Getting the Lost Divers Onto the Couch

Before the morning news shows play nice tomorrow, this morning saw what appeared to be a major booking battle between NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America.

Today’s Matt Lauer interviewed Alison Dalton and Dick Neely, the two missing divers who were rescued after spending 19 hours drifting in the ocean. NBC’s report and interview can be found here.

At the same time on ABC, GMA’s Chris Cuomo had a different story about the divers altogether. “Why did they rush to sell their story to the media?” he asked, focusing on the other side of the story. The couple have admitted to selling their story to Australia’s Channel 9.

“We did reach out to Dalton and Nealy ourselves. They did not want to interview with us,” he said, seeming to imply ABC was not prepared to pay for the interview.

Lauer brought up the criticisms of the couple at the end of his interview, including the fact that they had sold their story. “Not to us, I should mention,” he said.

Click continued to see Cuomo’s full report on GMA…

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