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ABC's Martha Raddatz offered a more alarming picture of the imminence of the North Korean nuclear threat than either Jim Miklaszewski on NBC or David Martin on CBS. All three mentioned the fact that Pyongyang had showcased a mobile-launch ICBM system: Miklaszewski and Martin noted that the missile was put on display in a parade last year; Raddatz called it "apparently new."
It is a surprise that the loss of $6bn by JP Morgan on its London Whale trade should attract only one network correspondent to Senate hearings. Kudos for Anthony Mason at CBS for bringing us the story -- except that he earns a demerit for not coming up with any stronger working than a question about the too-big-to-fail bankers being "not entirely honest here."
NBC and CBS both filed a follow-up to the week's major story, the election of Pope Francis I. CBS' Elaine Quijano visited Our Lady of Mercy parish church in Flores, the neighborhood of Buenos Aires where Jorge Bergoglio was raised. His futbol team may have been San Lorenzo, but the Pope-to-be was "not well player." Quijano did not mention the controversy over Bergoglio's behavior towards the military junta during Argentina's Dirty War; NBC's Anne Thompson did, but only to quote the Vatican's thin-skinned denunciation of such questions as being raised by "left-wing, anti-clerical elements."
Given the chilling contents of the video that Clarissa Ward scored from Ahmed al-Abaid's militia, it was no wonder that we saw a nervy confrontation with the jihadi leader in the Syrian town of Azaz in her preview of her 60 Minutes report on CBS.
ABC's substitute anchor David Muir also previewed a primetime investigative feature, although his hidden-camera journey was only as far as a used car lot in New Jersey for 20/20's Highway Confidential. It turns out that the fox character in the TV ads for CARFAX is not what it seems. The ad seems to offer the fox to potential buyers as a check against unscrupulous car salesmen. In fact, the salesman uses the (possibly inaccurate) CARFAX as a token to the potential buyer of his own bona fides.
CBS' Jeff Glor landed a cushier junket for his hidden camera probe, to Montego Bay in Jamaica to cover the same sweepstakes scam that ABC's Pierre Thomas brought us Thursday. As I mentioned then, Thomas did the right thing by mentioning regular newscast sponsor Publishers Clearing House by name. Glor should have warned his viewers, but did not.
There really did not seem to be much wrong with Carnival's trio of cruise liners: Dream halted in St Maarten, Legend limping home from the Cayman Islands, Elation helped by a tugboat -- but they did allow both NBC's Gabe Gutierrez and ABC's Gio Benitez to turn the knife in the wound to Carnival's reputation, by re-running pictures of last month's putrid Triumph.
What a busy day for the graphic artists in ABC's Virtual View computer animation department! What did a Piper Cheyenne plane look like on take-off before it crashed into a Fort Lauderdale parking lot? ABC's Lisa Stark turned to Virtual View. What would it look like if a missile defense system were to intercept a North Korean rocket successfully? ABC's Raddatz turned to Virtual View. How much bigger are Carnival's current cruise liners than Pacific Princess, the ship that happened to be ABC's own fictional Love Boat? ABC's Benitez turned to Virtual View. Why show actuality when you can imagine virtuality?
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