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All three White House correspondents had followed President Barack Obama to Africa. ABC's Jonathan Karl and NBC's Chuck Todd filed from Senegal's Door of No Return on Thursday. Now ABC's Karl updates us as Obama moves on to South Africa. Awaiting the Presidential entourage was CBS' Mark Phillips, prepositioned outside a Pretoria hospital on deathwatch for Nelson Mandela. Phillips seemed embarrassed at the tastelessness of his vigil, citing criticism of the press corps -- himself presumably included -- as intrusive vultures. If Obama were to attend Mandela's bedside, Phillips warned, it could look opportunistic and pointless.
With Obama and Mandela both attracting attention to South Africa, NBC's Ron Allen piggybacked a Making a Difference feature from the impoverished township of Alexandra. A mini-venture-capital NGO hands out $1,500 start-up grants to would-be small businesses in the township. Meet Yusuf Bandera Rees and the Awethu Project.
The Pentagon is supplying national military forces in Afghanistan with a $1bn fleet of helicopters made in Russia by Rosoboronexport, the same firm that supplies arms to the Syrian military. The helicopters are being delivered despite the fact that Afghanistan lacks the necessary pilots and maintenance crews. Inspector General John Sopko exposed the sale. CBS' Chip Reid covered it from the Pentagon.
It looked like Rehema Ellis was about to file an expose of the botched college student loan policy that will see the interest rate on the federal Stafford program double for new borrowers. Instead NBC's Ellis started channeling ABC, turning an education policy story into News You Can Use: tips for the collegebound on mitigating their load of debt. What do I mean by ABC's house style? Look at Cecilia Vega's sidebar feature on the Story of the Day, the sweltering summer weather. Vega's response is not policy -- say a discussion on reversing climate change -- but consumer tips: how to use sunscreen properly.
Opting for neither a policy story nor for tips for students, Steve Hartman chose inspirational human interest for his week-ending On the Road feature for CBS. Meet Roy and Claudia Esprera: these foster parents make sure their teenage charges all end up in college.
There were so many problems two weeks ago with presenting the lung transplant for Sarah Murnaghan as a feelgood story. The ten-year-old girl's parents had made an end-run around bioethical guidelines to jump the queue to obtain an organ that was too big for her chest cavity. At the time ABC's David Wright used deceptive editing to imply that the girl was jumping for joy after lifesaving surgery, even as CBS' Jon LaPook was reporting that she was in a coma. Now NBC's Kate Snow pours yet more cold water on the feelgood warmth: Sarah's parents had misled reporters; the transplant failed; she stayed at the head of the queue; and received a second set of lungs three days later.
Kudos to Manuel Bojorquez for his chilling report from a Potter's Field in rural Brooks County in Texas for CBS. The county is 80 miles from the border with Mexico -- close enough to be reached by illicit immigrants traveling on foot, far enough for them not to be able to stagger any farther. A team of anthropology students from Baylor University is excavating some 450 pauper's graves in the small town of Falfurrias. The graves are believed to contain the remains of unidentified migrants who perished on the road north.
Following up on her sitdown on Wednesday, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer made the correct call and designated Edith Windsor, the lesbian widow turned gay icon, as her network's Person of the Week. The movie production house Breaking Glass Pictures provided plenty of pictures of Windsor and Thea Spyer, the love of her life, so presumably there is a docudrama in the works about the lawsuit that became a Supreme Court landmark. There was one piece of found footage that was completely mystifying. Why did Sawyer decide to include a clip from Beach Blanket Bingo?
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