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Apart from the Federal Reserve and its contracting monetary stimulus, there were two political stories that qualified for coverage. The Congressional correspondents at NBC and CBS both told us about a $20bn plan to intensify the policing of the border with Mexico: 20K newly hired patrol agents, 700 more miles of fencing, hi-tech sensors, cameras, drones. Both Kelly O'Donnell and Nancy Cordes saw the expense as an inducement to attract Republican support in the Senate to the proposed bipartisan immigration legislation. NBC's O'Donnell offered some cross-promotion to Maria Bartiromo at CNBC, who obtained a skeptical soundbite from Speaker John Boehner on the bill's potential.
Secondarily, ABC and CBS followed up on Tuesday's coverage of looming diplomacy with Afghanistan's Taliban at its newly-opened office in Qatar. On Tuesday, NBC's Dustin Golestani covered the talks from Kabul and CBS' Major Garrett did so from the traveling White House in Berlin. Now Margaret Brennan, CBS' woman at the State Department, tells us that a prisoner exchange, involving five Taliban leaders held at Guantanamo Bay, would be a pre-condition for diplomacy. ABC's David Wright took us to Idaho, the home of Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, the PoW who might be exchanged for the Gitmo Five.
Unusually, ABC's Clayton Sandell did the right thing when he described a western wildfire season that sees blazes twice the size of 40 years ago and a season lasting two months longer. He blamed climate change, and 28 years of warmer temperatures. On NBC Gabe Gutierrez told us that the drought in the southwest is intensifying with its center heading westwards. Yet when Gutierrez showed us that the town well had run dry in Magdalena NM, neither the words "global warming" nor "climate change" passed his lips.
The coverage of the deaf toddler Grayson Clamp was not the only report to use viral video as a news hook. CBS' Mark Strassmann reminded us of his network's heart-tugger from a month ago in Oklahoma: Barbara Garcia, aged 74, finding Bowser, her pet Schnauzer, in the rubble from the tornado that rampaged through Moore. Strassmann told us that Bowser logged 4m views online, netting Garcia $61K in donations to rebuld her home.
ABC's Matt Gutman has been the go-to correspondent on the killing of Trayvon Martin since the start. All but two of ABC's reports on the case have been filed by him, 27 out of a three-network 76. Gutman was the only reporter to file on the jury that will hear the murder prosecution of George Zimmerman. The fact that all of them are female is "highly unusual."
Steve Osunsami, in Atlanta for ABC, brought us the brouhaha at cable TV's Food Network, where Savannah's celebrity chef Paula Deen is giving southern hospitality a bad name. Osunsami quoted Deen as waxing nostalgic for those old plantation days, when slaves would dress in white jackets and black bowties to serve their masters. Osunsami found outrage on ABC's daytime yakker The View and worry at the public relations counseling firm Reputation.com. ABC also found Deen newsworthy last year, when Josh Elliott covered the revelation that she was a secret diabetes patient, even as she touted the wholesomeness of recipes that increase the risk of the disease.
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