The Difference Between King & Costas

An e-mailer replies to this Ticker item about the Larry King/Bob Costas co-interview with Lance Armstrong:

“There was a revealing moment during the interview when Costas had engaged Armstrong in a very interesting discussion of the blood testing, and how tests were supposed to be anonymous, etc. Nice two shot of them chatting, etc.

All of a sudden, King loudly interrupts, “Are you and Sheryl Crowe going to get married?” Armstrong looks startled, and Costas, reacting very quickly, says, “Well, I wasn’t going to ask you that question at this moment, but what do you have to say about that?”

Armstrong says it’s something he’d tell Sheryl before he’d tell Larry or a national audience, to which King says, “You mean — ASK — Sheryl.” All through the answer are shots of Sheryl and Lance, obviously queued up for the answer.

Cut to commercial. It was a perfect illustration of how Costas does business and how King operates. Doesn’t matter if the question makes sense, it’s on his list and they have the pix, so go with it.”

> Update: 6:06pm: “King asked the first question about the testing procedure, then Costas continued the discussion…which then jumped to his ride with President Bush…then to whether or not he wants to run for politics. That topic had pretty much been exhausted when Larry asked the question about Sheryl Crowe…clearly your source wanted to make CNN look bad,” an e-mailer responds.