CBS Leans On Sources & “Our Partners At Politico.com” To Say Gonzales Is A Goner

CBS News is still the only network news organization to openly predict Alberto Gonzalez‘s ouster from the Department of Justice.

“Sources say it is inevitable Gonzales will be fired,” Jim Axelrod reported on Friday’s CBS Evening News. The sources’ comments led the broadcast.

On Monday, Katie Couric reported “breaking news” about the scandal. “Our partners at Politico.com are reporting Republican officials at the request of the White House have begun interviewing successors to Attorney General Gonzales,” Couric said, before turning to Bob Schieffer for analysis.

Meanwhile, on ABC’s World News, Jan Crawford Greenburg addressed the legal issues surrounding executive privilege but didn’t address the AG’s potential exit. I didn’t see the Gonzales issue mentioned on NBC Nightly News.

> Update: 11:31am: “CBS News is owning the Gonzales/fired U.S. attorneys story,” an e-mailer adds. “In addition to Monday’s breaking news report and Couric’s interview with fired attorney David Iglesias on Friday, the broadcast led with the story 4 out of 5 nights last week, totaling 19min of coverage, compared to 13min each on NBC and ABC.”