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Unemployment was Story of the Day as major corporations announced major layoffs. Both CBS and NBC led with the announcements of job cuts: Caterpillar 20,000 workers; Pfizer Wyeth 8,000; Sprint Nextel 8,000; Home Depot 7,000; Texas Instruments 3,000 and so on. ABC chose to kick off from the White House, where President Barack Obama signaled to the automobile industry that it should expect new regulations to make more efficient cars. On all three newscasts there was but a single story filed from a foreign dateline: ABC from the scenic Swat Valley of Pakistan. Well, actually, there were two--but CNBC's financial story from Switzerland concerned a domestic financial scandal.

"A bloodbath of pink slips," was how CBS' Anthony Mason colorfully characterized the carnage. Adding all the layoffs from this single day's corporate announcements proved tricky. The total at CBS was 60,000 since Mason had a high estimate for the layoffs expected from the Big Pharma merger of Pfizer and Wyeth. NBC came up with 50,000, although its story by CNBC's Trish Regan threw in some pain for the Dutch too, as Philips Electronics and the ING bank are firing 13,000 between them. ABC's total was only 30,000.

ABC used one of Tyndall Report's favorite formats for reporting on farflung phenomena, the so-called wheel: Steve Osunsami started off from Atlanta where Home Depot is shutting down its high-end home improvement business; then he handed off to Barbara Pinto in Chicago who told us how stalling construction worldwide has hit Caterpillar, the equipment manufacturer; in turn she threw to Neal Karlinsky in Seattle who disabused us of the notion that hi-tech is immune to downturns, with Sprint Nextel and Intel and Microsoft all shedding jobs, as well as Boeing and Starbucks. The wheel, at least, keeps more correspondents in work.


Andrew Tyndall 1/28/09 12:39:26 am

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