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The schedule of the Conclave of Cardinals was announced. NBC's Anne Thompson filed a brief straightforward preview. The longshot American candidate for Bishop of Rome is a Capuchin friar: ABC's David Wright profiled the brown-cassocked cardinal last month; CBS' Jim Axelrod catches up now. It is a job, needless to say, for which no woman needs apply. ABC's Terry Moran checked out the nuns' vox pop, pro and con.
When Sulaiman abu-Ghaith was arrested yesterday, I pointed out that NBC spends much less time on the continuing al-Qaeda manhunt than either CBS or ABC. Sure enough: both ABC's Ron Claiborne and CBS' John Miller reported on the not-guilty plea filed by the late Osama bin Laden's son-in-law to terrorism conspiracy charges in a federal courtroom in New York City; and NBC mentioned it only in passing. CBS' Miller explained how the United States used the Kingdom of Jordan as a straw jailer in order to circumvent Turkey's extradition laws.
Updating two big overseas stories as they wind down: CBS' Charlie d'Agata shows how the homewardbound army dismantles remote defensive outposts in Kandahar Province; and NBC's Mark Potter attended the funeral rites for Hugo Chavez in Caracas.
The winter storm that was Story of the Day on Wednesday finally petered out. Eric Fisher of The Weather Channel filed for NBC on the wet, heavy snow dumped on New England. ABC's Ginger Zee showed us the coastal flooding south of Boston. On NBC, Today weathercaster Al Roker followed up on Tom Costello's observation Wednesday that the snow forecast for Washington DC had been botched. Roker told us that the National Weather Service was being outcomputed by the European Model (and, yes, anchor Brian Williams slotted in the obvious pun in his intro).
NBC's Lisa Myers is on the same page as ABC's Jonathan Karl on Wednesday: both believe that canceling visitors' tours of the White House is a phony economy. Yet I could not tell whether Myers' exasperation at Washington's "utter dysfunction" meant that she was telling us that stupid rules were being followed properly, or that proper rules were being followed stupidly. You be the judge -- does Myers endorse the Concord Coalition soundbite or present it as a debatable opinion?
CBS anchor Scott Pelley continued the preview of his 60 Minutes expose of the New England Compounding pharmacy, with which he kicked off Thursday's newscast. NECC is the firm that prepared the cut-priced steroids shots that turned out to contain the meningitis-causing fungus that killed 48 patients and crippled scores more. In part two, Pelley had to rely on his source's anonymity, putting a prescription salesman under disguise. Pelley's piece came as a cautionary antidote to the enthusiastic price-cutting of ABC's Paula Faris in her Real Money segments this Tuesday and the previous Monday.
Who knew that speed was bad for your health even if you were just living around it, not even snorting it? Jim Avila knew, that's who, in his preview of a 20/20 primetime special Houses From Hell on ABC.
ABC's Matt Gutman caught up with Stephanie Decker, the Indiana mother he profiled exactly a year ago when she had her legs amputated in the aftermath of a tornado. Decker was ABC's Person of the Week as she lobbied the state legislature (Gutman did not explain why an Indiana woman was seeking relief from Kentucky) and appeared on Ellen's daytime TV show (the second straight newscast on which Ms DeGeneres gets a free plug from ABC) and rewarded singer Kelly Clarkson with a shoutout (and a gratuitous clip from her inspirational Stronger video).
The afterschool special comes to NBC again. Of the 14 features in our database touting afterschool activities, all but three have appeared on NBC. Chelsea Clinton's Making a Difference in praise of Coach Khali Sweeney's Downtown Boxing Gym was a twofer: it not only kept NBC's afterschool streak alive; it also reinforced NBC's position as the newscast of record for Detroit's inner-city depredations.
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