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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM NOVEMBER 06, 2007
The first Tuesday in November holds an off-year election in 2007 and marks the start of a year's countdown to Presidential General Election in 2008. Both ABC and CBS abandoned coverage of the breaking news of the day, leading off their newscasts instead with feature previews of the political year ahead. CBS concentrated on the primary season, isolating the key contests for each party; ABC looked forward to Election Day itself, isolating key battleground states. NBC also spent extra time on the campaign, kicking of its Making of a President series of candidate profiles with an interview with Rudolph Giuliani. The upshot was that the little attention was paid to the Story of the Day--the continuing political turmoil in Pakistan--amid campaign coverage that accounted for 33% (18 min out of 57) of the three-network newshole.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR NOVEMBER 06, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
JUST ONE YEAR TO GO The first Tuesday in November holds an off-year election in 2007 and marks the start of a year's countdown to Presidential General Election in 2008. Both ABC and CBS abandoned coverage of the breaking news of the day, leading off their newscasts instead with feature previews of the political year ahead. CBS concentrated on the primary season, isolating the key contests for each party; ABC looked forward to Election Day itself, isolating key battleground states. NBC also spent extra time on the campaign, kicking of its Making of a President series of candidate profiles with an interview with Rudolph Giuliani. The upshot was that the little attention was paid to the Story of the Day--the continuing political turmoil in Pakistan--amid campaign coverage that accounted for 33% (18 min out of 57) of the three-network newshole.
CBS used its extended campaign coverage as an opportunity to publicize its latest opinion poll standings in the two nomination contests (Hillary Rodham Clinton 51% v Barack Obama 23%, John Edwards 13%; and Rudolph Giuliani 29% v Fred Thompson 21%, John McCain 18%, Mitt Romney 12%,) before anchor Katie Couric told us that national polls mean little in a nomination contest, which is a "state by state" battle.
On the Democratic side, CBS' Jim Axelrod came to the same conclusion that ABC's Jake Tapper reached last week and NBC's Andrea Mitchell found earlier in October. Namely that the Iowa caucuses are "the best chance for Obama and Edwards to stop" Rodham Clinton. Reporting from Cedar Rapids, Axelrod found "new intensity" on the stump. A once-timid Obama is "not any more" and Edwards is "even sharper." Axelrod used the example of 2004 to claim that caucusgoers do not vote on the basis of issues--like "Iraq, the economy, healthcare"--but on "a candidate's electability." That is why John Kerry came from behind to win Iowa six years ago, Axelrod argued. Except that it turned out Kerry that was unelectable.
On the Republican side, CBS' Nancy Cordes portrayed the contest as "wide open" with five candidates still having a chance of being nominated. She acknowledged some differences on the issues--McCain seeks compromise on immigration and worries about global warming; Giuliani is pro-choice on abortion and tolerant of homosexual rights--but portrayed the difference in tactics as being decisive. Romney is running on early momentum, creating "high visibility" in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina. Giuliani relies on winning the later, larger states, which reflect his nationwide lead in the polls.
Giuliani showcased an affable collegiality in his sit-down with NBC anchor Brian Williams. What does he think about Hillary Rodham Clinton? "I have great respect for her." What about his soon-to-be-indicted former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik? "I personally have tremendous regard for Bernie and caring about him." What about Democrat Joe Biden, who diagrams every Giuliani sentence as containing a noun, a verb and 9/11? "I like Joe very much." When he heard Biden's joke "my wife and I just bowled over laughing." Giuliani embraced a maverick label: "I was an aberration when I was Mayor of New York…I was the first Republican in a generation." He could have underlined how much of an aberration he is in GOP circles if he had reminded us that he ran for mayor on the Liberal Party ticket. Perhaps he did not want to go that far out on a limb.
GUY FAWKES FUNDRAISER At last, Republican candidate Ron Paul has achieved visibility on all three nightly newscasts. Last month NBC's Bob Faw and ABC's Jake Tapper made note of Paul's online appeal and fundraising prowess. Now CBS' Jeff Greenfield joins in, inspired by the $4.2m raised online from 37,000 donors in the single day of November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day as it is known in England, for a C17th saboteur whose plot to blow up London's Houses of Parliament was foiled, leaving him burned at the stake for treason. Greenfield called the $4.2m "a dramatic example" of "viral political marketing." If money is the mother's milk of politics, "he just got himself a dairy."
Greenfield played a portion of the fundraiser's online video in opposition to the Iraq War, including scenes of fireworks with La Marseillaise on the soundtrack. Greenfield reminded us that New Hampshire's motto Live Free or Die is tailormade for Paul's libertarian candidacy, a state with plenty of contrarian, independent voters. "He opposes government action almost everywhere: in the bedroom and in the boardroom…He says wars make governments too powerful. He even thinks 9/11 was, in part, a response to our--what he calls--'worldwide imperialism.' Very strong opposition."
A BLUER SHADE OF RED ABC led off its newscast with a trio of reports handicapping the General Election. The network's Sunday morning anchor, George Stephanopoulos of This Week, called it no "shoo-in"--but the consensus inside-the-Beltway is that this race is "for the Democrats to lose." He offered statistics covering every election since World War II to prove that "the tide of history" is against the GOP. No party has been able to retain the White House when, one year out, its incumbent President has a poll approval rating below 45%. President George Bush's approval is 33%.
So if the Democrats are to gain, which red states are expected to turn blue? ABC's Jake Tapper offered us the "interior west," eight Rocky Mountain states (Ariz, NM, Utah, Colo, Nev, Wyo, Idaho, Mont) that had no Democratic governors as recently as 2000 and now have five. He credited an influx of Democratic-leaning Latino voters and a split within Republican ranks between its socially-conservative leadership based in the South and its "fundamentally different" libertarian western wing. Kate Snow (at the tail of the Tapper videostream) followed up from Ohio, a state, she reminded us, that George Bush won by just 2% in 2004. Snow found disaffection with the Iraq War, the state of the economy and the scandal-tainted state party among the Republican faithful; and she wondered whether Ohio's successful get-out-the-vote effort among evangelical Christians could be replicated if Giuliani turned out to be the candidate. "No Republican has made it to the White House without Ohio since Abraham Lincoln."
PERVEZ’ PAKISTAN The follow-up to yesterday's extensive coverage (text link) of Pakistan made for a weak Story of the Day. None of the newscasts led from Islamabad and NBC did not even assign a reporter to the ongoing protests inspired by cell phone calls from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who is under house arrest. "The government tried to jam his signal but not before he called on people to rise up," stated CBS' Sheila MacVicar. She saw signs that President Pervez Musharraf was "backsliding" and "ready to break commitments" that parliamentary elections would be held, as scheduled, in January. So Amb Anne Patterson, the US envoy to Islamabad, "brought our CBS camera crew along to hammer home the point that the world, especially Washington, is watching" when she visited the Electoral Commission to obtain guarantees that the vote had not been canceled. Neither CBS' MacVicar nor ABC's Martha Raddatz (subscription required) had any truck with Musharraf's claims that he was forced to impose martial law to resist radical Islamists. "It is all about Musharraf trying to hold onto power," asserted Raddatz. "The clampdown continues," MacVicar declared, "not on the extremists Musharraf said threatened the country, but on moderates and those who support the rule of law."
PRICE PERCEPTION NBC chose to lead with a couple of reports on the climbing cost of crude oil, which it skipped yesterday when ABC's David Kerley (subscription required) and CBS' Anthony Mason filed. Maria Bartiromo, of NBC's financial news sibling network CNBC, led off from the New York Stock Exchange. She saw a "perception problem" driving up the price rather than $96.70 being a cost of a barrel of crude that is "really justified." The first misperception, Bartiromo claimed was "that there is not enough oil in the world to match the demand;" the second that tensions in the Middle East will cause "one of those spigots of oil to be turned off." Then Lee Cowan (at the tail of the Bartiromo videostream) demonstrated the impact of high energy costs on homes this winter: heating oil is 22% more expensive than last year; propane up by 19%; natural gas by 10%.
NOT NEWSWORTHY This light day of news saw all three networks file segments from feature series rather than covering breaking stories. CBS chose Forced to be Fit, in which Dean Reynolds told us about employers, faced with high healthcare coverage costs, who offer financial sticks and carrots to their workers. The municipal plan in Benton County Ark, for example, used to have a blanket annual deductible of $750 for each worker. Now it saves money by offering a $500 deductible to non-smokers with healthy blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels. Those not in shape have a $2,750 deductible instead.
NBC continued its corporate Green Is Universal effort with another Our Planet feature on renewable energy. Yesterday, Dawna Friesen showed us windmill farms for generating electricity. The next step is to apply the same principle to water, Anne Thompson told us: developing turbines to take power from the tide. She showed us one experimental system of buoys off the New Jersey shore that forms a floating power plant and a second that is built on the bed of tidal waterways, looking like "underwater windmills." A prototype from the Verdant Corporation is already in operation under New York City's East River--"the current was unexpectedly strong and broke the first two groups of turbines--and another is planned by Pacific Gas & Electric for the waters at the entrance of San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge.
ABC's Miracles of Life series shows us those hard medical cases that spark ethical debates. Yesterday, John McKenzie outlined advances that allow pregnant women, who happen to be diagnosed with breast cancer, to undergo treatment before giving birth, instead of having an abortion for fear that the chemotherapy would deform the fetus. Now John Donvan introduces us to the Hartman family of Florida. They used fertility treatments to produce more than 100 embryos in order to select a lucky one that happened to be a genetic match for a daughter who was fatally ill with anemia. The matching embryo was implanted and born as the girl's brother--and the blood in his umbilical cord was used for a transplant to save her life. The non-matching embryos "remain in deep freeze or were donated for research."
NOT MY YAHOO! The ethical case in the media universe concerned Yahoo! Jerry Yang, the Internet search engine's boss, faced "unrelenting" criticism at House hearings, as NBC's Mark Mullen put it, for spying on one of his firm's Chinese e-mail users on behalf of Communist authorities. In 2005, they were searching for an anonymous journalist who had disclosed the plans by the People's Republic of China to censor anniversary coverage of its Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The journalist's identity and his e-mail exchanges were handed over by Yahoo! Shi Tao is now serving a ten-year prison sentence. "Yahoo! insisted it was obligated to follow Chinese law."
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 mixed military news out of Iraq is that 2007 has already become the deadliest year of the war for the US military, even as October saw monthly casualties ease to a three-year low…a bomb attack in the usually peaceful northern region of Afghanistan killed up to 50 people, including local politicians…Michael Mukasey was recommended for confirmation as Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 11-8 vote…King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited the Vatican for talks with Pope Benedict XVI.
CBS used its extended campaign coverage as an opportunity to publicize its latest opinion poll standings in the two nomination contests (Hillary Rodham Clinton 51% v Barack Obama 23%, John Edwards 13%; and Rudolph Giuliani 29% v Fred Thompson 21%, John McCain 18%, Mitt Romney 12%,) before anchor Katie Couric told us that national polls mean little in a nomination contest, which is a "state by state" battle.
On the Democratic side, CBS' Jim Axelrod came to the same conclusion that ABC's Jake Tapper reached last week and NBC's Andrea Mitchell found earlier in October. Namely that the Iowa caucuses are "the best chance for Obama and Edwards to stop" Rodham Clinton. Reporting from Cedar Rapids, Axelrod found "new intensity" on the stump. A once-timid Obama is "not any more" and Edwards is "even sharper." Axelrod used the example of 2004 to claim that caucusgoers do not vote on the basis of issues--like "Iraq, the economy, healthcare"--but on "a candidate's electability." That is why John Kerry came from behind to win Iowa six years ago, Axelrod argued. Except that it turned out Kerry that was unelectable.
On the Republican side, CBS' Nancy Cordes portrayed the contest as "wide open" with five candidates still having a chance of being nominated. She acknowledged some differences on the issues--McCain seeks compromise on immigration and worries about global warming; Giuliani is pro-choice on abortion and tolerant of homosexual rights--but portrayed the difference in tactics as being decisive. Romney is running on early momentum, creating "high visibility" in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina. Giuliani relies on winning the later, larger states, which reflect his nationwide lead in the polls.
Giuliani showcased an affable collegiality in his sit-down with NBC anchor Brian Williams. What does he think about Hillary Rodham Clinton? "I have great respect for her." What about his soon-to-be-indicted former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik? "I personally have tremendous regard for Bernie and caring about him." What about Democrat Joe Biden, who diagrams every Giuliani sentence as containing a noun, a verb and 9/11? "I like Joe very much." When he heard Biden's joke "my wife and I just bowled over laughing." Giuliani embraced a maverick label: "I was an aberration when I was Mayor of New York…I was the first Republican in a generation." He could have underlined how much of an aberration he is in GOP circles if he had reminded us that he ran for mayor on the Liberal Party ticket. Perhaps he did not want to go that far out on a limb.
GUY FAWKES FUNDRAISER At last, Republican candidate Ron Paul has achieved visibility on all three nightly newscasts. Last month NBC's Bob Faw and ABC's Jake Tapper made note of Paul's online appeal and fundraising prowess. Now CBS' Jeff Greenfield joins in, inspired by the $4.2m raised online from 37,000 donors in the single day of November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day as it is known in England, for a C17th saboteur whose plot to blow up London's Houses of Parliament was foiled, leaving him burned at the stake for treason. Greenfield called the $4.2m "a dramatic example" of "viral political marketing." If money is the mother's milk of politics, "he just got himself a dairy."
Greenfield played a portion of the fundraiser's online video in opposition to the Iraq War, including scenes of fireworks with La Marseillaise on the soundtrack. Greenfield reminded us that New Hampshire's motto Live Free or Die is tailormade for Paul's libertarian candidacy, a state with plenty of contrarian, independent voters. "He opposes government action almost everywhere: in the bedroom and in the boardroom…He says wars make governments too powerful. He even thinks 9/11 was, in part, a response to our--what he calls--'worldwide imperialism.' Very strong opposition."
A BLUER SHADE OF RED ABC led off its newscast with a trio of reports handicapping the General Election. The network's Sunday morning anchor, George Stephanopoulos of This Week, called it no "shoo-in"--but the consensus inside-the-Beltway is that this race is "for the Democrats to lose." He offered statistics covering every election since World War II to prove that "the tide of history" is against the GOP. No party has been able to retain the White House when, one year out, its incumbent President has a poll approval rating below 45%. President George Bush's approval is 33%.
So if the Democrats are to gain, which red states are expected to turn blue? ABC's Jake Tapper offered us the "interior west," eight Rocky Mountain states (Ariz, NM, Utah, Colo, Nev, Wyo, Idaho, Mont) that had no Democratic governors as recently as 2000 and now have five. He credited an influx of Democratic-leaning Latino voters and a split within Republican ranks between its socially-conservative leadership based in the South and its "fundamentally different" libertarian western wing. Kate Snow (at the tail of the Tapper videostream) followed up from Ohio, a state, she reminded us, that George Bush won by just 2% in 2004. Snow found disaffection with the Iraq War, the state of the economy and the scandal-tainted state party among the Republican faithful; and she wondered whether Ohio's successful get-out-the-vote effort among evangelical Christians could be replicated if Giuliani turned out to be the candidate. "No Republican has made it to the White House without Ohio since Abraham Lincoln."
PERVEZ’ PAKISTAN The follow-up to yesterday's extensive coverage (text link) of Pakistan made for a weak Story of the Day. None of the newscasts led from Islamabad and NBC did not even assign a reporter to the ongoing protests inspired by cell phone calls from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who is under house arrest. "The government tried to jam his signal but not before he called on people to rise up," stated CBS' Sheila MacVicar. She saw signs that President Pervez Musharraf was "backsliding" and "ready to break commitments" that parliamentary elections would be held, as scheduled, in January. So Amb Anne Patterson, the US envoy to Islamabad, "brought our CBS camera crew along to hammer home the point that the world, especially Washington, is watching" when she visited the Electoral Commission to obtain guarantees that the vote had not been canceled. Neither CBS' MacVicar nor ABC's Martha Raddatz (subscription required) had any truck with Musharraf's claims that he was forced to impose martial law to resist radical Islamists. "It is all about Musharraf trying to hold onto power," asserted Raddatz. "The clampdown continues," MacVicar declared, "not on the extremists Musharraf said threatened the country, but on moderates and those who support the rule of law."
PRICE PERCEPTION NBC chose to lead with a couple of reports on the climbing cost of crude oil, which it skipped yesterday when ABC's David Kerley (subscription required) and CBS' Anthony Mason filed. Maria Bartiromo, of NBC's financial news sibling network CNBC, led off from the New York Stock Exchange. She saw a "perception problem" driving up the price rather than $96.70 being a cost of a barrel of crude that is "really justified." The first misperception, Bartiromo claimed was "that there is not enough oil in the world to match the demand;" the second that tensions in the Middle East will cause "one of those spigots of oil to be turned off." Then Lee Cowan (at the tail of the Bartiromo videostream) demonstrated the impact of high energy costs on homes this winter: heating oil is 22% more expensive than last year; propane up by 19%; natural gas by 10%.
NOT NEWSWORTHY This light day of news saw all three networks file segments from feature series rather than covering breaking stories. CBS chose Forced to be Fit, in which Dean Reynolds told us about employers, faced with high healthcare coverage costs, who offer financial sticks and carrots to their workers. The municipal plan in Benton County Ark, for example, used to have a blanket annual deductible of $750 for each worker. Now it saves money by offering a $500 deductible to non-smokers with healthy blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels. Those not in shape have a $2,750 deductible instead.
NBC continued its corporate Green Is Universal effort with another Our Planet feature on renewable energy. Yesterday, Dawna Friesen showed us windmill farms for generating electricity. The next step is to apply the same principle to water, Anne Thompson told us: developing turbines to take power from the tide. She showed us one experimental system of buoys off the New Jersey shore that forms a floating power plant and a second that is built on the bed of tidal waterways, looking like "underwater windmills." A prototype from the Verdant Corporation is already in operation under New York City's East River--"the current was unexpectedly strong and broke the first two groups of turbines--and another is planned by Pacific Gas & Electric for the waters at the entrance of San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge.
ABC's Miracles of Life series shows us those hard medical cases that spark ethical debates. Yesterday, John McKenzie outlined advances that allow pregnant women, who happen to be diagnosed with breast cancer, to undergo treatment before giving birth, instead of having an abortion for fear that the chemotherapy would deform the fetus. Now John Donvan introduces us to the Hartman family of Florida. They used fertility treatments to produce more than 100 embryos in order to select a lucky one that happened to be a genetic match for a daughter who was fatally ill with anemia. The matching embryo was implanted and born as the girl's brother--and the blood in his umbilical cord was used for a transplant to save her life. The non-matching embryos "remain in deep freeze or were donated for research."
NOT MY YAHOO! The ethical case in the media universe concerned Yahoo! Jerry Yang, the Internet search engine's boss, faced "unrelenting" criticism at House hearings, as NBC's Mark Mullen put it, for spying on one of his firm's Chinese e-mail users on behalf of Communist authorities. In 2005, they were searching for an anonymous journalist who had disclosed the plans by the People's Republic of China to censor anniversary coverage of its Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The journalist's identity and his e-mail exchanges were handed over by Yahoo! Shi Tao is now serving a ten-year prison sentence. "Yahoo! insisted it was obligated to follow Chinese law."
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 mixed military news out of Iraq is that 2007 has already become the deadliest year of the war for the US military, even as October saw monthly casualties ease to a three-year low…a bomb attack in the usually peaceful northern region of Afghanistan killed up to 50 people, including local politicians…Michael Mukasey was recommended for confirmation as Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 11-8 vote…King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited the Vatican for talks with Pope Benedict XVI.
