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The saber-rattling over the Korean peninsula attracted coverage by correspondents on all three networks, as two B-2 Stealth Bombers flew across the Pacific Ocean from Missouri to drop practice bombs into the Yellow Sea, to demonstrate that they could have been nuclear weapons. The B-2, ABC's Martha Raddatz showed us with her network's Virtual View computer animation, can drop a payload of 16 hydrogen bombs in a single riad. From the White House, CBS' Major Garrett noted that North Korea's bellicosity was most likely "bluster." NBC had Ian Williams in Seoul, where, he noted, Pyongyang had "not moved beyond rhetoric." An incredulous Raddatz quoted the Pentagon as claiming that it had no desire to ratchet up tension with its fake bombing raid: "That is exactly what has happened."
al-Nusra is one of the militias fighting in the rebel coalition in the Syrian Civil War, ABC's David Kerley told us from Washington. It has links with the offshoot of al-Qaeda that is based in Iraq. Eric Harroun, a 30-year-old Iraq War veteran from Arizona, is fighting with al-Nusra in a rocket-propelled grenade unit. Harroun's use of an RPG over there is illegal over here, prosecutors claim. Who knew that an RPG is classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction?
NBC's Miguel Almaguer followed up on Wednesday's spectacular visuals from the collapsing cliffs of Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. He had little new to report -- but he did work in a line about residents "literally living on the edge." I love it when literally is used literally.
Last month ABC's Ron Claiborne publicized TIME magazine's blockbuster expose on chaotic hospital pricing. Now Paula Faris jumps on the hospital industry's non-profit sector for her Real Money series. Every hospital in that sector is required to set up a Patient Assistance Program to help pay oversized bills. Filing from Nevada (Faris did not say where) about singer Joyce Huston's medical provider (Faris did not say who), Faris demonstrated that those programs are unpublicized and inaccessible, and how a patient needs a healthcare-finance professional to take advantage of them.
Beloved Madiba, as South Africans call him, is 94 years old, and in ailing health. NBC's Rahit Kachroo did the lazy TV news thing, demonstrating what a big deal this story is by quoting other newscasts making it their lead. CBS aired a brief stand-up with Debora Patta in Johannesburg. ABC mentioned Nelson Mandela in passing.
ABC's Darren Rovell and NBC's Kevin Tibbles both gushed over the March Madness at Florida Gulf Coast University on Monday but, presumably because of sports footage copyright issues, neither broadcast report was posted online. CBS, whose sports division owns the rights to the NCAA Tournament, has not blocked Jim Axelrod's profile of Andy Enfield while he is still not-yet-eliminated. Enfield is the coach "with the kind of touch Midas would envy."
What was ABC's Matt Gutman adding in this follow up report on Gladys, the orphaned baby gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo, that he had not already told us three weeks ago? Only one thing I could see: Matt gets urinated on.
It is a timeworn televisual trope for honoring disabled military veterans -- show their courage and resilience by celebrating athletic joy, despite disfigurement and amputation. Check out this list: swimming, lacrosse, golf, surfing, fly-fishing, SCUBA, ice hockey, cycling, softball, kayaking, baseball. Now let's hit the slopes in Vail, schussing with NBC's Kevin Tibbles.
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