Chelsea & Benny

From July 3 to August 2, Nightly News presented eight "news stories" (totalling almost 12 minutes) about Chelsea Clinton's wedding. (They would have done more, but NBC did not air Nightly News on the weekend of the wedding because apparently golf was more important. I can only imagine how many Chelsea stories Nightly News would have done on that Saturday and Sunday.) Also in July, Nightly News aired three separate stories about an animal shelter in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana that is caring for pets left there by people who have financial hardships due to the Gulf oil spill. (Benny the dog was prominently featured in all three stories.) The three stories were virtually identical and shared much of the same video footage. This story is not newsworthy enough to be shown once, let alone three times (for a total of almost 8 minutes). When added together, the Chelsea Clinton wedding stories and the Louisiana animal shelter stories took up more than 19 minutes of valuable news time. We can only wonder how much actual news could have been covered in those nineteen minutes. But unfortunately, we'll never know. But at least we know all about Chelsea's wedding dress. And Benny the dog. Great job, Nightly News producers. Keep up the good work.