Tale of Two Funerals: Network Anchors Complained of 'Overcoverage' of Reagan Funeral

What a difference a political philosophy makes when it comes to funeral coverage.

Have you heard a word of complaint from the network anchors that perhaps television is "overcovering" the funeral of Ted Kennedy? Of course not. However, after President Ronald Reagan passed away in 2004, both Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather grumbled aloud about how his funeral was being "overcovered" despite the massive turnout of citizens when he was lain in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The difference between Kennedy and Reagan, of course, was their political philosphies which explains the vastly different reactions to their funeral coverage. So let us take a trip down memory lane to this Philadelphia Inquirer article written by Gail Shister in June 2004:

Television will go overboard on covering Ronald Reagan's funeral events, say Dan Rather of CBS and Tom Brokaw of NBC. ABC's Peter Jennings isn't so sure.

"They will be overcovered," Rather says. "Even though everybody is respectful and wants to pay homage to the president, life goes on. There is other news, like the reality of Iraq. It got very short shrift this weekend."

Can you imagine Dan Rather saying the same thing about the Kennedy funeral despite the massive coverage it is currently receiving? And, remember, Reagan was the president who turned the economy around and laid the foundations that terminated the Soviet empire.

"I think just about everything is over-covered these days,"  says Brokaw, 64.  "The spectrum is so crowded."

So is Brokaw now complaining about the "crowded spectrum?" The sounds of silence provides the answer.

ABC's Jennings has mixed feelings about the quantity of time devoted to Reagan.

"I'm more inclined to spare coverage -- come on (the air), do something meaningful, then get away." He admits he was nervous about going live Monday with the Reagan motorcade.

Somehow no current anchor seems to have "mixed feelings" about the quantity of time devoted to Kennedy.

Rather had much less than faint praise for Ronald Reagan with this Shakespeare quote about Julius Caesar's funeral:

"To paraphrase Marc Anthony, I think, by and large, that the good that men do live after them, and the evil should be interred with their bones."

Just a few months after implying the "evil" in Reagan, Dan Rather tried to derail the re-election campaign of George W. Bush with fraudulent documents. Talk about evil.

Finally, Brokaw worried about Reagan receiving too much praise during his funeral:

"Reagan" was a beloved American leader,  but at the same time our journalistic obligation is to put his whole life and his political career in context," Brokaw says. "It's a very delicate balancing act."

So far, no network anchors seem to be concerned about the "very delicate balancing act" in their coverage of Kennedy's funeral. Such concerns only seem to happen when covering the funeral of a beloved conservative.