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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SEPTEMBER 12, 2007
First comes the House, next comes the Senate, then third comes the network news. In the orchestrated build-up to the President's televised address to the nation on Thursday evening, Gen David Petraeus, George Bush's military commander in Iraq, touched base with each of the inside-the-Beltway power centers. After testifying to committees on Monday and Tuesday, the general sat down for interviews with all three anchors in Washington to make his case for a continued troop deployment their Story of the Day. ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams anchored their newscasts from the nation's capital; CBS' Katie Couric returned to New York City after her one-on-one. None of the interviews was newsworthy enough, however, to warrant the lead slot on any newscast. ABC and CBS led with demographic data; NBC led with its own in-house opinion poll results.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR SEPTEMBER 12, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
NETWORK ANCHORS QUESTION GENERAL PETRAEUS First comes the House, next comes the Senate, then third comes the network news. In the orchestrated build-up to the President's televised address to the nation on Thursday evening, Gen David Petraeus, George Bush's military commander in Iraq, touched base with each of the inside-the-Beltway power centers. After testifying to committees on Monday and Tuesday, the general sat down for interviews with all three anchors in Washington to make his case for a continued troop deployment their Story of the Day. ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams anchored their newscasts from the nation's capital; CBS' Katie Couric returned to New York City after her one-on-one. None of the interviews was newsworthy enough, however, to warrant the lead slot on any newscast. ABC and CBS led with demographic data; NBC led with its own in-house opinion poll results.
Unspoken in the interviews with Petraeus--but referred to obliquely--was the insinuation by the antiwar group moveon.org in the newspaper ad that NBC's Jim Miklaszewski mentioned on Monday that Petraeus might not testify in straightforward fashion but instead allow White House spinmeisters to massage his message in order to "Betray Us." So NBC anchor Williams characterized Petraeus as "a patriot" in introducing his q-&-a. CBS' Couric noted that the general "welcomed the chance" to respond to accusations of "cherrypicking and twisting the facts." And Petraeus himself told ABC's Gibson (subscription required): "I have tried to shut out optimistic and pessimistic moments, candidly--and just have realistic moments."
CBS' Couric was frustrated when Petraeus made no predictions about the war beyond July of 2008. She cited criticism that his strategy "is too open-ended with no long-term plan;" that "this sort of time-will-tell, we-will-see-how-it-goes philosophy just does not cut it." So Couric asked about the long term directly: "You cannot envision 100,000 US troops in Iraq for the next 20 years?" "No way." "What about in five years?" "I am not going to hazard that kind of projection."
NBC's Williams zeroed in on Petraeus' identification of his enemy and obtained significant clarification. The anchor reminded the general that "over the last two days of testimony you mentioned al-Qaeda by our count 160 times." He asked Petraeus to explain. "I did not mention that to try to tie this into the Global War on Terror"…"It is not a unified force and I have not tried to make that case"…"We do not label them all al-Qaeda"…"There clearly are Sunni insurgents and then resistance fighters, rejectionists, various labels, if you like, that are independent of al-Qaeda."
"The general said," NBC's Williams concluded, "this week in Washington has been an out-of-body experience for him."
SURGE FOR THE SURGE Even if the general's testimony was not partisan, as he insisted, its impact has been. "Petraeus solidified the base for George Bush on the Republican side," judged NBC's Tim Russert. On Capitol Hill CBS' Chip Reid noted that the problem for Senate Democrats is that "they cannot pass anything without Republican support and Petraeus' testimony convinced many wavering Republicans to give his strategy more time." Approval for Bush's surge in NBC's poll has risen in the past two months largely on the basis of "conservative Republicans coming back to the fold," as Russert put it.
While Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama made a troops out speech--"We have to begin to end this war now"--his rival on the Republican side John McCain was launching a three-state No Surrender tour in his No Surrender bus. Even as Bush prepares to announce that the troop surge will be over by next July, ABC's John Berman (subscription required) obtained an internal campaign memo instructing McCain to "take ownership of the surge." A few months ago, Berman observed, some political insiders had written off McCain's campaign--"his bank account was dwindling; his campaign staff declining"--but now "there are signs this new message may be working." Berman cited an ABC poll that showed McCain at 18% among Republicans (Rudolph Giuliani 28%, Fred Thompson 19%). NBC's poll (McCain 14% v Giuliani 32%, Thompson 26%) was not nearly as McCain-friendly.
NBC's Russert (at the tail of his Iraq War videostream) added one more tidbit. His poll surveyed partisans to find out their comfort level with Presidential candidates from the opposing party. He came up with the match-ups that would be most polarizing (Rodham Clinton vs Romney) and most consensual (Obama vs Giuliani).
BOB THE INSPECTOR While some senators were debating war, others conducted hearings into toys. NBC's Andrea Mitchell played catch-up on yesterday's agreement--covered by CBS' Nancy Cordes and ABC's David Kerley (subscription required)--between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the People's Republic of China to inspect for lead paint in imported toys. As "the Senate demanded answers" from Nancy Nord, the head of the CPSC, Mitchell could not resist returning to the priceless clip she showed us last Wednesday of the entire federal toy safety testing bureaucracy: "one cramped lab and a solitary inspector--Bob." Again we watched as Bob dropped a toy train set from a designated height. "Bob," testified Commissioner Nord, "is our small parts guy."
LIFESTYLES For their respective lead stories, ABC and CBS chose data from the Census Bureau. CBS assigned the story to its new hire Dean Reynolds, longtime ABC correspondent. Reynolds took the scattershot approach, delivering an assortment of trends including housing costs, working lifespans, staying single, college life and multilingualism. His factoid about early risers found that commuters on the road at 7am are no longer early birds but "practically stragglers now." ABC's David Muir also looked at the extra time taken by workers on the road as nationwide 5m start their commute before 5am. Muir offered two explanations: more people live in the exurbs to get better value for their housing dollar; and more highways are becoming so congested at rush hour that an early start is the only way to beat traffic. Gone is nine-to-five; say hello to five-to-seven.
ABC's lead was on the Census Bureau's finding that life expectancy is now almost 78 years, up from less than 70 half a century ago. Lisa Stark attributed increased lifespan to three factors: fewer cigarette smokers; heart disease medication to lower cholesterol and blood pressure; and screening for breast and colon cancer. She then offered divergent scenarios: lives may start getting shorter "with a third of the population now obese and diabetes up threefold;" or, if they continue getting longer, "Social Security may have to make the retirement age 85."
COPD KOPPEL Former smokers are still being killed by cigarettes, CNN's Sanjay Gupta told us in a report for CBS. Permanent damage to the elasticity of the lungs is called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and kills more Americans each year than any other malady except for heart disease, cancer and strokes. Why did Gupta want to tell us about COPD? He was lobbied by a patient-turned-activist who happens to be married to an anchorman: "Meet Grace Anne Koppel. She has led a very private life as the wife of a renowned journalist." The very public Ted sat next to the private-no-more Grace Anne to join in answering Gupta's questions.
COLD COMFORT Both CBS and ABC updated us on the condition of Kevin Everett, the NFL tight end feared permanently paralyzed when he broke his neck making a tackle for the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. "In an instant the 25-year-old man from Texas fell to the ground, his body limp,' recalled ABC's Jeffrey Kofman. "As emergency medical staff placed him on a stretcher, his team knelt down to pray. The prognosis--grim." Well, perhaps not so grim. In an experimental treatment called Induced Moderate Hypothermia, "doctors quickly administered a cold saline solution to bring Everett's body temperature to 92F," Early Show correspondent Jeff Glor (no link) told us on CBS. The cold reduced swelling around the spinal cord enabling nerve contact with toes and fingers to be maintained. "If Everett does walk again it is not a miracle--it is modern medicine," Kofman concluded.
WHORES & MADONNAS Sex rounded out the day's news: ABC chose cute; CBS chose gruesome--and irresponsible. Granted, CBS' Tracy Smith focused on a serious topic, the global sex slave trade: "The United States government says human trafficking is one of the largest criminal industries in the world, second only to drugs and now the fastest growing." Smith cited statistics that 20,000 foreigners are trafficked into this country each year, showing undercover video of a Chinatown brothel in New York City as illustration. So why was Smith's story irresponsible? Because the face she put on the story was a case of bait and switch. ShaunaShawna Newell, a 17-year-old from Pensacola Fla, was "drugged, raped and beaten"--horrible enough to be sure--but she was not enslaved, nor sold into a prostitution ring, nor pimped in the central Florida hotel and convention center sex industry, nor held for more than four days. Smith quoted a Justice Department claim that "increasingly American boys and girls like Shauna Shawna are attractive targets." But an attractive target does not amount to a sex slave.
ABC had London-based Nick Watt (subscription required) narrate sexy footage from the low birthrate Russian province of Ulyanovsk. Conception Day is a public holiday there, with workers ordered to stay home and procreate because nine months from now is the Russia Day holiday, when mothers of newborns qualify for prizes such as cars and refrigerators. Whatever happened to a special moment? To spontaneous affection?" Watt wondered. "When there are appliances or an SUV at stake, you can throw away the rule book."
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: an offshore Richter 8.4 earthquake shook Sumatra, killing five but creating a minimal tsunami…Tropical Storm Humberto is heading for a Texas-Louisiana landfall…the price of a barrel of crude oil surpassed $80 for the first time…White House spokesman Tony Snow is in his last week on the job.
Unspoken in the interviews with Petraeus--but referred to obliquely--was the insinuation by the antiwar group moveon.org in the newspaper ad that NBC's Jim Miklaszewski mentioned on Monday that Petraeus might not testify in straightforward fashion but instead allow White House spinmeisters to massage his message in order to "Betray Us." So NBC anchor Williams characterized Petraeus as "a patriot" in introducing his q-&-a. CBS' Couric noted that the general "welcomed the chance" to respond to accusations of "cherrypicking and twisting the facts." And Petraeus himself told ABC's Gibson (subscription required): "I have tried to shut out optimistic and pessimistic moments, candidly--and just have realistic moments."
CBS' Couric was frustrated when Petraeus made no predictions about the war beyond July of 2008. She cited criticism that his strategy "is too open-ended with no long-term plan;" that "this sort of time-will-tell, we-will-see-how-it-goes philosophy just does not cut it." So Couric asked about the long term directly: "You cannot envision 100,000 US troops in Iraq for the next 20 years?" "No way." "What about in five years?" "I am not going to hazard that kind of projection."
NBC's Williams zeroed in on Petraeus' identification of his enemy and obtained significant clarification. The anchor reminded the general that "over the last two days of testimony you mentioned al-Qaeda by our count 160 times." He asked Petraeus to explain. "I did not mention that to try to tie this into the Global War on Terror"…"It is not a unified force and I have not tried to make that case"…"We do not label them all al-Qaeda"…"There clearly are Sunni insurgents and then resistance fighters, rejectionists, various labels, if you like, that are independent of al-Qaeda."
"The general said," NBC's Williams concluded, "this week in Washington has been an out-of-body experience for him."
SURGE FOR THE SURGE Even if the general's testimony was not partisan, as he insisted, its impact has been. "Petraeus solidified the base for George Bush on the Republican side," judged NBC's Tim Russert. On Capitol Hill CBS' Chip Reid noted that the problem for Senate Democrats is that "they cannot pass anything without Republican support and Petraeus' testimony convinced many wavering Republicans to give his strategy more time." Approval for Bush's surge in NBC's poll has risen in the past two months largely on the basis of "conservative Republicans coming back to the fold," as Russert put it.
While Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama made a troops out speech--"We have to begin to end this war now"--his rival on the Republican side John McCain was launching a three-state No Surrender tour in his No Surrender bus. Even as Bush prepares to announce that the troop surge will be over by next July, ABC's John Berman (subscription required) obtained an internal campaign memo instructing McCain to "take ownership of the surge." A few months ago, Berman observed, some political insiders had written off McCain's campaign--"his bank account was dwindling; his campaign staff declining"--but now "there are signs this new message may be working." Berman cited an ABC poll that showed McCain at 18% among Republicans (Rudolph Giuliani 28%, Fred Thompson 19%). NBC's poll (McCain 14% v Giuliani 32%, Thompson 26%) was not nearly as McCain-friendly.
NBC's Russert (at the tail of his Iraq War videostream) added one more tidbit. His poll surveyed partisans to find out their comfort level with Presidential candidates from the opposing party. He came up with the match-ups that would be most polarizing (Rodham Clinton vs Romney) and most consensual (Obama vs Giuliani).
BOB THE INSPECTOR While some senators were debating war, others conducted hearings into toys. NBC's Andrea Mitchell played catch-up on yesterday's agreement--covered by CBS' Nancy Cordes and ABC's David Kerley (subscription required)--between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the People's Republic of China to inspect for lead paint in imported toys. As "the Senate demanded answers" from Nancy Nord, the head of the CPSC, Mitchell could not resist returning to the priceless clip she showed us last Wednesday of the entire federal toy safety testing bureaucracy: "one cramped lab and a solitary inspector--Bob." Again we watched as Bob dropped a toy train set from a designated height. "Bob," testified Commissioner Nord, "is our small parts guy."
LIFESTYLES For their respective lead stories, ABC and CBS chose data from the Census Bureau. CBS assigned the story to its new hire Dean Reynolds, longtime ABC correspondent. Reynolds took the scattershot approach, delivering an assortment of trends including housing costs, working lifespans, staying single, college life and multilingualism. His factoid about early risers found that commuters on the road at 7am are no longer early birds but "practically stragglers now." ABC's David Muir also looked at the extra time taken by workers on the road as nationwide 5m start their commute before 5am. Muir offered two explanations: more people live in the exurbs to get better value for their housing dollar; and more highways are becoming so congested at rush hour that an early start is the only way to beat traffic. Gone is nine-to-five; say hello to five-to-seven.
ABC's lead was on the Census Bureau's finding that life expectancy is now almost 78 years, up from less than 70 half a century ago. Lisa Stark attributed increased lifespan to three factors: fewer cigarette smokers; heart disease medication to lower cholesterol and blood pressure; and screening for breast and colon cancer. She then offered divergent scenarios: lives may start getting shorter "with a third of the population now obese and diabetes up threefold;" or, if they continue getting longer, "Social Security may have to make the retirement age 85."
COPD KOPPEL Former smokers are still being killed by cigarettes, CNN's Sanjay Gupta told us in a report for CBS. Permanent damage to the elasticity of the lungs is called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and kills more Americans each year than any other malady except for heart disease, cancer and strokes. Why did Gupta want to tell us about COPD? He was lobbied by a patient-turned-activist who happens to be married to an anchorman: "Meet Grace Anne Koppel. She has led a very private life as the wife of a renowned journalist." The very public Ted sat next to the private-no-more Grace Anne to join in answering Gupta's questions.
COLD COMFORT Both CBS and ABC updated us on the condition of Kevin Everett, the NFL tight end feared permanently paralyzed when he broke his neck making a tackle for the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. "In an instant the 25-year-old man from Texas fell to the ground, his body limp,' recalled ABC's Jeffrey Kofman. "As emergency medical staff placed him on a stretcher, his team knelt down to pray. The prognosis--grim." Well, perhaps not so grim. In an experimental treatment called Induced Moderate Hypothermia, "doctors quickly administered a cold saline solution to bring Everett's body temperature to 92F," Early Show correspondent Jeff Glor (no link) told us on CBS. The cold reduced swelling around the spinal cord enabling nerve contact with toes and fingers to be maintained. "If Everett does walk again it is not a miracle--it is modern medicine," Kofman concluded.
WHORES & MADONNAS Sex rounded out the day's news: ABC chose cute; CBS chose gruesome--and irresponsible. Granted, CBS' Tracy Smith focused on a serious topic, the global sex slave trade: "The United States government says human trafficking is one of the largest criminal industries in the world, second only to drugs and now the fastest growing." Smith cited statistics that 20,000 foreigners are trafficked into this country each year, showing undercover video of a Chinatown brothel in New York City as illustration. So why was Smith's story irresponsible? Because the face she put on the story was a case of bait and switch. Shauna
ABC had London-based Nick Watt (subscription required) narrate sexy footage from the low birthrate Russian province of Ulyanovsk. Conception Day is a public holiday there, with workers ordered to stay home and procreate because nine months from now is the Russia Day holiday, when mothers of newborns qualify for prizes such as cars and refrigerators. Whatever happened to a special moment? To spontaneous affection?" Watt wondered. "When there are appliances or an SUV at stake, you can throw away the rule book."
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: an offshore Richter 8.4 earthquake shook Sumatra, killing five but creating a minimal tsunami…Tropical Storm Humberto is heading for a Texas-Louisiana landfall…the price of a barrel of crude oil surpassed $80 for the first time…White House spokesman Tony Snow is in his last week on the job.
