On the whole, print coverage of James Comey's revelations this week has been relatively strong. Newspapers were a little slower than the blogs at
May 17, 2007

On the whole, print coverage of James Comey's revelations this week has been relatively strong. Newspapers were a little slower than the blogs at recognizing the significance of what Comey had to say, but as Dahlia Lithwick noted, “It took a day, but the newspapers finally caught up to the bloggers.”

Then, there’s the broadcast media, parts of which still haven’t caught up.

ABC and CBS still have not reported — on either their evening news or morning news broadcasts — former deputy attorney general James B. Comey’s account of what NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams May 15 called a “rare glimpse of a high-level, late-night power struggle” over the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program. As NBC Nightly News justice correspondent Pete Williams reported May 15, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card attempted to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft “at his [hospital] bedside … to approve an extension of the secret NSA warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections,” as Media Matters for America has noted.

Media Matters noted this yesterday afternoon, so I checked to see if either ABC or CBS noted the story at all last night. They didn’t.

The story has a little bit of everything — White House scandal, dramatic confrontation, stunning testimony, DC buzz, front-page articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times … for what, exactly, are ABC and CBS waiting?

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