Dan Rather is easy

[Also left as a comment at BigMediaBlog.com: bigmediablog.com/archives/000426.html]

On Tuesday, CBS Evening News ran a "human interest" report on LA Dog Works, an upscale spa for... dogs. I can only think up three possible explanations: they know someone at CBS, they wrote one cracking hell of a press release, or Dan Rather just couldn't resist the opportunity to comment on "those wacky Hollywoodians, what will they think of next?"

Today, CBS Evening News had another human interest story, but this seemed quite a bit more worthy. Nevertheless, I was confused.

The piece showed two "elves" pushing a cart containing a computer down a hospital hallway. The voiceover explained that Santa was there to visit terminally-ill children, and Santa was shown delivering live, personalized messages to a couple of children.

Now, if you're like me, you would be sitting there saying over and over to yourself, "Why couldn't they have found a Santa who could make a visit in person?" I originally thought it might be because the kids had contagious diseases, but that didn't appear to be the case. So, I was - foolishly as it turns out - mystified.

The mystery was soon solved when the voiceover announced this was a demonstration of a new camera phone from Cisco Systems.

This same PR event made NBC4, WISTV, and a couple others:

(Boston, Massachusetts-NBC) Dec. 17, 2004 - Some Boston children too sick to leave the hospital got their own chance to see Santa before Christmas.

For the first time Santa made a very special "Cyber Stop" at Children's Hospital. Rob Lopez of Cisco Systems explains, "What we are doing is connecting kids with the North Pole, and we are doing it with the magic of the Internet."

Cisco Systems of California donated their technology for the day to allow patients and visitors of the hospital to link up with Old St. Nick, "What they do is they step up to the phone, simply push a speed dial button and over the Internet they are connected to the North Pole..."

Down in Texas, they call that a whoppin' good press release.