All three major news networks included reports on the disappearance of Annie Le GRD ’13 in the first half hour of their morning news programs Friday.
On NBC, viewers watching “Today” first saw news about the missing Yale School of Medicine student at 7:01 a.m., when anchor Matt Lauer introduced the segment as the second leading story of the day.
“Today” then turned, just like ABC’s “Good Morning America,” to the health care debate in Washington. But NBC returned to the Yale campus with a report that aired at 7:08 a.m.
“Annie Le may be the victim of a violent crime,” reported the network’s Jeff Rossen. NBC also ran interviews of several students on campus who sounded alarmed in the wake of the disappearance.
“Good Morning America” went live to New Haven at 7:18 a.m., with a segment that described Le’s fiance as her “best friend” and showed numerous photos of the couple from Facebook.
CBS was the last to cover the search for Le, teasing the news at 7:21 a.m. and turning to a full report on its “Early Show” a few minutes later. After misidentifying the building at 10 Amistad St. where Le was last seen as part of Yale-New Haven Hospital, CBS interviewed Pat Brown, a criminal profiler, who said “it’s interesting that they’re saying they don’t suspect foul play.”
Brown added that Le could be a so-called runaway bride like Jennifer Wilbanks, but added that she would have to have an attention-seeking personality for that to be the case.
“If she doesn’t have that kind of personality,” Brown said, “then we’d have to suspect foul play because what else could it be?”