The TV Zone

You can bet everyone at the three major news divisions for ABC, CBS and (especially) NBC are devouring that sensational story in the LATimes about the biodefense worker in Maryland who committed suicide just as the FBI was about to charge him in the string of those 2001 anthrax attacks. Reason: They were the ones attacked. Letters, as you recall, were also mailed to anchors at the major networks and even a tabloid newspaper in Fla. (The Sun, where a photo editor who came in contact with the stuff actually died...) NBC's case was most sensational because Tom Brokaw's longtime assistant, Erin O'Connor, handled the letter and became ill and every employee at NBC News was tested; Casey Chamberlain, another NBC Newser, got sick too, and here's her story; the seven-month old son of an ABC producer became sick, and Claire Fletcher, one of Dan Rather's assistants, was treated too. Needless to say, the anthrax attacks rattled the networks - emotionally and professionally - just about as much as Nine Eleven, which happened just weeks earlier. Now...they may never have answers...