MIA: Charlie Gibson

TV news blogs were buzzing Thursday over the fact that Charles Gibson was missing from Good Morning America during the heavy coverage of the U.S. attack that killed insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The TVNewser blog observed that since Gibson is now also anchoring World News Tonight, "he's only supposed to host the morning show Monday through Wednesday. But wouldn't the new face of ABC want to help cover this big story as it breaks? He wasn't sleeping in -- he appeared on Regis and Kelly this morning." The nightly news anchors on NBC and CBS also did not appear on their respective networks' morning newscasts. However, NBC's Brian Williams did preside over a one-hour report on the death of al-Zarqawi at noon Eastern Time (9:00 a.m. in the West). ABC, incidentally, scored a pyrrhic victory over its competition Thursday when it broke the news of al-Zarqawi's death at 2:38 a.m., a full 38 minutes before NBC and more than an hour before CBS -- but unfortunately at a time when hardly anyone was watching TV.