Brian Williams's 10 Most Fascinating "Poeple"

What a great Nightly News broadcast we saw on Monday. First, there was the story on Velma Hart, who got her fifteen minutes of fame when she asked Pres. Obama a question at a Town Hall Meeting on Sept. 20. (I think she was given fourteen minutes too many.) Now, Nightly News is extending her to a sixteenth minute, and maybe even more. Of course, the story was just a way to promote Hart's appearance on CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Tuesday.

Then there was Tom Brokaw's seemingly endless report about Facebook. I think the recent movie about Facebook was shorter than Tom's report. The entire story could have been distilled down to ten seconds: Older people are now using Facebook with increasing frequency. That's it. That's what Tom Brokaw took all that time to tell us. I like Tom, but a little editing can be a good thing.

And there was Andrea Mitchell's report on Sarah Palin. How many of these are we going to see in the next two years? Nightly News isn't reporting on Palin because she's a potential presidential candidate, they're reporting on her because she's a pop culture personality and stories about her generate good ratings. During the clip of Palin being interviewed by Barbara Walters, the on-screen credit read, "ABC/Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating Poeple (sic)". That's great. And in a related story, Palin was recently bumped from the cover of "Poeple Magazine" in favor of Kim Kardashian. Too bad. But I bet that Kardashian can't field dress a moose.