ABC, CBS & NBC's Tri-Partisan Effort

(CBS)  Evening news anchors Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson are all reporting from the convention floor in St. Paul, Minn., wrapping up two weeks of coverage in the midst of republicans, democrats and independents.

But the end of the conventions won't mark the end of the blanket coverage, one more very special hour is planned for a very worthy cause - the fight against cancer, a disease that kills 1,500 Americans every day, about one person every minute.

ABC, CBS and NBC will simultaneously broadcast

"Stand Up To Cancer,"

a one-hour, commercial-free telecast to raise funds toward cancer research.

"We like to call this a tri-partisan event. And it's so great, following these two opposing political parties and two different visions of America, to be able to unite the country behind something that affects so many people," Couric told Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriquez .

"Every time I hear the statistics, I don't know about you all, one person a minute, 1,500 a day, all I can think about is those families whose lives have been shattered by these losses. And clearly, we all felt -- we've all personally experienced loss through cancer. We felt like we had to do something about it, and that's why we've joined forces," she said.

Although there will be an entertaining component to the telecast, the anchors hope to entertain the idea of new approaches in the fight against cancer.

"Well, there's going to be entertainment. But I hope, more than anything else, there's going to be information because there are a lot of misconceptions about cancer," Gibson said. "Everybody thinks of it as sort of a monolithic disease. There are hundreds and hundreds of cancers. This is really, A, to raise money, but most importantly to get it in the forefront of the public consciousness."

There will be unique ways to contribute to the cause as well.

"My favorite is what we call the constellation. You can buy and name a star for whoever you have in your mind, for a loved one, with us or passed, someone who's a survivor, someone who lost their struggle. So in my family, I have my own mother and my sister. But I think that's a nice way to personalize it. And you can bid on stuff. We'll take straight money for no reason," Williams said.

"God forbid, if someone gets cancer, gets a diagnosis or someone they love so much is diagnosed, you want to know that they have options. And right now, sadly, tragically, sometimes people have very few options. And we have to change that. It is ridiculous that there aren't better treatments and ultimately a cure for this disease," Couric added.

Besides the financial component, at the end of the night, the three anchors hope to jumpstart cancer research like never before.

"I do hope that it is very much in people's minds that something can be done, something needs to be done, and something should be done. We spend more money checking people's purses and shoes at airports a whole lot more money than we do in cancer research. That seems to me wrong, skewed wrong," Gibson said.

"Stand Up To Cancer" airs Friday, Sept. 5 on all three networks at 8 p.m. EST and PST.

[sparks224]

ABC, CBS aired no analysis from Dems during Day 2 of RNC coverage, despite airing analysis by Republicans during Day 2 of DNC coverage

[tcoleman12]

If these three are in a "Tri-partisan" effort on anything it is to get Obama and other Democrat congress members elected in November.
Keep up the typical coverage and keep working yourselves into obscurity...

[foxmulder33]

Just want to thank the major networks for taking part in this worthwhile cause. Much of the new research is helping more young cancer patients fully recover and lead healthy lives. In older patients, families are better equipped to cope with the eventual outcome by easing the patient''s pain and suffering.

[smeduna]

Cancer is rampant in this country. There is hardly a day that goes by anymore that you don''t hear of someone diagnosed with, fighting or dying of cancer either on the local or national level. I believe the cause is all the chemicals we ingest on a daily basis. We live in a chemically saturated world. There are chemicals in our food (our food is sprayed with germicides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers and pesticides, radiated, processed, preserved, injected with hormones and antibiotics, and whatever else they do to our food that we don''t even know about). There are chemicals in our water, air, building products, clothing, hygiene and beauty products, medications, etc. and it seems that the FDA will approve anything. I think we need to focus on ELIMINATING the causes, not researching for a cure. How can you cure a disease that is caused by toxic chemicals with stronger toxic chemicals??? The human body just cannot ingest all these chemicals on a daily basis without something going terribly wrong and injecting stronger toxic chemicals into the body is not working. ELIMINATE THE CHEMICALS and watch the cancer death rate decline.