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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM OCTOBER 05, 2007
Word of Marion Jones' disgrace broke yesterday. Today saw her formal--and tearful--apology for lying about doping herself in order to achieve Olympic glory. The track-&-field sprinter appeared on the steps of a suburban New York courthouse to admit her "great amount of shame." Jones' guilt was the lead story on all three network newscasts, the unanimous Story of the Day.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR OCTOBER 05, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
TRACK TRIUMPHS TARNISHED Word of Marion Jones' disgrace broke yesterday. Today saw her formal--and tearful--apology for lying about doping herself in order to achieve Olympic glory. The track-&-field sprinter appeared on the steps of a suburban New York courthouse to admit her "great amount of shame." Jones' guilt was the lead story on all three network newscasts, the unanimous Story of the Day.
In her apology Jones admitted making false statements…and being dishonest…and letting her country down…but, NBC's Mike Taibbi noted referring to the steroids, she "still insists she never took them knowingly…only that she lied years later, once she learned it was steroids she had been taking, not flax seed oil." ABC's Kate Snow went to her network's archives to contradict Jones. She found the 2004 interview by her colleague Martin Bashir with Victor Conte, the owner of BALCO, the San Francisco area laboratory that supplied performance-enhancing drugs: "She did the injection right there with me sitting there next to her," Conte claimed. CBS' substitute anchor Harry Smith asked CNN's medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta what the testosterone from Jones' THG steroid does for an athlete. Gupta ticked off more muscle mass, faster reflexes, greater speed, "increase your male traits"…plus liver damage, cholesterol build-up and hormonal failure.
The doping not only helped Jones win five medals at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, CBS' Byron Pitts (no link) pointed out: "She turned those medals into millions," with lucrative sponsorship deals from Madison Avenue--"advertisers adored her"--and $50,000-per-race appearance fees from meets. Pitts quoted Jones as declaring that track-&-field is "a sport which I deeply love." Yet her disgrace may mean that her own relay teammates may lose their medals, too, when she is stripped of hers. Next summer when the Olympic Games are being held in Beijing, Jones may be serving six months in federal prison.
NBC was the network that broadcast those Sydney Games. Anne Thompson recalled covering it: "Marion Jones looked me in the eye" to deny doping, "a lie she disguised with a smile that lit stadiums and determination that mowed down competitors." Thompson's memory told her that "everybody wanted her to win those five gold medals in 2000. She was the golden girl of those Games." In fact, it was NBC Sports' publicity and promotion machine--not quite "everybody"--that was instrumental in the creation of her golden girl image and Drive-for-Five hype. In the end, despite her enhanced performance, only three of Jones' medals were golden; the other two were bronze--and all five are now trash.
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT After starting its newscast with sport, ABC devoted most of the remainder to show business. Dan Harris (no link) covered the movie story that NBC's Mike Taibbi reported on yesterday: Paramount Studios has delayed the release of The Kite Runner for fear that audiences in Afghanistan, where it is set, may be incited to violence by seeing its taboo-breaking tale of a boy being raped and its "graphic portrayal of ethnic hatred." Bill Weir (subscription required) examined efforts to protect copyrighted songs. After the recording industry failed to shut down music sharing software sites, "they started going after the people who use them." Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two from Minnesota, was one such music fan: she shared two dozen tunes; a jury ordered her to pay $220,000 in damages.
Anchor Charles Gibson sat down with singer Stevie Wonder, ABC's Person of the Week. Each ventured into the other's territory. The blind Wonder complained about Gibson's news judgment: "I was watching television and, you know, how can they spend so much time talking about OJ? How about gang violence? What about this war? What about hunger? What about the peace that we talk about?" And, in a gutsy display, Gibson made up his own words to snatches of Wonder's My Cherie Amour--and sang them aloud to the star.
BONANZA NBC and CBS both assigned reporters to follow up on Blackwater USA, now the State Department has decided to use cameras and tape recorders to monitor the conduct of diplomatic bodyguards in Iraq. CBS' David Martin reflected that the new scrutiny "seems like a vote of no confidence…the State Department is no longer willing to take Blackwater's word." Besides the Iraq security contracts that represent its "biggest bonanza," as CBS' Bob Orr put it, the North Carolina based firm also trains police SWAT teams and military sharpshooters. Its boss Erik Prince was a White House intern during the first Bush Presidency and has become a loyal campaign contributor to Republican Party causes, donating $217,000--compared with $5,000 to the Democrats--over the past decade. From Baghdad, NBC's Richard Engel demonstrated the monumental task that has been contracted to Blackwater and other civilian security firms. He called the main distribution center for reconstruction aid "just enormous. There is warehouse after warehouse. It is five times the size of the Pentagon. All of the convoys that move these goods are dependent on private security. Without them the army would need thousands more soldiers here."
SPOOKY NBC's Andrea Mitchell filed a brief update on her story yesterday about secret Justice Department memoranda--ones that supposedly contradict public assurances by President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that CIA interrogators do not use torture. Now House and Senate committees have demanded to see the wording of the memos. Mitchell spelled out clearly what qualifies as torture: "Any act intentionally inflicting severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, to get a confession." She quoted unnamed "critics" in Congress who claim that the memos in question "do permit harsher techniques." Mitchell did not go the whole hog and report claims that torture had actually occurred, only that "the administration's denials cannot be proved."
ABC's Martha Raddatz (subscription required) also had a spook story, about the espionage that led to last month's clandestine Israeli air raid on a facility in Syria that may have contained military materiel from North Korea. Raddatz's blind source--she vaguely called it a "US official"--told her that Israel's inside scoop about Syria was "jaw dropping mostly because it raised questions as to why US intelligence had not picked up on it." Raddatz ended cryptically, observing the lack of strong protests against Israel by North Korea, Syria or the United States, "which suggests that the strike was justified."
TOPPS HITS BOTTOM The recall of frozen hamburger patties by the USDA for fear of taint from e.coli bacteria was so huge--21m lbs, a year's production the Topps Meat Company--that is has forced the New Jersey firm out of business, laying off 87 workers. CBS' Kelly Wallace noted that Topps had been the nation's largest manufacturer of frozen hamburgers. Even though the outbreak spread to eight states, the USDA did not order the recall until eleven days after a laboratory had confirmed the positive e.coli test: "The USDA is now reviewing how it handles recalls and safety procedures at the 1500 ground beef processing plants around the country."
OUT OF AFRICA There are only 103 designated National Monuments--"George Washington's birthplace…the State of Liberty…now here," announced NBC's Ron Allen. He introduced us to the Burial Ground Monument in downtown Manhattan on the site of an African cemetery that was unearthed by chance at a building site in 1991. The cemetery is estimated to have stretched over six city blocks. The remains of 400 slaves were found during that excavation 16 years ago. The Monument itself is dedicated to the entire slave population, estimated at 20,000, whose labor was forced to found the city.
GOD IS NOT THE FOCUS NBC concluded its weeklong series Faith in America in the heartland. Monday, Lee Cowan told us about Protestant decline. Tuesday, Bob Faw took us to Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana where inmates have trained as Baptist ministers. Wednesday, Faw found a lack of musical directors to lead gospel choirs. Thursday, John Yang observed the advent of bestseller books by atheists. Now Ron Mott ends at the building site for a temple in Fort Wayne. An immigrant community of Asian Buddhists has raised the $360,000 to build their house of worship while their faith has attracted locals. Up to one quarter of Indiana's Buddhists are native born converts: "God, Buddha's followers contend, is not the focus; ending suffering--they believe caused by human cravings--is."
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: unemployment data for September showed a 110,000 increase in the ranks of those in work and a national jobless rate of 4.7% of the labor force…the trio of lacrosse players at Duke University who were exonerated after false charges of rape filed a lawsuit against their prosecutor…the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of stamps honoring journalists, including CBS Newsmen Eric Sevareid and George Polk.
In her apology Jones admitted making false statements…and being dishonest…and letting her country down…but, NBC's Mike Taibbi noted referring to the steroids, she "still insists she never took them knowingly…only that she lied years later, once she learned it was steroids she had been taking, not flax seed oil." ABC's Kate Snow went to her network's archives to contradict Jones. She found the 2004 interview by her colleague Martin Bashir with Victor Conte, the owner of BALCO, the San Francisco area laboratory that supplied performance-enhancing drugs: "She did the injection right there with me sitting there next to her," Conte claimed. CBS' substitute anchor Harry Smith asked CNN's medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta what the testosterone from Jones' THG steroid does for an athlete. Gupta ticked off more muscle mass, faster reflexes, greater speed, "increase your male traits"…plus liver damage, cholesterol build-up and hormonal failure.
The doping not only helped Jones win five medals at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, CBS' Byron Pitts (no link) pointed out: "She turned those medals into millions," with lucrative sponsorship deals from Madison Avenue--"advertisers adored her"--and $50,000-per-race appearance fees from meets. Pitts quoted Jones as declaring that track-&-field is "a sport which I deeply love." Yet her disgrace may mean that her own relay teammates may lose their medals, too, when she is stripped of hers. Next summer when the Olympic Games are being held in Beijing, Jones may be serving six months in federal prison.
NBC was the network that broadcast those Sydney Games. Anne Thompson recalled covering it: "Marion Jones looked me in the eye" to deny doping, "a lie she disguised with a smile that lit stadiums and determination that mowed down competitors." Thompson's memory told her that "everybody wanted her to win those five gold medals in 2000. She was the golden girl of those Games." In fact, it was NBC Sports' publicity and promotion machine--not quite "everybody"--that was instrumental in the creation of her golden girl image and Drive-for-Five hype. In the end, despite her enhanced performance, only three of Jones' medals were golden; the other two were bronze--and all five are now trash.
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT After starting its newscast with sport, ABC devoted most of the remainder to show business. Dan Harris (no link) covered the movie story that NBC's Mike Taibbi reported on yesterday: Paramount Studios has delayed the release of The Kite Runner for fear that audiences in Afghanistan, where it is set, may be incited to violence by seeing its taboo-breaking tale of a boy being raped and its "graphic portrayal of ethnic hatred." Bill Weir (subscription required) examined efforts to protect copyrighted songs. After the recording industry failed to shut down music sharing software sites, "they started going after the people who use them." Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two from Minnesota, was one such music fan: she shared two dozen tunes; a jury ordered her to pay $220,000 in damages.
Anchor Charles Gibson sat down with singer Stevie Wonder, ABC's Person of the Week. Each ventured into the other's territory. The blind Wonder complained about Gibson's news judgment: "I was watching television and, you know, how can they spend so much time talking about OJ? How about gang violence? What about this war? What about hunger? What about the peace that we talk about?" And, in a gutsy display, Gibson made up his own words to snatches of Wonder's My Cherie Amour--and sang them aloud to the star.
BONANZA NBC and CBS both assigned reporters to follow up on Blackwater USA, now the State Department has decided to use cameras and tape recorders to monitor the conduct of diplomatic bodyguards in Iraq. CBS' David Martin reflected that the new scrutiny "seems like a vote of no confidence…the State Department is no longer willing to take Blackwater's word." Besides the Iraq security contracts that represent its "biggest bonanza," as CBS' Bob Orr put it, the North Carolina based firm also trains police SWAT teams and military sharpshooters. Its boss Erik Prince was a White House intern during the first Bush Presidency and has become a loyal campaign contributor to Republican Party causes, donating $217,000--compared with $5,000 to the Democrats--over the past decade. From Baghdad, NBC's Richard Engel demonstrated the monumental task that has been contracted to Blackwater and other civilian security firms. He called the main distribution center for reconstruction aid "just enormous. There is warehouse after warehouse. It is five times the size of the Pentagon. All of the convoys that move these goods are dependent on private security. Without them the army would need thousands more soldiers here."
SPOOKY NBC's Andrea Mitchell filed a brief update on her story yesterday about secret Justice Department memoranda--ones that supposedly contradict public assurances by President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that CIA interrogators do not use torture. Now House and Senate committees have demanded to see the wording of the memos. Mitchell spelled out clearly what qualifies as torture: "Any act intentionally inflicting severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, to get a confession." She quoted unnamed "critics" in Congress who claim that the memos in question "do permit harsher techniques." Mitchell did not go the whole hog and report claims that torture had actually occurred, only that "the administration's denials cannot be proved."
ABC's Martha Raddatz (subscription required) also had a spook story, about the espionage that led to last month's clandestine Israeli air raid on a facility in Syria that may have contained military materiel from North Korea. Raddatz's blind source--she vaguely called it a "US official"--told her that Israel's inside scoop about Syria was "jaw dropping mostly because it raised questions as to why US intelligence had not picked up on it." Raddatz ended cryptically, observing the lack of strong protests against Israel by North Korea, Syria or the United States, "which suggests that the strike was justified."
TOPPS HITS BOTTOM The recall of frozen hamburger patties by the USDA for fear of taint from e.coli bacteria was so huge--21m lbs, a year's production the Topps Meat Company--that is has forced the New Jersey firm out of business, laying off 87 workers. CBS' Kelly Wallace noted that Topps had been the nation's largest manufacturer of frozen hamburgers. Even though the outbreak spread to eight states, the USDA did not order the recall until eleven days after a laboratory had confirmed the positive e.coli test: "The USDA is now reviewing how it handles recalls and safety procedures at the 1500 ground beef processing plants around the country."
OUT OF AFRICA There are only 103 designated National Monuments--"George Washington's birthplace…the State of Liberty…now here," announced NBC's Ron Allen. He introduced us to the Burial Ground Monument in downtown Manhattan on the site of an African cemetery that was unearthed by chance at a building site in 1991. The cemetery is estimated to have stretched over six city blocks. The remains of 400 slaves were found during that excavation 16 years ago. The Monument itself is dedicated to the entire slave population, estimated at 20,000, whose labor was forced to found the city.
GOD IS NOT THE FOCUS NBC concluded its weeklong series Faith in America in the heartland. Monday, Lee Cowan told us about Protestant decline. Tuesday, Bob Faw took us to Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana where inmates have trained as Baptist ministers. Wednesday, Faw found a lack of musical directors to lead gospel choirs. Thursday, John Yang observed the advent of bestseller books by atheists. Now Ron Mott ends at the building site for a temple in Fort Wayne. An immigrant community of Asian Buddhists has raised the $360,000 to build their house of worship while their faith has attracted locals. Up to one quarter of Indiana's Buddhists are native born converts: "God, Buddha's followers contend, is not the focus; ending suffering--they believe caused by human cravings--is."
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: unemployment data for September showed a 110,000 increase in the ranks of those in work and a national jobless rate of 4.7% of the labor force…the trio of lacrosse players at Duke University who were exonerated after false charges of rape filed a lawsuit against their prosecutor…the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of stamps honoring journalists, including CBS Newsmen Eric Sevareid and George Polk.
