Despite being in Vietnam, networks didn’t actually focus much on summit Wednesday night

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

All three major U.S. network news anchors remained in Hanoi Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019 for the evening newscasts — but the Vietnam Nuclear summit was overshadowed by Michael Cohen’s testimony back in the U.S.

• “NBC Nightly News” lead with Michael Cohen testimony — which was happening about 8,000 miles away — for nearly the first 13 minutes of the show.
• The Hanoi summit got about four minutes of coverage.
• At the end of the broadcast Holt promised viewers more coverage of the summit on Thursday’s broadcast — though as it turns out, that wasn’t to be. A few hours after the network newscasts ended, the summit itself was ended early.
• “CBS Evening News” also lead with Cohen, giving it about eight minutes.
• The show then segued to about three minutes of summit coverage before moving on to other news, including the story of Vietnam War veterans returning to the country for the first time since the war.
• CBS then ended with segment showing the parallels of the two events happening at opposite sides of the globe along with an extended close showcasing imagery from around Hanoi.

• Over on ABC, “ABC World News Tonight” anchor David Muir lead with approximately nine minutes of Cohen coverage, then doing just under three minutes on the summit itself.
• ABC’s kicker, meanwhile, was a food oriented segment on Vietnamese cuisine.