NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams 5/2/08

Here is a look at the 6:30 Nightly News with a more celebrity-style anchor--Brian Williams (white male).

• Deadly storms and strange weather. Tornados destroying homes in Kansas City. Coverage by Janet Shamlan (white female).


• The federal reserve made a new rule putting a ban on raising interest rates without reason.


• Unemployment is up to 5% and about 20,000 jobs were lost in the month of April.


• Barack Obama campaign. Lee Calvin (white male) covering different aspects of the campaign, particularly that Barack is distancing himself from his preacher. "American voters don't want a whole lot of drama." Then they switch to the Hillary campaign, covered by Ron Allen (black male), saying that Hillary is looking for a co-sponsor for her new bill to cut spending in the senate.


• Jim Maceda (white male) reporting from Afganistan. Alpha company is under fire while looking to disrupt a Taliban stronghold. Lots of footage of actual fighting here, alos mentioning that the military has left the poppy fields alone instead of destroying them, even though the crop is involved with the production of lots of cocaine, a $4 billion dollar industry which helps to fund the Taliban.


• Meetings in China. The Dali Llama met with a Tibetan leader in Bejing to discuss the treatment of the people there by the Chinese government. Mark Mullen (white male) talking about how China wants to host the Olympics for a sense of world pride, and they are treating protestors very harshly. "They hope this will help the outside world understand China."


• People on fixed incomes are struggling with the rising cost of everything. Focused on old people recieving checks. Poor white people. 10's of millions of seniors recieve the money and many can't make ends meet without help from food kitchens, which have seen a sharp decrease in donations. "It used to be the golden years. It's the tarnished years now" says Chris Janshing (white female).


• "Making a Difference Report"--Tom Costello (white male) reporting on a Texas teacher teaching his students to build rockets for science class. The Air force launches their biggest ones.


• Kentucky Derby story on how pampered the horses are. Roger O'Neill (white male) reporting on horses beeing breeded from past winners of the race.

This newscast was focused more on world events as it was not simply a local news show. Interesting to see here that the correspondents were predominanlty white males out in the field of reporting while Brian Williams held down the studio solo. This is because he has a bankable name and image. This program used much more interview-style 'talking head' footage to present its stories than the others I watched.