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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM OCTOBER 12, 2007
Al Gore, the former Vice President and central character in the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, was the unanimous Story of the Day. All three networks led with his Nobel Peace Prize for activism against global warming. Gore, the propagandist, shared the prize with United Nations scientists who measure the problem, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR OCTOBER 12, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
OZONE MAN PRAISED AS PEACEMAKER Al Gore, the former Vice President and central character in the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, was the unanimous Story of the Day. All three networks led with his Nobel Peace Prize for activism against global warming. Gore, the propagandist, shared the prize with United Nations scientists who measure the problem, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"He made a complicated and controversial issue understandable," was the praise for Gore by CBS' John Blackstone while NBC's Anne Thompson repeated the Nobel Committee's citation as the "person who has done the most to make the world aware of what needs to be done to stop climate change." Thompson pointed out that Gore had been a student of the Harvard professor who originally identified the greenhouse effect back in the 1960s. "Politics is Gore's profession--his passion is the environment." He was identified with the issue when he ran as Bill Clinton's Vice President in 1988--both ABC's David Wright (subscription required) and NBC's Thompson ran clips of then-President George Bush teasing Gore as "Ozone Man"--and Gore was on Clinton's negotiating team for the Kyoto Treaty, which attempted to reduce greenhouse emissions.
ABC's Wright speculated that Nobel laurels "must be sweet vindication" for the man who famously styles himself as one who "used to be the next President of the United States." Gore made a brief speech to accept the prize and then turned down reporters' questions. "Of course," observed CBS' Blackstone, "the only question reporters really wanted to ask is: 'Will you run for President?'" A pair of Sunday morning talkshow hosts answered on his behalf. "I think Al Gore has made up his mind he does not want to run," opined Bob Schieffer of CBS' Face the Nation. "The odds are about 1000-1 against Gore running," calculated George Stephanopoulos (no link) of ABC's This Week.
ABSORB CARBON The IPCC, stated NBC's Anne Thompson, "left no doubt that man is responsible for global warming. The debate now is over how much the climate will change if nothing is done." ABC had Bill Blakemore explain the latest approach to reducing greenhouse gases: if humans cut carbon emissions by 7bn tons each year, the climate will be stabilized by the year 2050; no single technology is capable of absorbing 7bn tons of carbon annually but scientists have isolated 15 separate techniques--"most would carry some cost"--each of which is capable of taking care of one billion. Deploy seven of the 15 as soon as possible and the task is done. Some of Blakemore's 15 include a doubling of automobile fuel efficiency, a fiftyfold increase in wind-generation of electricity, converting coal-powered generators to natural gas, expansion of the nuclear power industry and storing carbon emissions from coal back in the ground.
NBC's series America Goes Green examined whether environmental activism has staying power. Lee Cowan recalled the late '70s when being green "conjured up ponytails and Birkenstocks, Greenpeace and handcuffs" and contrasted that hippy image with hipper contemporary hybrid vehicles, efficient light bulbs, household recycling and styrofoamfree restaurant doggy bags. Yet "we still have a long way to go," Cowan warned. Sports Utility Vehicles, for example, outsell hybrids by a ratio of 20-to-1.
PROFESSOR PUTIN ABC had national security correspondent Jonathan Karl (subscription required) accompany Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her visit to Moscow. Karl commented that "it is certainly getting chilly here in Russia." Rice and her diplomatic companion Defense Secretary Robert Gates were "kept waiting forty minutes" before President Vladimir Putin agreed to see them. Then what was "supposed to be a simple photo opportunity" turned into an opportunity for Putin "to lecture the United States--and lecture--and lecture--for more than eight minutes." NBC did not send State Department correspondent Andrea Mitchell on the trip but she summed up two main sources of friction: NATO's plans for a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Russia's objections to a lack of United States diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program. After Rice had heard Putin out, she "seemed stunned by his frosty tone."
BLACKHAWK & BLACKWATER NBC aired a couple of items on Iraq. From Arlington Cemetery, Roger O'Neil covered the funerals of the dozen soldiers who were shot down in a Blackhawk helicopter in January. NBC's Martin Savidge profiled them--three colonels, two captains, six sergeants, one corporal--at the time. O'Neil noted that the crash so commingled their bodies that "individual identification was impossible." The cemetery's Old Guard buried the twelve in a single coffin. When Ricardo Sanchez, the retired general, called the Iraq War a "failure" he became "the highest ranking former top military commander in Iraq to openly criticize the war," according to NBC's Jim Miklaszewski. Sanchez called the National Security Council in George Bush's White House "derelict in the performance of their duty" and added that "in my profession, these types of leaders would immediately be relieved or court-martialed." Miklaszewski called the Pentagon for comment and obtained the anonymous suggestion that "Sanchez is clearly bitter over his forced retirement" even though "the facts on the ground in Iraq seem to support much of the criticism."
CBS had Elizabeth Palmer file from the Green Zone in Baghdad in advance of Lara Logan's interview with Erik Prince, the boss of the paramilitary Blackwater USA, on Sunday's 60 Minutes. Palmer found a couple of US diplomats to recall the conduct of their Blackwater bodyguards. "The worst thing that has ever happened to me," was how political aide Adam Hobson described riding in a convoy while his guards opened fire on an Iraqi car full of civilians, killing one. Former diplomat, now college professor, Janessa Gans recalled that "it was weird getting from Point A to Point B and nothing will stand in our way…If there was a hint of anyone approaching we view that as a terrorist threat." Mused Palmer: "When those terrorist threats turned out to be civilians, scared, hurt or even killed by Blackwater, she says it defeated the purpose of the mission."
CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN NBC's Making a Difference told the story of Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer who failed to climb K-2 and stumbled into a remote Pakistani village, "emaciated, weak, exhausted." He returned two years later with funds to build a school there. "Once he was kidnapped by the Taliban. Twice angry mullahs issued supreme religious edicts banishing him," narrated John Larson. "It turned out the local commandant had a daughter in the school. With local support his forces imprisoned the Taliban and all the schoolkids were back in class in two days." Mortenson's fundraising has built 69 schools in the Himalayan foothills so far, with another 400 villages on his waiting list.
FILING DEADLINE NBC's Pete Williams was the only network newscast reporter to cover the Supreme Court's decision last month to hear a challenge to death penalty injections. That decision put all such executions on hold pending a decision--all such executions except for that of Michael Richard in Texas. ABC's Jim Avila told us that Richard's defense lawyers started work on an appeal for a stay as soon as the Supreme Court took the case--but their computer broke down. They called the courthouse to ask for 20 minutes leeway to complete the paperwork but Judge Sharon Keller responded with "four words: 'We close at five.'" A trio of Keller's colleagues on the Court of Appeals stayed after work waiting for the defense motion--but Keller had closed the courthouse doors and Michael Richard was killed that night.
KATIE’S NEXT BIG GET Remember Michael Forbes, the Scottish farmer who CBS' Mark Phillips profiled yesterday? Forbes is the holdout against Donald Trump, refusing to sell land for a luxury golf course. His story was good enough to lure Jim Sciutto (subscription required) to the dunes of Balmedie to file the same story for ABC. CBS meanwhile moved on to Holdout #2 for Steve Hartman's Assignment America. Meet Edith Macefield, aged 86, who has turned down $1m for her house from a mall developer in Seattle. So construction is proceeding all around her: "When the job is done Edith's house will be surrounded on three sides by fives stories of cement."
Not only did Macefield reject the money, she rejected Hartman's interview request. So CBS is bringing in the big guns. Anchor Katie Couric assured her correspondent, "I will work on Edith for both of us."
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: the Internal Revenue Service calculates that 21% of all income is earned by the 1% of Americans who are at the top of the wealth rankings--and that the entire bottom half earns just 13%…the youngest members of the workforce will end up paying more in Social Security taxes than they ever receive in benefits…Sen Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has surgery for a blocked neck artery…Mychal Bell, one of the so-called Jena Six, was sent back to jail--but on charges unrelated to that Louisiana dispute involving lynchmob nooses on a shadetree.
"He made a complicated and controversial issue understandable," was the praise for Gore by CBS' John Blackstone while NBC's Anne Thompson repeated the Nobel Committee's citation as the "person who has done the most to make the world aware of what needs to be done to stop climate change." Thompson pointed out that Gore had been a student of the Harvard professor who originally identified the greenhouse effect back in the 1960s. "Politics is Gore's profession--his passion is the environment." He was identified with the issue when he ran as Bill Clinton's Vice President in 1988--both ABC's David Wright (subscription required) and NBC's Thompson ran clips of then-President George Bush teasing Gore as "Ozone Man"--and Gore was on Clinton's negotiating team for the Kyoto Treaty, which attempted to reduce greenhouse emissions.
ABC's Wright speculated that Nobel laurels "must be sweet vindication" for the man who famously styles himself as one who "used to be the next President of the United States." Gore made a brief speech to accept the prize and then turned down reporters' questions. "Of course," observed CBS' Blackstone, "the only question reporters really wanted to ask is: 'Will you run for President?'" A pair of Sunday morning talkshow hosts answered on his behalf. "I think Al Gore has made up his mind he does not want to run," opined Bob Schieffer of CBS' Face the Nation. "The odds are about 1000-1 against Gore running," calculated George Stephanopoulos (no link) of ABC's This Week.
ABSORB CARBON The IPCC, stated NBC's Anne Thompson, "left no doubt that man is responsible for global warming. The debate now is over how much the climate will change if nothing is done." ABC had Bill Blakemore explain the latest approach to reducing greenhouse gases: if humans cut carbon emissions by 7bn tons each year, the climate will be stabilized by the year 2050; no single technology is capable of absorbing 7bn tons of carbon annually but scientists have isolated 15 separate techniques--"most would carry some cost"--each of which is capable of taking care of one billion. Deploy seven of the 15 as soon as possible and the task is done. Some of Blakemore's 15 include a doubling of automobile fuel efficiency, a fiftyfold increase in wind-generation of electricity, converting coal-powered generators to natural gas, expansion of the nuclear power industry and storing carbon emissions from coal back in the ground.
NBC's series America Goes Green examined whether environmental activism has staying power. Lee Cowan recalled the late '70s when being green "conjured up ponytails and Birkenstocks, Greenpeace and handcuffs" and contrasted that hippy image with hipper contemporary hybrid vehicles, efficient light bulbs, household recycling and styrofoamfree restaurant doggy bags. Yet "we still have a long way to go," Cowan warned. Sports Utility Vehicles, for example, outsell hybrids by a ratio of 20-to-1.
PROFESSOR PUTIN ABC had national security correspondent Jonathan Karl (subscription required) accompany Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her visit to Moscow. Karl commented that "it is certainly getting chilly here in Russia." Rice and her diplomatic companion Defense Secretary Robert Gates were "kept waiting forty minutes" before President Vladimir Putin agreed to see them. Then what was "supposed to be a simple photo opportunity" turned into an opportunity for Putin "to lecture the United States--and lecture--and lecture--for more than eight minutes." NBC did not send State Department correspondent Andrea Mitchell on the trip but she summed up two main sources of friction: NATO's plans for a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Russia's objections to a lack of United States diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program. After Rice had heard Putin out, she "seemed stunned by his frosty tone."
BLACKHAWK & BLACKWATER NBC aired a couple of items on Iraq. From Arlington Cemetery, Roger O'Neil covered the funerals of the dozen soldiers who were shot down in a Blackhawk helicopter in January. NBC's Martin Savidge profiled them--three colonels, two captains, six sergeants, one corporal--at the time. O'Neil noted that the crash so commingled their bodies that "individual identification was impossible." The cemetery's Old Guard buried the twelve in a single coffin. When Ricardo Sanchez, the retired general, called the Iraq War a "failure" he became "the highest ranking former top military commander in Iraq to openly criticize the war," according to NBC's Jim Miklaszewski. Sanchez called the National Security Council in George Bush's White House "derelict in the performance of their duty" and added that "in my profession, these types of leaders would immediately be relieved or court-martialed." Miklaszewski called the Pentagon for comment and obtained the anonymous suggestion that "Sanchez is clearly bitter over his forced retirement" even though "the facts on the ground in Iraq seem to support much of the criticism."
CBS had Elizabeth Palmer file from the Green Zone in Baghdad in advance of Lara Logan's interview with Erik Prince, the boss of the paramilitary Blackwater USA, on Sunday's 60 Minutes. Palmer found a couple of US diplomats to recall the conduct of their Blackwater bodyguards. "The worst thing that has ever happened to me," was how political aide Adam Hobson described riding in a convoy while his guards opened fire on an Iraqi car full of civilians, killing one. Former diplomat, now college professor, Janessa Gans recalled that "it was weird getting from Point A to Point B and nothing will stand in our way…If there was a hint of anyone approaching we view that as a terrorist threat." Mused Palmer: "When those terrorist threats turned out to be civilians, scared, hurt or even killed by Blackwater, she says it defeated the purpose of the mission."
CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN NBC's Making a Difference told the story of Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer who failed to climb K-2 and stumbled into a remote Pakistani village, "emaciated, weak, exhausted." He returned two years later with funds to build a school there. "Once he was kidnapped by the Taliban. Twice angry mullahs issued supreme religious edicts banishing him," narrated John Larson. "It turned out the local commandant had a daughter in the school. With local support his forces imprisoned the Taliban and all the schoolkids were back in class in two days." Mortenson's fundraising has built 69 schools in the Himalayan foothills so far, with another 400 villages on his waiting list.
FILING DEADLINE NBC's Pete Williams was the only network newscast reporter to cover the Supreme Court's decision last month to hear a challenge to death penalty injections. That decision put all such executions on hold pending a decision--all such executions except for that of Michael Richard in Texas. ABC's Jim Avila told us that Richard's defense lawyers started work on an appeal for a stay as soon as the Supreme Court took the case--but their computer broke down. They called the courthouse to ask for 20 minutes leeway to complete the paperwork but Judge Sharon Keller responded with "four words: 'We close at five.'" A trio of Keller's colleagues on the Court of Appeals stayed after work waiting for the defense motion--but Keller had closed the courthouse doors and Michael Richard was killed that night.
KATIE’S NEXT BIG GET Remember Michael Forbes, the Scottish farmer who CBS' Mark Phillips profiled yesterday? Forbes is the holdout against Donald Trump, refusing to sell land for a luxury golf course. His story was good enough to lure Jim Sciutto (subscription required) to the dunes of Balmedie to file the same story for ABC. CBS meanwhile moved on to Holdout #2 for Steve Hartman's Assignment America. Meet Edith Macefield, aged 86, who has turned down $1m for her house from a mall developer in Seattle. So construction is proceeding all around her: "When the job is done Edith's house will be surrounded on three sides by fives stories of cement."
Not only did Macefield reject the money, she rejected Hartman's interview request. So CBS is bringing in the big guns. Anchor Katie Couric assured her correspondent, "I will work on Edith for both of us."
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: the Internal Revenue Service calculates that 21% of all income is earned by the 1% of Americans who are at the top of the wealth rankings--and that the entire bottom half earns just 13%…the youngest members of the workforce will end up paying more in Social Security taxes than they ever receive in benefits…Sen Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has surgery for a blocked neck artery…Mychal Bell, one of the so-called Jena Six, was sent back to jail--but on charges unrelated to that Louisiana dispute involving lynchmob nooses on a shadetree.
