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If it had not been for Pope Benedict, the weekending headlines would have been the climax of a day-by-day countdown to the dreaded sequester. But the Vatican has topped the agenda most of the week. The implementation of $85bn in automatic federal spending cuts was, indeed, the lead item on all three newscasts and Story of the Day -- but the expected build-up of pressure on politicians to arrive at an alternative compromise had not been exerted via news coverage. Only twice previously in the entire month of February (this Tuesday and the Tuesday before) had the looming sequester also qualified as Story of the Day.

As it was, all three newscasts led from the White House where Barack Obama struck a surprisingly reassuring tone about that automatic ax: its effect would be neither apocalyptic nor sudden. ABC relied on Jonathan Karl alone for its coverage. NBC had David Gregory, anchor of Meet the Press, follow Chuck Todd's lead report: Gregory introduced reassuring soundbites from his Sunday interview with Speaker John Boehner that there would be no total shutdown of the federal government at the end of the month. CBS, as it has all month long, covered the budget fight in most detail: Major Garrett from the White House; Nancy Cordes from the corridors of the Capitol; and anchor Scott Pelley, who edited together previous soundbites from both President and Speaker.
Andrew Tyndall 3/4/13 6:04:06 pm

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