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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SEPTEMBER 05, 2007
Germany grabbed the lead spot on both ABC and NBC even though the headline hardly amounted to much. Police claimed to have saved Frankfurt Airport and Ramstein Air Force Base from destruction by arresting a trio of suspected bombers--even though the hydrogen peroxide they allegedly bought to make their homemade carbombs to attack the facilities had already been switched with inert chemicals. So their alleged conspiracy posed no actual danger after all. CBS covered the supposed plot too but led for the third straight day with anchor Katie Couric's Road Ahead trip to Iraq. CBS' extended feature coverage again made the war there the Story of the Day.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR SEPTEMBER 05, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
BUNGLED BOMB PLOT FOILED Germany grabbed the lead spot on both ABC and NBC even though the headline hardly amounted to much. Police claimed to have saved Frankfurt Airport and Ramstein Air Force Base from destruction by arresting a trio of suspected bombers--even though the hydrogen peroxide they allegedly bought to make their homemade carbombs to attack the facilities had already been switched with inert chemicals. So their alleged conspiracy posed no actual danger after all. CBS covered the supposed plot too but led for the third straight day with anchor Katie Couric's Road Ahead trip to Iraq. CBS' extended feature coverage again made the war there the Story of the Day.
NBC's Michelle Kosinski covered the arrests from Ramstein itself, while CBS had Richard Roth narrate the details from London and ABC used Brian Ross in New York. Ross linked the trio of suspects to an Exclusive he filed in June about Taliban training of German-bound suicide bombers--only in this update Ross changed the camp's affiliation from Taliban to al-Qaeda. NBC's Kosinski came up with a third group, the Islamic Jihad Union, based in Uzbekhistan as responsible for training the suspects. NBC's terrorism analyst Roger Cressey asserted that the trio, two Germans and a Turk, were not members of "al-Qaeda Central" but a "broader network."
Anyway there was a disconnect between the damage the alleged cell was supposed to be threatening--both NBC's Kosinski and CBS' Roth warned of "massive" and "imminent" attacks--and the incompetent details of their operation. ABC's Ross reported that they had been under constant police watch since New Year's Eve last year when they were spotted snooping around a US military base in Germany. NBC's Kosinski called the three twentysomethings "unemployed and on welfare" and pointed out that tight police surveillance had enabled investigators to switch their chemicals.
BAGHDAD BULLETIN This was Katie Couric's chance to tour the neighborhoods of Baghdad with Gen Raymond Odierno for CBS' Road Ahead series. She called Iraq's capital "a shell of its former self--it is still a mess." Odierno's campaign to make the city safe relies on so-called Joint Security Stations, small community-based police stations manned by GIs, Iraqi soldiers and local police. "Iraqis know the neighborhood. The Americans have the know-how and the gear," Couric explained. Their tactics include tasks as simple as sweeping the sidewalks, painting concrete barriers that block carbombs and subsidizing markets to reopen their stalls. Odierno's efforts resulted in only four killed in random shootings and only 15 corpses dumped throughout the city last Saturday night, what Couric called "a significant improvement" from last year's daily murder toll of 85. Meanwhile back at the Pentagon, NBC's Jim Miklaszewski countered that an independent commission would call for Iraq's national police to be disbanded because it is "crippled by sectarianism" and "infiltrated by Shiite militants." His unidentified military sources told him "without a reliable Iraqi police force no amount of any American military surge will fix Iraq's security problems."
On ABC, anchor Charles Gibson (subscription required) convened a roundtable to forecast the future for US military deployment in Iraq. He quizzed ABC's in-house military analyst Jack Keane, a retired USArmy general, ABC's in-house geopolitical journalist Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek International and former diplomat Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations. Zakaria was reassuring that a withdrawal of US troops would not lead to genocide: "The dirty little secret about Iraq is that Iraq has already been ethnically cleansed. It is sad to say but the American army has presided over the largest ethnic cleansing in the world since the Balkans." But all three agreed that there will be a significant, gradual reduction of US troop levels--neither precipitous nor total--leaving a permanent garrison of 50,000-or-so in Iraq.
After Couric on the Road Ahead came CBS' Lara Logan. She edited together eyepopping video clips from what she called "al-Qaeda propaganda" of the latest guerrilla weapon against US armored vehicles. It is a Russian-made hand grenade with a small parachute in the handle that "stabilizes the grenade and ensures it comes down vertically on its target; the shape charge inside punches through the armor and slow-burning explosives are released to ensure the deadliest effect." As soon as the ambushers throw the grenade "they start to run away as fast as they can" to avoid being hit themselves. "The back blast is so huge."
And CBS' Mark Strassmann took us out to the remote "desolate and dangerous" desert in Diyala Province where a giant broadcasting tower, built for Saddam Hussein and guarded by GIs, transmits for the station IRTN. A year ago IRTN had a staff of 55 but a dozen of them were murdered and almost all the rest quit in intimidation. That leaves the quartet of hosts, two men, two women, two Sunni Moslems, two Shiite, living at the studios. "Only in Iraq could a television show called Common Ground be a potential death wish."
WAR WOUNDED Before Couric left Baghdad, she compiled a collection of vox pop soundbites from both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The former ended thus: "If we pulled out now, the gangs would take over; the streets would be in mayhem; and this place would be a disaster…" The latter thus: "They are turning Iraq into an occupied country and no stability can be achieved in a country that is under occupation." Back in New York, NBC anchor Brian Williams too compiled a series of vox pop soundbites. He chose four of the disabled veterans profiled in HBO's documentary Alive Day Memories, directed by actor James Gandolfini. Williams reminded us that he last profiled Gandolfini when publicizing the finale of The Sopranos also on HBO: back then "I knew you were working on this and I knew this had become a passion of yours." The Alive Day is the first day the soldiers realize they are still alive after being injured. Williams introduced us to two legless veterans, one armless one and one with Post-Traumatic Stress. Alive Day Memories "is not for the faint of heart."
HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING No catastrophe happened but for four hours a B-52 bomber "flew over the central United States carrying six nuclear warheads and nobody knew," ABC's Jonathan Karl (subscription required) told us. The USAF jet took off from Minot AFB in North Dakota and landed at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana carrying cruise missiles. Karl quoted the USAF as reassuring us that "there was no real danger of a nuclear explosion--the bombs were not armed or fused." Karl was not entirely convinced: "Clearly the control system failed." He noted that the error was "so grave" that President George Bush was notified.
RAILROAD WIGGLE Idaho's disorderly senator may not let his guilty plea to a toilet misdemeanor end his political career. NBC's Lisa Myers explained that Larry Craig "purposefully left himself wiggle room," parsing his words "saying he intends to resign rather than will resign." The Republican used that formulation after he learned that his colleague Arlen Specter (R-PA) was willing to defend him against being "railroaded." ABC's David Wright reported that we know about Craig's plan because he made yet another mistake--leaving a message for his lawyer about the revised wording on the voicemail of a wrong number. Wright was skeptical that the senator would keep his job: "Craig's staff members are not changing their plans. Come the end of the month they expect to be out of a job."
TRAIN DROPPER Normally the safety recall of accessories for Barbie dolls would not make the network newscasts--but because this was the third such move by Mattel in just over a month, both NBC and ABC assigned a reporter to the lead paint scare. ABC's Betsy Stark took the softer consumerist angle, finding a toy store that has actually set up a shelf display Not Made In China. NBC's Andrea Mitchell tried to find the harder angle, investigating the "gutted" funding of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission. She came up with the hilarious visual of the "lone inspector in a cramped one-room lab to test toys for the entire country." He lifted a train set above a designated height--and dropped it.
DOES NOT FALL FAR FROM THE TREE What made NBC's closer--on black bears being driven by drought out of their Rocky Mountain habitat to forage for food where humans live--more than the run-of-the-mill animal story was John Larson's punchline after one bear climbed an apple tree in Aspen Colo to eat the fruit and defecated onto a car below: "Does this answer that proverbial question about a bear in the woods?"
MENTIONED IN PASSING The network newscasts do not assign correspondents to all of the news of the day. If Tyndall Report readers come across videostreamed reports online of stories that were mentioned only in passing, post the link in comments for us to check out.
Today's examples: Sen Timothy Johnson (D-SD) made his return speech on the Senate floor after convalescing from brain damage…three Marine Corps officers were exonerated of a cover-up in the killing of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha…on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 143 points, closing at 13305.
NBC's Michelle Kosinski covered the arrests from Ramstein itself, while CBS had Richard Roth narrate the details from London and ABC used Brian Ross in New York. Ross linked the trio of suspects to an Exclusive he filed in June about Taliban training of German-bound suicide bombers--only in this update Ross changed the camp's affiliation from Taliban to al-Qaeda. NBC's Kosinski came up with a third group, the Islamic Jihad Union, based in Uzbekhistan as responsible for training the suspects. NBC's terrorism analyst Roger Cressey asserted that the trio, two Germans and a Turk, were not members of "al-Qaeda Central" but a "broader network."
Anyway there was a disconnect between the damage the alleged cell was supposed to be threatening--both NBC's Kosinski and CBS' Roth warned of "massive" and "imminent" attacks--and the incompetent details of their operation. ABC's Ross reported that they had been under constant police watch since New Year's Eve last year when they were spotted snooping around a US military base in Germany. NBC's Kosinski called the three twentysomethings "unemployed and on welfare" and pointed out that tight police surveillance had enabled investigators to switch their chemicals.
BAGHDAD BULLETIN This was Katie Couric's chance to tour the neighborhoods of Baghdad with Gen Raymond Odierno for CBS' Road Ahead series. She called Iraq's capital "a shell of its former self--it is still a mess." Odierno's campaign to make the city safe relies on so-called Joint Security Stations, small community-based police stations manned by GIs, Iraqi soldiers and local police. "Iraqis know the neighborhood. The Americans have the know-how and the gear," Couric explained. Their tactics include tasks as simple as sweeping the sidewalks, painting concrete barriers that block carbombs and subsidizing markets to reopen their stalls. Odierno's efforts resulted in only four killed in random shootings and only 15 corpses dumped throughout the city last Saturday night, what Couric called "a significant improvement" from last year's daily murder toll of 85. Meanwhile back at the Pentagon, NBC's Jim Miklaszewski countered that an independent commission would call for Iraq's national police to be disbanded because it is "crippled by sectarianism" and "infiltrated by Shiite militants." His unidentified military sources told him "without a reliable Iraqi police force no amount of any American military surge will fix Iraq's security problems."
On ABC, anchor Charles Gibson (subscription required) convened a roundtable to forecast the future for US military deployment in Iraq. He quizzed ABC's in-house military analyst Jack Keane, a retired USArmy general, ABC's in-house geopolitical journalist Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek International and former diplomat Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations. Zakaria was reassuring that a withdrawal of US troops would not lead to genocide: "The dirty little secret about Iraq is that Iraq has already been ethnically cleansed. It is sad to say but the American army has presided over the largest ethnic cleansing in the world since the Balkans." But all three agreed that there will be a significant, gradual reduction of US troop levels--neither precipitous nor total--leaving a permanent garrison of 50,000-or-so in Iraq.
After Couric on the Road Ahead came CBS' Lara Logan. She edited together eyepopping video clips from what she called "al-Qaeda propaganda" of the latest guerrilla weapon against US armored vehicles. It is a Russian-made hand grenade with a small parachute in the handle that "stabilizes the grenade and ensures it comes down vertically on its target; the shape charge inside punches through the armor and slow-burning explosives are released to ensure the deadliest effect." As soon as the ambushers throw the grenade "they start to run away as fast as they can" to avoid being hit themselves. "The back blast is so huge."
And CBS' Mark Strassmann took us out to the remote "desolate and dangerous" desert in Diyala Province where a giant broadcasting tower, built for Saddam Hussein and guarded by GIs, transmits for the station IRTN. A year ago IRTN had a staff of 55 but a dozen of them were murdered and almost all the rest quit in intimidation. That leaves the quartet of hosts, two men, two women, two Sunni Moslems, two Shiite, living at the studios. "Only in Iraq could a television show called Common Ground be a potential death wish."
WAR WOUNDED Before Couric left Baghdad, she compiled a collection of vox pop soundbites from both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The former ended thus: "If we pulled out now, the gangs would take over; the streets would be in mayhem; and this place would be a disaster…" The latter thus: "They are turning Iraq into an occupied country and no stability can be achieved in a country that is under occupation." Back in New York, NBC anchor Brian Williams too compiled a series of vox pop soundbites. He chose four of the disabled veterans profiled in HBO's documentary Alive Day Memories, directed by actor James Gandolfini. Williams reminded us that he last profiled Gandolfini when publicizing the finale of The Sopranos also on HBO: back then "I knew you were working on this and I knew this had become a passion of yours." The Alive Day is the first day the soldiers realize they are still alive after being injured. Williams introduced us to two legless veterans, one armless one and one with Post-Traumatic Stress. Alive Day Memories "is not for the faint of heart."
HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING No catastrophe happened but for four hours a B-52 bomber "flew over the central United States carrying six nuclear warheads and nobody knew," ABC's Jonathan Karl (subscription required) told us. The USAF jet took off from Minot AFB in North Dakota and landed at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana carrying cruise missiles. Karl quoted the USAF as reassuring us that "there was no real danger of a nuclear explosion--the bombs were not armed or fused." Karl was not entirely convinced: "Clearly the control system failed." He noted that the error was "so grave" that President George Bush was notified.
RAILROAD WIGGLE Idaho's disorderly senator may not let his guilty plea to a toilet misdemeanor end his political career. NBC's Lisa Myers explained that Larry Craig "purposefully left himself wiggle room," parsing his words "saying he intends to resign rather than will resign." The Republican used that formulation after he learned that his colleague Arlen Specter (R-PA) was willing to defend him against being "railroaded." ABC's David Wright reported that we know about Craig's plan because he made yet another mistake--leaving a message for his lawyer about the revised wording on the voicemail of a wrong number. Wright was skeptical that the senator would keep his job: "Craig's staff members are not changing their plans. Come the end of the month they expect to be out of a job."
TRAIN DROPPER Normally the safety recall of accessories for Barbie dolls would not make the network newscasts--but because this was the third such move by Mattel in just over a month, both NBC and ABC assigned a reporter to the lead paint scare. ABC's Betsy Stark took the softer consumerist angle, finding a toy store that has actually set up a shelf display Not Made In China. NBC's Andrea Mitchell tried to find the harder angle, investigating the "gutted" funding of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission. She came up with the hilarious visual of the "lone inspector in a cramped one-room lab to test toys for the entire country." He lifted a train set above a designated height--and dropped it.
DOES NOT FALL FAR FROM THE TREE What made NBC's closer--on black bears being driven by drought out of their Rocky Mountain habitat to forage for food where humans live--more than the run-of-the-mill animal story was John Larson's punchline after one bear climbed an apple tree in Aspen Colo to eat the fruit and defecated onto a car below: "Does this answer that proverbial question about a bear in the woods?"
MENTIONED IN PASSING The network newscasts do not assign correspondents to all of the news of the day. If Tyndall Report readers come across videostreamed reports online of stories that were mentioned only in passing, post the link in comments for us to check out.
Today's examples: Sen Timothy Johnson (D-SD) made his return speech on the Senate floor after convalescing from brain damage…three Marine Corps officers were exonerated of a cover-up in the killing of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha…on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 143 points, closing at 13305.
