Last night as the local TV news was about to give us the weather report both NBC and CBS burst in dominating the news with reports of shots fired in Boston. And there were the star anchors filling time until the real news broke.
Granted, once the real news came an hour and a half later, it was real news of the second bombing suspect's apprehensive.
In the meantime, the star anchors had to keep blabbing away and injecting themselves into the news story. So we got to hear an NBC field reporter telling about having heard gun shots. Celebrity anchor Brian Williams interrupted with what could be the most inane question of the day.
"Did it sound like fully automatic or semi automatic gunfire?"
That question was extremely out of place. The odds that either of those kids would have a fully automatic weapon are extremely low. And if Boston law enforcement was using automatic weapons in a residential neighborhood that would be startling news. So there's only one reason for Williams' question.
He was showing off. Two months ago news celebrities were using "automatic," "semi automatic" and "fully automatic" interchangeably -- they're anchormen, how could they have known there was a difference? But now Williams knows, and anyone who still gets news from NBC knows he knows. And that was the real point of the question.
Yeah, thanks Brian. We get it. Now get off and put "Grimm" on.
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