Enough Attention For Thailand's Coup?
Axelrod: For the last time as UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, welcomed world leaders and then quickly painted a dire picture.You can watch the whole segment here. As it seemed that newspapers and the other broadcast networks highlighted the news more prominently, it seemed worth asking why the "Evening News" presented the information as it did. "Evening News" Senior Broadcast Producer Bill Owens said that originally, news of the coup was being "seriously considered" as a "tell" – a 20-30 second mention in the broadcast's news briefing, during which various stories are rounded up. "Then we decided that it should be paid more attention to and placed higher in the show," said Owens, so the information was going to be included in Axelrod's story, high up in the second paragraph of the piece.Kofi Annan (United Nations Secretary-General): People in all parts of the world are threatened though some are more aware of it than others by the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Axelrod: And then, as if on cue, reality reminded everyone of the threat of instability. This time in Thailand where the military launched a coup. This is the week where the world's most powerful rivals, enemies and allies, all share the same halls in New York.
In the end, however, "It frankly got pared down too much," said Owens. "And that's our fault here in the fishbowl [where the show's executive producer and senior producers work] because of time constraint issues. It got pared down more than it should have."
Tonight, said Owens, news about the coup is currently slated to be included as a 20-30 second tell in the news briefing during the first block of the show. As far as any future coverage of the story, correspondent Barry Petersen has been monitoring the events in Thailand from Beijing and, according to foreign editor Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, there are currently no plans to send him to Thailand.