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The two-week-long domination of the news agenda by the Boston Marathon bombings is finally starting to crack. Sure enough the investigation into the bombings was Story of the Day yet again, completing a clean sweep of the week, but only ABC selected it as its lead, with Linsey Davis offering a hat tip to the scoop by the Boston Globe's Eric Moskowitz. ABC's newscast was anchored by substitute David Muir. Elsewhere, CBS and NBC both acted true to form. CBS, which has specialized on the conflict in Syria from its inception, kicked off from the Pentagon with David Martin. NBC, which has covered the disruption to airline travel every day this week, assigned Tom Costello to lead with the vote to end the FAA's furloughs of air traffic controlers.

The scoop by the Globe's Moskowitz was to sit down with the Cambridge motorist whose SUV was allegedly carjacked by the Brothers Tsarnaev en route to their fatal shootout in Watertown. ABC's Davis did not get to sit down with the 26-year-old motorist, or even to learn his name, but she did get Moskowitz to tell her the story of kidnapping and escape that "Danny" had told him. On NBC, investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff recounted the same story, also second hand, but his source was not a journalist at the Globe but Professor James Alan Fox, criminologist at Northeastern.

You can see how the momentum of the Boston story is petering out. Both CBS and NBC filed features on amputees in hospital. NBC's Katy Tur brought us disabled military veterans from the Semper Fi Fund Making a Difference by counseling their fellow legless. CBS' Don Dahler had Heather Abbott explain how she coped with making her decision in the orthopedic "gray zone."

And to demonstrate just how close to the bottom of the barrel this story has come, look at ABC's coverage. First, Matt Gutman was assigned to file a preview for 20/20's hourlong primetime social psychology survey In An Instant, which examines how humans behave in crowds such as -- oh, I don't know -- spectators watching a pair of bombs explode at the end of a marathon. Then substitute anchor David Muir tried to give us all an earworm for the weekend by designating Neil Diamond as his network's Person of the Week for serenading New England with that Fenway Park anthem.
Andrew Tyndall 4/29/13 7:17:39 pm

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