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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SEPTEMBER 11, 2007
An anniversary of news, not news itself, was Story of the Day. Today's date is September 11th, exactly six years on from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. ABC (8 min v CBS 2, NBC 2) spent most time on the commemorations--but the lead item filed by a reporter on each newscast was not 9/11. CBS and ABC both filed feature surveys on the status of al-Qaeda. NBC led with hard news: the second day of Congressional testimony on Iraq by the United States' military and diplomatic leaders in Baghdad, Gen David Petraeus and Amb Ryan Crocker.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR SEPTEMBER 11, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
SIX YEARS AGO An anniversary of news, not news itself, was Story of the Day. Today's date is September 11th, exactly six years on from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. ABC (8 min v CBS 2, NBC 2) spent most time on the commemorations--but the lead item filed by a reporter on each newscast was not 9/11. CBS and ABC both filed feature surveys on the status of al-Qaeda. NBC led with hard news: the second day of Congressional testimony on Iraq by the United States' military and diplomatic leaders in Baghdad, Gen David Petraeus and Amb Ryan Crocker.
Unlike yesterday, when the Petraeus-Crocker testimony before House committees was assigned to Pentagon correspondent at each network, today's Senate hearings were treated as political by ABC and CBS. Chip Reid, CBS' new Capitol Hill correspondent hired away from NBC, heard a "long and grueling day full of hostile questions and stern lectures." ABC's Jake Tapper (subscription required) concluded that, compared with yesterday, the witnesses "faced more of a grilling and a much deeper sense of skepticism."
For NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, the headline exchange of the hearings was between the senior Republican John Warner and Petraeus: "As a strategy do you feel that that is making America safer?" "Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq." "Does that make America safer?" "Sir, I do not know actually." ABC's Tapper aired the same exchange, although not as his lead. CBS' Reid merely paraphrased the safety answer: "he was so focused on the mission he has not had time to sort that out."
At the White House, ABC's Martha Raddatz was leaked advance word on George Bush's televised speech to the nation Thursday. The President would announce the completion of the 30,000 troop surge by next July, with the withdrawal of the additional forces, reverting to previous levels of deployment. Raddatz reported that "many senior military officials wanted a much sharper and much faster drawdown because they are very concerned about the strain on the military--but David Petraeus trumped them all." And NBC's Miklaszewski noted that the 30,000 withdrawal was hardly a surprise at the hearings: it was "already in the works because the army was stretched to the limit."
VALE OF TEARS Both CBS and ABC had their anchors introduce extended clips of the memorials at Ground Zero and elsewhere. CBS' Katie Couric indulged in purple prose: "As if heaven itself were weeping, rain drops began to fall on lower Manhattan this morning just as the first of the 2,750 names was being read." ABC's Charles Gibson observed simply that "the sadness and the tears are still right beneath the surface." ABC had David Muir close its newscast with six-year-on vignettes of three people who were featured in 9/11 photojournalism: Melodie Homer, the widow of a United Airlines pilot; Mike McCormack, who found the flag that flew over the World Trade Center's North Tower; and Shama Pathan an eleven-year-old girl whose Boston mosque suffered two dead.
ABC also sent Dan Harris (subscription required) to Ground Zero, which last year was "an empty construction site. Today it is alive with activity. It is amazing." A $16bn complex is scheduled for completion in 2012: the 1776-foot-tall Freedom Tower, a memorial with twin reflecting pools on the footprint where the Twin Towers once stood, a railroad station with opening wing roofs and three commercial high rises. "Architectural critics say the buildings are nice enough--but by no means visionary."
GIULIANI TIME It is inevitable that Republican Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani should receive extra scrutiny during this anniversary week. Yesterday CBS' Jeff Greenfield offered his profile. Now John Yang chimes in for NBC recalling the then-mayor covered in dust from the razed skyscrapers: "That day embodies his campaign's central message--strong leadership in times of chaos." At the same time, Giuliani's "penchant for drama opens him up to charges of self-aggrandizement." As for his actual performance as mayor, Yang acknowledged a couple of criticisms: first, Giuliani probably should not have located his emergency command center in the Twin Towers after their bombing in 1993; second, a major factor in the deaths of so many firefighters that day was that Giuliani's FDNY had not equipped them with radios to communicate an evacuation order properly.
NBC stayed in New York City for an In Depth profile by Richard Engel of the covert counterterrorism unit run by the city's police department. The squad has high-flying unmarked helicopters with infrared cameras; it scans cruise ships for radioactive isotopes; it staffs bureaus with spies in ten foreign cities; its scuba diving teams search the hulls of cargo ships in the harbor--and sometimes the police department does old-fashioned police work, like assigning an Arab-speaking Yemenite-American cop to community outreach among the Middle Eastern immigrants of Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood.
GAINING STRENGTH CBS' Bob Orr saw al-Qaeda "celebrate its greatest victory" with the release of the last will and testament of one of the September 11th suicide hijackers in a videotape introduced by Osama bin Laden. Orr observed that al-Qaeda is "now back and gaining strength." His unnamed spook sources told him that the network has reestablished a "core command structure" in the mountains of northwest Pakistan with Ayman al-Zawahiri "emerging as the real operational boss." Its propaganda operation is up and running too, producing 75 different videotape messages so far this year. Most funding comes from wealthy individuals in Saudi Arabia, ABC's Brian Ross added. He fingered Yasin al-Qadi as a key contributor: he was put on the United Nations' wanted list way back in 2001 but "remains free, still a prominent figure in the region."
TALIBAN TUNNEL NBC claimed an Exclusive for the Afghanistan videotape it obtained from the NEFA Foundation. NEFA freelancer Claudio Franco wangled an invitation to a clandestine subterranean guerrilla training base just 25 miles north of Kabul where some 300 Taliban recruits are taught bombmaking. "Franco's eyes were taped shut and he crawled blindfolded through two tunnels before entering a safe house," Lisa Myers narrated, before undercutting the threat Franco's images represented: "Clearly this tape was at least part propaganda. The Taliban is trying to undercut American support for the war in Afghanistan."
IN YOUR FACE Non-terrorist coverage included the second part of Armen Keteyian's Investigation for CBS into fraudulent telemarketing boilerrooms operating out of Montreal. The scams tell elderly marks they have won sweepstakes prizes--but they must prepay taxes, insurance and delivery fees in cash before receiving their payout. Yesterday Keteyian showed us "the most unorthodox ways" whereby cash had been mailed to the conmen to avoid customs duties, including a magazine with $100 bills inserted between its pages. In part two, Keteyian introduced us to the source of the telephone numbers those boilerrooms call. The contacts each belong to a "sucker list" falling into such categories as compulsive gamblers, the elderly infirmed and inveterate entrants in phony sweepstakes. Printing press owner Rick Panas is accused of being a source of sucker lists: he was "barred from doing business in Iowa for bogus prize mailings." When Keteyian went to South Carolina to interview Panas he was greeted with that staple of the television expose--the door slammed in the face of the handheld camera.
UNLEADED On a happy note, both CBS and ABC hailed Toy Diplomacy. "Handshakes, smiles and an agreement make sure that Thomas the Tank Engine, Elmo and Big Bird are safe," declared ABC's David Kerley (subscription required). The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the People's Republic of China agreed to cooperate in the training of toy safety inspectors and to increase the vigilance of hazard inspections before export. Chinese officials also promised to crack down on the use of lead paint. However their CPSC counterparts acknowledge, CBS' Nancy Cordes commented, "there is virtually no way to verify that the Chinese are following through on those promises." So the coming trend, said Cordes, is toy stores arranging their products "not by age group--but by country of origin."
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 Presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton is returning $850K in contributions bundled by fundraiser Norman Hsu, a fugitive felon…Marion Blakely, the departing boss of the FAA, declared that the delay-ridden schedules of airlines are "not worth the electrons they are written on"…the NFL's New England Patriots have been caught cheating, using videotape to decipher signals by opposing coaches.
Unlike yesterday, when the Petraeus-Crocker testimony before House committees was assigned to Pentagon correspondent at each network, today's Senate hearings were treated as political by ABC and CBS. Chip Reid, CBS' new Capitol Hill correspondent hired away from NBC, heard a "long and grueling day full of hostile questions and stern lectures." ABC's Jake Tapper (subscription required) concluded that, compared with yesterday, the witnesses "faced more of a grilling and a much deeper sense of skepticism."
For NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, the headline exchange of the hearings was between the senior Republican John Warner and Petraeus: "As a strategy do you feel that that is making America safer?" "Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq." "Does that make America safer?" "Sir, I do not know actually." ABC's Tapper aired the same exchange, although not as his lead. CBS' Reid merely paraphrased the safety answer: "he was so focused on the mission he has not had time to sort that out."
At the White House, ABC's Martha Raddatz was leaked advance word on George Bush's televised speech to the nation Thursday. The President would announce the completion of the 30,000 troop surge by next July, with the withdrawal of the additional forces, reverting to previous levels of deployment. Raddatz reported that "many senior military officials wanted a much sharper and much faster drawdown because they are very concerned about the strain on the military--but David Petraeus trumped them all." And NBC's Miklaszewski noted that the 30,000 withdrawal was hardly a surprise at the hearings: it was "already in the works because the army was stretched to the limit."
VALE OF TEARS Both CBS and ABC had their anchors introduce extended clips of the memorials at Ground Zero and elsewhere. CBS' Katie Couric indulged in purple prose: "As if heaven itself were weeping, rain drops began to fall on lower Manhattan this morning just as the first of the 2,750 names was being read." ABC's Charles Gibson observed simply that "the sadness and the tears are still right beneath the surface." ABC had David Muir close its newscast with six-year-on vignettes of three people who were featured in 9/11 photojournalism: Melodie Homer, the widow of a United Airlines pilot; Mike McCormack, who found the flag that flew over the World Trade Center's North Tower; and Shama Pathan an eleven-year-old girl whose Boston mosque suffered two dead.
ABC also sent Dan Harris (subscription required) to Ground Zero, which last year was "an empty construction site. Today it is alive with activity. It is amazing." A $16bn complex is scheduled for completion in 2012: the 1776-foot-tall Freedom Tower, a memorial with twin reflecting pools on the footprint where the Twin Towers once stood, a railroad station with opening wing roofs and three commercial high rises. "Architectural critics say the buildings are nice enough--but by no means visionary."
GIULIANI TIME It is inevitable that Republican Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani should receive extra scrutiny during this anniversary week. Yesterday CBS' Jeff Greenfield offered his profile. Now John Yang chimes in for NBC recalling the then-mayor covered in dust from the razed skyscrapers: "That day embodies his campaign's central message--strong leadership in times of chaos." At the same time, Giuliani's "penchant for drama opens him up to charges of self-aggrandizement." As for his actual performance as mayor, Yang acknowledged a couple of criticisms: first, Giuliani probably should not have located his emergency command center in the Twin Towers after their bombing in 1993; second, a major factor in the deaths of so many firefighters that day was that Giuliani's FDNY had not equipped them with radios to communicate an evacuation order properly.
NBC stayed in New York City for an In Depth profile by Richard Engel of the covert counterterrorism unit run by the city's police department. The squad has high-flying unmarked helicopters with infrared cameras; it scans cruise ships for radioactive isotopes; it staffs bureaus with spies in ten foreign cities; its scuba diving teams search the hulls of cargo ships in the harbor--and sometimes the police department does old-fashioned police work, like assigning an Arab-speaking Yemenite-American cop to community outreach among the Middle Eastern immigrants of Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood.
GAINING STRENGTH CBS' Bob Orr saw al-Qaeda "celebrate its greatest victory" with the release of the last will and testament of one of the September 11th suicide hijackers in a videotape introduced by Osama bin Laden. Orr observed that al-Qaeda is "now back and gaining strength." His unnamed spook sources told him that the network has reestablished a "core command structure" in the mountains of northwest Pakistan with Ayman al-Zawahiri "emerging as the real operational boss." Its propaganda operation is up and running too, producing 75 different videotape messages so far this year. Most funding comes from wealthy individuals in Saudi Arabia, ABC's Brian Ross added. He fingered Yasin al-Qadi as a key contributor: he was put on the United Nations' wanted list way back in 2001 but "remains free, still a prominent figure in the region."
TALIBAN TUNNEL NBC claimed an Exclusive for the Afghanistan videotape it obtained from the NEFA Foundation. NEFA freelancer Claudio Franco wangled an invitation to a clandestine subterranean guerrilla training base just 25 miles north of Kabul where some 300 Taliban recruits are taught bombmaking. "Franco's eyes were taped shut and he crawled blindfolded through two tunnels before entering a safe house," Lisa Myers narrated, before undercutting the threat Franco's images represented: "Clearly this tape was at least part propaganda. The Taliban is trying to undercut American support for the war in Afghanistan."
IN YOUR FACE Non-terrorist coverage included the second part of Armen Keteyian's Investigation for CBS into fraudulent telemarketing boilerrooms operating out of Montreal. The scams tell elderly marks they have won sweepstakes prizes--but they must prepay taxes, insurance and delivery fees in cash before receiving their payout. Yesterday Keteyian showed us "the most unorthodox ways" whereby cash had been mailed to the conmen to avoid customs duties, including a magazine with $100 bills inserted between its pages. In part two, Keteyian introduced us to the source of the telephone numbers those boilerrooms call. The contacts each belong to a "sucker list" falling into such categories as compulsive gamblers, the elderly infirmed and inveterate entrants in phony sweepstakes. Printing press owner Rick Panas is accused of being a source of sucker lists: he was "barred from doing business in Iowa for bogus prize mailings." When Keteyian went to South Carolina to interview Panas he was greeted with that staple of the television expose--the door slammed in the face of the handheld camera.
UNLEADED On a happy note, both CBS and ABC hailed Toy Diplomacy. "Handshakes, smiles and an agreement make sure that Thomas the Tank Engine, Elmo and Big Bird are safe," declared ABC's David Kerley (subscription required). The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the People's Republic of China agreed to cooperate in the training of toy safety inspectors and to increase the vigilance of hazard inspections before export. Chinese officials also promised to crack down on the use of lead paint. However their CPSC counterparts acknowledge, CBS' Nancy Cordes commented, "there is virtually no way to verify that the Chinese are following through on those promises." So the coming trend, said Cordes, is toy stores arranging their products "not by age group--but by country of origin."
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 Presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton is returning $850K in contributions bundled by fundraiser Norman Hsu, a fugitive felon…Marion Blakely, the departing boss of the FAA, declared that the delay-ridden schedules of airlines are "not worth the electrons they are written on"…the NFL's New England Patriots have been caught cheating, using videotape to decipher signals by opposing coaches.
