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It's a tie! It turned out that the total time spent on the civil war in Syria by the three newscasts and on the Supreme Court decision about biotech patents was precisely the same: 8.6 minutes. None of the networks led with biotech, however, while both NBC, with substitute anchor Lester Holt, and CBS led with Syria. The leads break the tie so Syria is Story of the Day. ABC, which also had a substitute anchor, David Muir, decided to lead with the wildfires near Colorado Springs, making this the ninth weekday out of the last 14 on which ABC has led with wild nature. By contrast CBS has led with natural disasters three times out of the same 14, NBC four times.

Ever since anchor Diane Sawyer arrived at World News from Good Morning America, ABC's evening newscast has been inflected with the tabloid, celebrity breeziness of morning fare. Terry Moran's coverage of the Supreme Court ruling, which rejected patents for the discovery of naturally-existing genetic material, inflected too far. Moran went way beyond dropping Angelina Jolie's name, since she had been a customer for the BRCA test that was the subject of the lawsuit. He actually made the story about her, including five different shots of Jolie's pulchritude on the red carpet.

Admittedly, NBC's Pete Williams used Jolie too, but compared with Moran, only in passing. On CBS, Jan Crawford told us that agribusiness patents for genetically-modified food survive the Court's ban and Anthony Mason followed up with the impact of the ruling on Amgen, Genentech, and GlaxoSmithKline. ABC's in-house physician Jennifer Ashton (at the tail of the Moran videostream) encouraged patients with BRCA cancer in the family to undergo the screening, patent or no patent.

All three White House correspondents covered the double-barreled news on Syria. The United States claims it has proof that the deaths of at least 100 out of the 90,000 killed in the civil war there were caused by the regime's limited use of Sarin nerve gas. Simultaneously, the Pentagon will supply some small arms to some opposition militias. NBC's Chuck Todd named the recipient as the Supreme Military Council, whatever that is. ABC's report was filed by Jonathan Karl, with an emphasis on the Sarin, downplaying the weapons. CBS' main report was filed from London by Clarissa Ward, with a recap of several now-slain rebels she had met during her reporting forays inside Syria, following Major Garrett's brief stand-up at the White House. Ward remembered Idlib: that extraordinary moustache, and the ambulance thief.

As for natural disasters, the Derecho that forecaster Ginger Zee predicted on Wednesday with her Virtual View from ABC's computer animators never materialized. NBC's Tom Costello and ABC's David Kerley filed on the eastward advance of an ordinary severe storm. The Weather Channel's Chris Warren forecast its eventual disappearance on NBC.

The wildfires, on the other hand, are burning near Colorado Springs with undiminished intensity. All three networks had a correspondent on the scene as the evacuation of 13,000 homes was ordered: NBC's Miguel Almaguer, ABC's Clayton Sandell, and CBS' Barry Petersen.
Andrew Tyndall 6/15/13 8:34:49 pm

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