's Real Money series used an extreme example of a Florida family that spends $20,000 each month on prescriptions -- mostly for infusions to treat Crohn's Disease -- to offer tips on how the rest of us can save money at the pharmacy. Michelle Fox, who was Paula Faris' RX cost-cutting expert, successfully lobbied the infusion producer to cut its monthly price for this one prescription by more than sixteen grand -- a lesson with no generalizable application.

Meanwhile on CBS, in the days before the automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequester, Wyatt Andrews did exactly what he did in the days before the automatic federal spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff: he publicized the pleading of biologists funded by the National Institutes of Health to keep their grant money coming.
Andrew Tyndall 2/26/13 8:32:23 pm

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