'Big three' networks to travel with Obama overseas
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 7/18/2008 6:00:00 AM
All three network evening news anchors will be traveling to Europe and the Middle East next week for Barack Obama's trip. Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, and Katie Couric will be airing their newscasts from stops along Obama’s route.
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Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post reports that 200 journalists have asked to accompany Obama on the trip, but the campaign states they only will be able to accommodate about 40 journalists. But even with the relatively small number of journalists, Seton Motley of the Media Research Center says the planned coverage is “extraordinarily out of the ordinary.”
“I liken this to three network news groupies going on tour with Barack Obama in Europe and the Middle East. Brian, Charlie and Katie can’t get enough of Barack Obama," he chides. "They seem to think that the coverage thus far just hasn’t been good enough, so they’re going to go on the road for live, daily on-the-air massages for Barack Obama. It really is unprecedented,” Motley maintains.
Motley notes that when Senator John McCain was in Colombia on July 2, he was chastised on five separate occasions during two segments on ABC’s Good Morning America for leaving the country while America’s economy was in peril. He also points out that in the full week that McCain was in Europe and the Middle East, CBS did one report that contained less than 35 words.
According to Motley, the big three networks did a total of four stories on McCain's trip -- and one of those stories was dedicated to McCain mistakenly saying "Iran was aiding al Qaida in Iraq."
