TV Morning Shows Give Short Shrift to Novak’s Passing

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The network morning news shows could not have cared less about the passing of conservative columnist Robert Novak. While ABC, CBS and NBC all ran obituaries during their August 18 evening news shows, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’s The Early Show completely skipped over Novak this morning, not once mentioning his death.

Over on NBC’s Today, fill-in news anchor Hoda Kotb squeezed in a brief item during the 7am update: “Friends and fellow journalists are remembering famed columnist and TV commentator Robert Novak. He died Tuesday in Washington after a battle with brain cancer. Robert Novak was 78 years old.”

Novak was hardly a niche conservative or Washington figure, but someone well known to millions of Americans, with his syndicated column running in more than 300 newspapers for many decades and co-hosting three different CNN programs over a 20-year period before eventually moving to the Fox News Channel in 2005. Nor was he some figure from the distant past, stepping down from his daily column only after his illness was diagnosed in mid-2008.

While downplaying Novak, all three morning shows had another update today on Michael Jackson, who died 55 days ago.