 |
         
|
The Image of the Day was Seat 17A on the Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Havana. It was empty. It signified that Snowden was not, as had been expected, trying to travel from Russia, via Cuba, to Ecuador where he had applied for political asylum, following the trail blazed by Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.org, who was already being sheltered by Ecuador from arrest by the United States. All three newscasts reported that WikiLeaks.org was the sponsor that paid for Snowden's escape from Hong Kong to Moscow, after Hong Kong decided to discontinue negotiations with Washington about extradition.
Each of the three newscasts assigned primary coverage of the Snowden manhunt to a single correspondent -- Brian Ross on ABC, Bob Orr on CBS, Andrea Mitchell on NBC -- and then peppered its coverage with input from other reporters. The inability of the federal government to arrest Snowden on espionage charges was clearly exasperating. It is amusing to note the different shadings of mood attributed to the feds by the three correspondents: ABC's Ross saw outrage; CBS' Orr desperation; NBC's Mitchell embarrassment.
As for all those the helping hands, the White House beat was handled by Jonathan Karl on ABC; traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry, CBS used Margaret Brennan and NBC used Catherine Chomiak (folded into the Mitchell videostream); covering the Justice Department were CBS' John Miller and ABC's Pierre Thomas (at the head of the Karl videostream); from foreign bureaus, ABC had Gloria Riviera in Hong Kong (folded into the Ross videostream), and NBC had Jim Maceda in Moscow and Miguel Almaguer in Quito (both folded into the Mitchell videostream).
Get ready for month-long drumbeat coverage of the neighborhood watch killing in Sanford Fla. All three newscasts started to introduce the cast of characters as the murder trial of George Zimmerman got under way (and get ready for the ritual disclaimer that will follow each and every report on the trial from NBC, namely that NBC is the defendant in a lawsuit for defamation filed by the accused murderer Zimmerman).
As they have done throughout their coverage, ABC and CBS assigned their main man to the trial's opening statements, Matt Gutman (who has filed 28 of his network's 30 reports so far) and Mark Strassmann (18 of his network's 22). NBC has used a mixture of correspondents to cover the story, opting this time for Ron Mott, only his second package on the case.
We were introduced to prosecutor John Guy (with his *profanity* punks soundbite) and defender Don West (with his lame Knock-Knock joke). All three newscasts ran the chilling 911 audio of the fatal shot being fired. ABC's homework included a Virtual View computer animation of the crimewatch community that Zimmerman patroled. NBC's Mott added a soundbite from Kendall Coffey, his network's in-house legal analyst. I am sure it will turn out to be the start of a busy month for Mr Coffey.
As controversial as the killing was at the time -- actually, it was not the killing that caused the controversy but the initial decision by local prosecutors not to file charges -- this court case would not be booked for non-stop national attention if it were not being televised. I should be more precise, so that I do not leave the wrong impression: the problem is not the presence of video cameras in Sanford, but their absence elsewhere. If video cameras were allowed inside all courtrooms, including the Supreme Court, as they should be, in order to ensure that justice is seen to be done, then the Sanford trial would be merely one among many, and would not be the object of the national fixation that now seems inevitable.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, the technical non-decision on race-based affirmative action at the University of Texas received more attention than it deserved. The Court decided that diversity on campus was a desirable objective, but that to include racial criteria to achieve it should be a last resort. CBS' Jan Crawford used a gridiron metaphor for that football-crazy university: she called the instruction that a lower court subject its admissions system to yet more intense scrutiny nothing but "a punt." ABC's Terry Moran made note of the fact that plaintiff Fisher is aligned with the American Enterprise Institute. NBC's Peter Williams used his airtime to offer a plug for author Greg Stohr's book, A Black and White Case.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
