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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM AUGUST 08, 2007
NASA scheduled a live event during the evening news timeslot so the Story of the Day was no network's lead, neither was it the result of reporting by correspondents. It consisted of footage of the liftoff of Space Shuttle Endeavour from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral seven minutes after the newscasts started: "Expanding the International Space Station while creating a classroom in space," as the NASA announcer intoned. There was no unanimity about what would have led the day's news agenda if NASA had not been given such free publicity. CBS selected the Utah coal mine for a third straight day. NBC and ABC opted for the storms that disrupted the morning rush hour in New York City.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR AUGUST 08, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
ENDEAVOUR LIFTS OFF SAFELY NASA scheduled a live event during the evening news timeslot so the Story of the Day was no network's lead, neither was it the result of reporting by correspondents. It consisted of footage of the liftoff of Space Shuttle Endeavour from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral seven minutes after the newscasts started: "Expanding the International Space Station while creating a classroom in space," as the NASA announcer intoned. There was no unanimity about what would have led the day's news agenda if NASA had not been given such free publicity. CBS selected the Utah coal mine for a third straight day. NBC and ABC opted for the storms that disrupted the morning rush hour in New York City.
Barbara Morgan was the reason this space flight was newsworthy. As ABC's Lisa Stark (subscription required) told us yesterday, Morgan was selected 22 years ago, along with Christa McAuliffe, as a schoolteacher in space. "The two teachers learned the ABCs of spaceflight together," CBS' Kelly Cobiella reminded us. Just 73 seconds into her spaceflight on board the Shuttle Challenger McAuliffe had been killed when the spacecraft exploded. "Morgan is actually occupying the very same seat on board," CBS anchor Katie Couric (no link) pointed out to her network's in-house space analyst Bill Harwood. CBS carried the feed of the liftoff live until that 73-second mark passed and then resumed its regular newscast. "Supersonic in less than one minute," NBC's Tom Costello marveled. "It looks like they are on their way to a safe trip in a low Earth orbit." "Great pictures," commented ABC anchor Charles Gibson to reporter Stark.
TORNADO TOUCHES DOWN IN BROOKLYN NBC substitute anchor Ann Curry thought the New York City weather was such a big deal that she moved out of the studio to Brooklyn, where a tornado hit, to introduce the newscast. "The entire system for moving people into, or anywhere near, New York City--planes, trains, automobiles, taxis, the whole subway system--could not handle it," recounted NBC's Mike Taibbi after a single violent storm. ABC, too, treated this local story as deserving national attention: "Frustrated riders were stunned the system failed with just three inches of rain," ABC's David Muir (subscription required) observed.
ABC's Muir offered the national context by ticking off near triple-digit temperatures in Washington, Chicago and Atlanta. In St Louis, NBC's Martin Savidge noted, residents "were directed to cooling centers" for fear of heat exhaustion. ABC's Ned Potter provided his story on the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization report on extreme weather caused by global warming that NBC's Anne Thompson covered yesterday. Potter, too, rounded up worldwide weather-porn footage of floods in Philippines, rains in Wales, drought in Romania, monsoons in Bangladesh, snow in Buenos Aires--and that cyclone in Oman
APACHES & RED BULLS CBS' David Martin followed up on yesterday's reporting from Baghdad by his colleague Lara Logan that the US military is no longer fighting an anti-Sunni counterinsurgency. Martin described how newfound cooperation from Sunni tribal sheikhs has led to a successful helicopter offensive against al-Qaeda guerrillas. "Tips from Iraqis are leading to a growing number of airstrikes," Martin reported from the Pentagon, as he showed us cockpit footage of a tree line attack by an Apache. His statistics were less impressive: in the past seven weeks 100 newly-deployed helicopters have killed just 63 al-Qaeda militants. CBS followed up with the first part of its two-parter Bravo Company Coming Home on the return of the Red Bulls, a unit of the Minnesota National Guard. "By the time they got home, this group that included cops, welders, students and teachers had served 22 months," Cynthia Bowers told us, more than a year of which was in "the hell hole of Fallujah." The 2,600-strong company suffered three fatalities.
HEALTHCARE DEMOCRATS, IMMIGRATION REPUBLICANS Even though MSNBC carried the Democratic Presidential contenders' organized labor debate last night from Chicago, NBC found nothing newsworthy enough in their exchanges for follow-up coverage. CBS did. Michelle Miller heard "a moment of truth" breaking through in the person of Steve Skvara, a 60-year-old retired steelworker, who was deprived of promised health insurance after LTV, his former employer, went bankrupt. Skvara found encouragement in the pledge of his favored candidate, John Edwards: "We ought to have universal healthcare in this country." Mused Miller, who seemed to endorse Edwards' platform: "Now the question is whether a moment in a debate will be the moment that motivates reform."
ABC covered a spat on the Republican side as Rudolph Giuliani's record as Mayor of New York City came under scrutiny. Jake Tapper (subscription required) quoted this statement by Giuliani in 1994: "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you are one of the people who we want in this city. You are somebody that we want to protect." Tapper explained that Mitt Romney was publicizing Giuliani's record in order "to seem tough on the immigration issue and win support from hardcore conservatives" ahead of the Iowa GOP straw poll. Tapper called Romney's decision to attack "unusual" considering the "undocumented Guatemalans who once did landscaping at his estate."
ACE IN THE HOLE Coal mine disasters fall into that category of stakeout news stories that take on a life of their own--see humpback whales up the Sacramento River (text link)--and end up utterly overcovered just because a correspondent and crew have been deployed to the scene and are available to offer a daily update, whether one is warranted or not. On the third day of the search for six miners trapped by a cave-in at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, NBC's Jennifer London told us that it may take seven days to tunnel through to their location horizontally while CBS' John Blackstone estimated two days to drill a bore hole down vertically. Blackstone offered some background on mineowner Robert Murray, who worked his way up from the coalface where he started at age sixteen. "He is now one of the biggest coalmine operators in the country," Blackstone noted, calling him "combative" at press conferences and quoting his "colorful" soundbites against "United Mineworkers propaganda" at Senate hearings.
ENHANCED PERFORMANCE A couple of major sports stories attracted attention--one looking back, the other forward. Baseball star Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run, surpassing Henry Aaron's record for the most in a career. ABC anchor Charles Gibson asked a couple of sports columnists to comment. "You really have to believe in the Easter Bunny to think that there were not some changes that were provided by performance enhancing drugs," stated Frank Deford--which means that comparing Bonds with Aaron is apples and oranges. On the other hand, ESPN analyst Stephen Smith, who writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer, pointed out, there was "a plethora of individuals" in baseball who used steroids and Bonds "shined above all the rest." On CBS, Armen Keteyian (no link) fleshed out Bonds' achievement with some statistics: he averaged 32 home runs a season until 1999; from 2000 onwards, after he turned 35 years of age, his average jumped to 52 per season. Keteyian called Bonds "the poster boy for baseball's Steroids Era."
NBC, whose sports division has the broadcast rights for the 2008 Olympic Games, had Mark Mullen cover the countdown in Beijing precisely one year before the opening ceremonies. The People's Republic sees the Games "as an opportunity to showcase the new China." Trees have been planted to block dust storms from the Gobi Desert. Polluting factories are being relocated. Streets will be pedestrianized. "Cabbies have been told to learn English and residents advised: no cutting in line; no spitting around foreigners."
PROGRAM GUIDE NBC offered a preview of a lurid Dateline report on an Oregon couple whose 22-year-old Filipina niece, Lannie Ejercito, had been lured into a life of prostitution in Malaysia on the pretext of being offered a singing career. Christopher Hansen followed Jerry Howe, a retired FBI special agent, as he went To The Rescue of the sex slave. ABC opted for endearing instead, as Ron Claiborne (subscription required) covered the growing popularity of YouTube among the elderly: meet octogenarians Bayla Sher, whose online food show Feed Me Bubbe offers Yiddish cooking tips, and Millie Garfield, with her "very whimsical" I Can't Open This.
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: President George Bush has been treated for Lyme Disease…Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq traveled to Teheran for talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…debris removal from the Mississippi River has been halted in Minneapolis while divers continue to search for missing motorists from the I-35 bridge collapse.
Barbara Morgan was the reason this space flight was newsworthy. As ABC's Lisa Stark (subscription required) told us yesterday, Morgan was selected 22 years ago, along with Christa McAuliffe, as a schoolteacher in space. "The two teachers learned the ABCs of spaceflight together," CBS' Kelly Cobiella reminded us. Just 73 seconds into her spaceflight on board the Shuttle Challenger McAuliffe had been killed when the spacecraft exploded. "Morgan is actually occupying the very same seat on board," CBS anchor Katie Couric (no link) pointed out to her network's in-house space analyst Bill Harwood. CBS carried the feed of the liftoff live until that 73-second mark passed and then resumed its regular newscast. "Supersonic in less than one minute," NBC's Tom Costello marveled. "It looks like they are on their way to a safe trip in a low Earth orbit." "Great pictures," commented ABC anchor Charles Gibson to reporter Stark.
TORNADO TOUCHES DOWN IN BROOKLYN NBC substitute anchor Ann Curry thought the New York City weather was such a big deal that she moved out of the studio to Brooklyn, where a tornado hit, to introduce the newscast. "The entire system for moving people into, or anywhere near, New York City--planes, trains, automobiles, taxis, the whole subway system--could not handle it," recounted NBC's Mike Taibbi after a single violent storm. ABC, too, treated this local story as deserving national attention: "Frustrated riders were stunned the system failed with just three inches of rain," ABC's David Muir (subscription required) observed.
ABC's Muir offered the national context by ticking off near triple-digit temperatures in Washington, Chicago and Atlanta. In St Louis, NBC's Martin Savidge noted, residents "were directed to cooling centers" for fear of heat exhaustion. ABC's Ned Potter provided his story on the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization report on extreme weather caused by global warming that NBC's Anne Thompson covered yesterday. Potter, too, rounded up worldwide weather-porn footage of floods in Philippines, rains in Wales, drought in Romania, monsoons in Bangladesh, snow in Buenos Aires--and that cyclone in Oman
APACHES & RED BULLS CBS' David Martin followed up on yesterday's reporting from Baghdad by his colleague Lara Logan that the US military is no longer fighting an anti-Sunni counterinsurgency. Martin described how newfound cooperation from Sunni tribal sheikhs has led to a successful helicopter offensive against al-Qaeda guerrillas. "Tips from Iraqis are leading to a growing number of airstrikes," Martin reported from the Pentagon, as he showed us cockpit footage of a tree line attack by an Apache. His statistics were less impressive: in the past seven weeks 100 newly-deployed helicopters have killed just 63 al-Qaeda militants. CBS followed up with the first part of its two-parter Bravo Company Coming Home on the return of the Red Bulls, a unit of the Minnesota National Guard. "By the time they got home, this group that included cops, welders, students and teachers had served 22 months," Cynthia Bowers told us, more than a year of which was in "the hell hole of Fallujah." The 2,600-strong company suffered three fatalities.
HEALTHCARE DEMOCRATS, IMMIGRATION REPUBLICANS Even though MSNBC carried the Democratic Presidential contenders' organized labor debate last night from Chicago, NBC found nothing newsworthy enough in their exchanges for follow-up coverage. CBS did. Michelle Miller heard "a moment of truth" breaking through in the person of Steve Skvara, a 60-year-old retired steelworker, who was deprived of promised health insurance after LTV, his former employer, went bankrupt. Skvara found encouragement in the pledge of his favored candidate, John Edwards: "We ought to have universal healthcare in this country." Mused Miller, who seemed to endorse Edwards' platform: "Now the question is whether a moment in a debate will be the moment that motivates reform."
ABC covered a spat on the Republican side as Rudolph Giuliani's record as Mayor of New York City came under scrutiny. Jake Tapper (subscription required) quoted this statement by Giuliani in 1994: "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you are one of the people who we want in this city. You are somebody that we want to protect." Tapper explained that Mitt Romney was publicizing Giuliani's record in order "to seem tough on the immigration issue and win support from hardcore conservatives" ahead of the Iowa GOP straw poll. Tapper called Romney's decision to attack "unusual" considering the "undocumented Guatemalans who once did landscaping at his estate."
ACE IN THE HOLE Coal mine disasters fall into that category of stakeout news stories that take on a life of their own--see humpback whales up the Sacramento River (text link)--and end up utterly overcovered just because a correspondent and crew have been deployed to the scene and are available to offer a daily update, whether one is warranted or not. On the third day of the search for six miners trapped by a cave-in at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, NBC's Jennifer London told us that it may take seven days to tunnel through to their location horizontally while CBS' John Blackstone estimated two days to drill a bore hole down vertically. Blackstone offered some background on mineowner Robert Murray, who worked his way up from the coalface where he started at age sixteen. "He is now one of the biggest coalmine operators in the country," Blackstone noted, calling him "combative" at press conferences and quoting his "colorful" soundbites against "United Mineworkers propaganda" at Senate hearings.
ENHANCED PERFORMANCE A couple of major sports stories attracted attention--one looking back, the other forward. Baseball star Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run, surpassing Henry Aaron's record for the most in a career. ABC anchor Charles Gibson asked a couple of sports columnists to comment. "You really have to believe in the Easter Bunny to think that there were not some changes that were provided by performance enhancing drugs," stated Frank Deford--which means that comparing Bonds with Aaron is apples and oranges. On the other hand, ESPN analyst Stephen Smith, who writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer, pointed out, there was "a plethora of individuals" in baseball who used steroids and Bonds "shined above all the rest." On CBS, Armen Keteyian (no link) fleshed out Bonds' achievement with some statistics: he averaged 32 home runs a season until 1999; from 2000 onwards, after he turned 35 years of age, his average jumped to 52 per season. Keteyian called Bonds "the poster boy for baseball's Steroids Era."
NBC, whose sports division has the broadcast rights for the 2008 Olympic Games, had Mark Mullen cover the countdown in Beijing precisely one year before the opening ceremonies. The People's Republic sees the Games "as an opportunity to showcase the new China." Trees have been planted to block dust storms from the Gobi Desert. Polluting factories are being relocated. Streets will be pedestrianized. "Cabbies have been told to learn English and residents advised: no cutting in line; no spitting around foreigners."
PROGRAM GUIDE NBC offered a preview of a lurid Dateline report on an Oregon couple whose 22-year-old Filipina niece, Lannie Ejercito, had been lured into a life of prostitution in Malaysia on the pretext of being offered a singing career. Christopher Hansen followed Jerry Howe, a retired FBI special agent, as he went To The Rescue of the sex slave. ABC opted for endearing instead, as Ron Claiborne (subscription required) covered the growing popularity of YouTube among the elderly: meet octogenarians Bayla Sher, whose online food show Feed Me Bubbe offers Yiddish cooking tips, and Millie Garfield, with her "very whimsical" I Can't Open This.
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: President George Bush has been treated for Lyme Disease…Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq traveled to Teheran for talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…debris removal from the Mississippi River has been halted in Minneapolis while divers continue to search for missing motorists from the I-35 bridge collapse.
