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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM OCTOBER 28, 2008
The economy or the election? The election or the economy? On a day when ABC and CBS both decided to lead from Wall Street because the stock market enjoyed an 11% surge in buying, Campaign '08 still managed to come out on top. All three newscasts used both of their stump correspondents. NBC kicked off with Barack Obama and followed with John McCain. CBS and ABC chose the reverse pecking order, so McCain marginally qualified as Story of the Day.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR OCTOBER 28, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
STOCK MARKET BUYING SPREE FALLS SHORT The economy or the election? The election or the economy? On a day when ABC and CBS both decided to lead from Wall Street because the stock market enjoyed an 11% surge in buying, Campaign '08 still managed to come out on top. All three newscasts used both of their stump correspondents. NBC kicked off with Barack Obama and followed with John McCain. CBS and ABC chose the reverse pecking order, so McCain marginally qualified as Story of the Day.
Ron Claiborne on ABC found himself a little carried away by the Republican's exuberance: "He is really becoming aggressive…and he also doing some of the most aggressive and spirited campaigning since he started running…McCain was swinging for the fences…in the final days of this long campaign McCain has become especially aggressive…much more fired up these days."
As for the substance of McCain's argument, CBS' Chip Reid concluded that the issue he is counting on is "taxes." McCain interpreted the pledge by Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden that households earning less than $150,000 annually would get a cut in taxes as a loophole in Barack Obama's promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year: "Are you getting an idea of what is on their mind? A little sneak peek? It is interesting how their definition of rich has a way of creeping down." CBS' Dean Reynolds found taxes to be the lone area of Barack Obama's campaign where he noticed "a sense of vulnerability." Obama "pointedly included" in the list of those eligible for a tax cut under his plan "99.9% of plumbers." McCain's focus on taxes was undercut by ABC News' tracking poll, noted George Stephanopoulos: "Obama still maintains a ten-point lead on the issue of taxes." Citing his own candidate Bill Clinton's victorious platform back in 1992, he generalized that "when Democrats win on taxes, they tend to win elections."
That vaunted aggressiveness on the stump notwithstanding, ABC's Claiborne pointed out that "on the ground McCain has not nearly as many troops in the field as Obama." He counted 35 field offices to 50 in North Carolina; 75 paid staffers to 500 in Florida. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell consulted McCain's aides about their get out the vote effort. They called it "a lean but motivated ground game."
NOT BASEBALL WEATHER The day's symbolic stump achievement by Barack Obama was his decision to withstand the same Pennsylvania storm that had delayed the Phillies' World Series contest: "Call it 40 with a stiff wind that made it feel like 33. Add in a cloudburst or two and the outdoor rally for some 9,000 people outside Philadelphia turned into a test of will Barack Obama could not resist," narrated NBC's Lee Cowan. "When times are tough, when it is cold, when it is rainy, when it is hard, that is when we stand up," the candidate exhorted. NBC even had Tetiana Anderson of its sibling network The Weather Channel give us details of the storm. ABC's Jake Tapper (at the tail of the Claiborne videostream) commented that this was a rare occasion on which Obama was "playing defense" in a state John Kerry won in 2004. "Obama will be making this attack as he proceeds through red states"--Va, NC, Fla, Mo, Iowa, Ind, Nev, Colo, Ohio.
ATLANTIC SEABOARD SWINGERS "It is hard to envision a path to victory for John McCain that does not include a win in Pennsylvania," CBS' Chip Reid had opined. Accordingly CBS selected the Keystone commonwealth for Jeff Glor's swing state feature. Glor, borrowed from CBS' Early Show, noted that McCain's six days on the stump there over the past two weeks had prompted Barack Obama's response and an impending visit by Bill Clinton. Yet Glor's example of voters still to be persuaded was a pair of married Republicans in Allentown, hardly encouraging for the GOP. The laid-off husband is "most likely" for Obama; his wife "leaning slightly" towards McCain.
NBC's state race chosen for an In Depth feature was North Carolina, a Republican stronghold in every election since 1980. John Yang accounted for its new status as battleground by pointing to voter registration among African-Americans, layoffs in the Wachovia-led banking industry, Obama's funding advantage and the Democrat's "massive" field operation.
CONFUSED PRIORITIES Both CBS and NBC are running Where They Stand features contrasting the two candidates' platforms on key issues. Yet when it comes to Medicare, that shared title conceals opposing conclusions. Last week on NBC, Mark Potter decided that Medicare was no big deal this year: "Despite its importance, though, neither candidate has made Medicare a campaign priority." Now on CBS, Nancy Cordes devotes almost six minutes to a detailed examination of a system that will run out of funds in 2019. She outlined the candidates' contrasting proposals on lump sum payments and the role of private insurers and prescription drug co-pays and pharmaceutical discounts--before consulting the experts: "The next President cannot afford to wait until his second term to fix Medicare's finances."
PAY PER PROPOSITION ABC came up with a fun campaign-related human interest feature for its 50 States in 50 Days series. Meet Oregon's Mr Ballot, Bill Sizemore. Over the past 14 years, Dan Harris told us, Sizemore has personally filed more than a hundred separate statewide ballot initiatives. He has yet to meet with success: "Sizemore has never had an initiative that was not overturned by the courts or changed by the legislature." This year Sizemore has five separate propositions before the voters. His favorite hobby horses are "things like property rights, lower taxes" he explained--which is how he makes a living: "He gets paid by wealthy conservative donors."
NBC ABSTAINS IN BULLS-VS-BEARS SHOWDOWN ABC's Betsy Stark and CBS' Anthony Mason were each assigned to the action on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9065, an 889-point jump, the second largest single day rise in its history. Astonishingly, NBC, which normally specializes in cross promotion with its sibling financial news cable channel CNBC, mentioned the day's trading only in passing. Mason called it "surreal" and Stark called it "mind boggling" that such optimistic purchasing should be seen on a day when real estate values and consumer confidence both continued to decline. "It may only be a bear market bounce," warned Mason; "history shows that some of the biggest moves up on the Dow have occurred in a bear market," Stark concurred.
It was an unusual day for CBS' Mason. He got to open his network's newscast and close it too. Mason's parting feature was also from Wall Street, a personal profile of 94-year-old money manager Seth Glickenhaus, who founded his first brokerage firm during the depths of the Great Depression in 1938. Glickenhaus' current stock tip: "Being bullish is very called for at this time."
WHO IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK? Non-financial economic news concerned the housing market and the small business sector. NBC's Tom Costello filed from Capitol Hill where hearings on a $150bn federal stimulus package considered aid for small business. Technically such enterprises include any with fewer than 500 employees--but do the arithmetic from Costello's numbers and it is clear that for most, "small business" amounts to "self-employed." A nationwide total of 27m small enterprises has a combined workforce of just 59m. ABC's A Closer Look had Brian Rooney (embargoed link) inquire whether housing prices have bottomed. He found an example in Atlanta where a $279K property sold for $137K and another in California where a $550K asking price turned into $250K at auction. Yet he warned that the glut might yet get worse: "Thousands of foreclosure and bank owned properties are still being dumped on the retail market, continuing to drive down prices."
As the index of consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since it was devised 41 years ago, NBC sent Mike Taibbi out on the thankless task of profiling members of the 12% of Americans in his network's poll who believe the nation is "on the right track." Taibbi found a New York City graphic designer cum commercial landlord and a New Jersey sales manager for a home toolkit importer. The designer will stay optimistic until his real estate goes south; the handyman believes "in a recession people tend to fix things instead of replacing them" so his job is secure.
TALKING TO TALIBAN; RAPED BY GI JOE From the Pentagon, ABC's Jonathan Karl covered the latest reversal of policy. Central Command, soon to come under the leadership of Gen David Petraeus, is suggesting to the government of Afghanistan that it initiate peace talks with "supporters of the Taliban and possibly even elements of the Taliban itself." NBC had Richard Engel cover the same proposal from Baghdad. He quoted Petraeus' military prognosis: "The United States cannot fight its way--kill or capture its way--out of the war in Afghanistan."
CBS' Pentagon coverage concerned veterans of combat. David Martin told us that as many as 15% of women checking into VA hospitals after returning from war reported "sexual trauma" as a result of harassment or rape by their male comrades in arms. "Women serving in the US military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," was how Martin quoted Democrat Jane Harman, a California Congresswoman. "Really disturbing," was the reaction of CBS anchor Katie Couric.
LIMEY AMATEUR SMOKES JERSEY HOOPSTER For ABC's closer, the newscast went to London where Miguel Marquez introduced us to the faces behind the latest viral hit on YouTube. When Stuart Tanner went to bed one night there were 80,000 views of his two-minute video of pick-up playground basketball. "We woke up in the morning and rechecked and it was 2.5m." The game was a one-on-one between Tanner, a 28-year-old Englishman, and Devin Harris, professional point guard for the NBA's New Jersey Nets. "Smokes him," Marquez declared.
HERE’S GAFFNEY Adrienne Gaffney has joined our happy band of news junkies who "watched last night night's newscasts...so you do not have to." Here are her observations on the same content Tyndall Report just monitored at Vanity Fair magazine's Culture & Celebrity blog.
Ron Claiborne on ABC found himself a little carried away by the Republican's exuberance: "He is really becoming aggressive…and he also doing some of the most aggressive and spirited campaigning since he started running…McCain was swinging for the fences…in the final days of this long campaign McCain has become especially aggressive…much more fired up these days."
As for the substance of McCain's argument, CBS' Chip Reid concluded that the issue he is counting on is "taxes." McCain interpreted the pledge by Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden that households earning less than $150,000 annually would get a cut in taxes as a loophole in Barack Obama's promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year: "Are you getting an idea of what is on their mind? A little sneak peek? It is interesting how their definition of rich has a way of creeping down." CBS' Dean Reynolds found taxes to be the lone area of Barack Obama's campaign where he noticed "a sense of vulnerability." Obama "pointedly included" in the list of those eligible for a tax cut under his plan "99.9% of plumbers." McCain's focus on taxes was undercut by ABC News' tracking poll, noted George Stephanopoulos: "Obama still maintains a ten-point lead on the issue of taxes." Citing his own candidate Bill Clinton's victorious platform back in 1992, he generalized that "when Democrats win on taxes, they tend to win elections."
That vaunted aggressiveness on the stump notwithstanding, ABC's Claiborne pointed out that "on the ground McCain has not nearly as many troops in the field as Obama." He counted 35 field offices to 50 in North Carolina; 75 paid staffers to 500 in Florida. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell consulted McCain's aides about their get out the vote effort. They called it "a lean but motivated ground game."
NOT BASEBALL WEATHER The day's symbolic stump achievement by Barack Obama was his decision to withstand the same Pennsylvania storm that had delayed the Phillies' World Series contest: "Call it 40 with a stiff wind that made it feel like 33. Add in a cloudburst or two and the outdoor rally for some 9,000 people outside Philadelphia turned into a test of will Barack Obama could not resist," narrated NBC's Lee Cowan. "When times are tough, when it is cold, when it is rainy, when it is hard, that is when we stand up," the candidate exhorted. NBC even had Tetiana Anderson of its sibling network The Weather Channel give us details of the storm. ABC's Jake Tapper (at the tail of the Claiborne videostream) commented that this was a rare occasion on which Obama was "playing defense" in a state John Kerry won in 2004. "Obama will be making this attack as he proceeds through red states"--Va, NC, Fla, Mo, Iowa, Ind, Nev, Colo, Ohio.
ATLANTIC SEABOARD SWINGERS "It is hard to envision a path to victory for John McCain that does not include a win in Pennsylvania," CBS' Chip Reid had opined. Accordingly CBS selected the Keystone commonwealth for Jeff Glor's swing state feature. Glor, borrowed from CBS' Early Show, noted that McCain's six days on the stump there over the past two weeks had prompted Barack Obama's response and an impending visit by Bill Clinton. Yet Glor's example of voters still to be persuaded was a pair of married Republicans in Allentown, hardly encouraging for the GOP. The laid-off husband is "most likely" for Obama; his wife "leaning slightly" towards McCain.
NBC's state race chosen for an In Depth feature was North Carolina, a Republican stronghold in every election since 1980. John Yang accounted for its new status as battleground by pointing to voter registration among African-Americans, layoffs in the Wachovia-led banking industry, Obama's funding advantage and the Democrat's "massive" field operation.
CONFUSED PRIORITIES Both CBS and NBC are running Where They Stand features contrasting the two candidates' platforms on key issues. Yet when it comes to Medicare, that shared title conceals opposing conclusions. Last week on NBC, Mark Potter decided that Medicare was no big deal this year: "Despite its importance, though, neither candidate has made Medicare a campaign priority." Now on CBS, Nancy Cordes devotes almost six minutes to a detailed examination of a system that will run out of funds in 2019. She outlined the candidates' contrasting proposals on lump sum payments and the role of private insurers and prescription drug co-pays and pharmaceutical discounts--before consulting the experts: "The next President cannot afford to wait until his second term to fix Medicare's finances."
PAY PER PROPOSITION ABC came up with a fun campaign-related human interest feature for its 50 States in 50 Days series. Meet Oregon's Mr Ballot, Bill Sizemore. Over the past 14 years, Dan Harris told us, Sizemore has personally filed more than a hundred separate statewide ballot initiatives. He has yet to meet with success: "Sizemore has never had an initiative that was not overturned by the courts or changed by the legislature." This year Sizemore has five separate propositions before the voters. His favorite hobby horses are "things like property rights, lower taxes" he explained--which is how he makes a living: "He gets paid by wealthy conservative donors."
NBC ABSTAINS IN BULLS-VS-BEARS SHOWDOWN ABC's Betsy Stark and CBS' Anthony Mason were each assigned to the action on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9065, an 889-point jump, the second largest single day rise in its history. Astonishingly, NBC, which normally specializes in cross promotion with its sibling financial news cable channel CNBC, mentioned the day's trading only in passing. Mason called it "surreal" and Stark called it "mind boggling" that such optimistic purchasing should be seen on a day when real estate values and consumer confidence both continued to decline. "It may only be a bear market bounce," warned Mason; "history shows that some of the biggest moves up on the Dow have occurred in a bear market," Stark concurred.
It was an unusual day for CBS' Mason. He got to open his network's newscast and close it too. Mason's parting feature was also from Wall Street, a personal profile of 94-year-old money manager Seth Glickenhaus, who founded his first brokerage firm during the depths of the Great Depression in 1938. Glickenhaus' current stock tip: "Being bullish is very called for at this time."
WHO IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK? Non-financial economic news concerned the housing market and the small business sector. NBC's Tom Costello filed from Capitol Hill where hearings on a $150bn federal stimulus package considered aid for small business. Technically such enterprises include any with fewer than 500 employees--but do the arithmetic from Costello's numbers and it is clear that for most, "small business" amounts to "self-employed." A nationwide total of 27m small enterprises has a combined workforce of just 59m. ABC's A Closer Look had Brian Rooney (embargoed link) inquire whether housing prices have bottomed. He found an example in Atlanta where a $279K property sold for $137K and another in California where a $550K asking price turned into $250K at auction. Yet he warned that the glut might yet get worse: "Thousands of foreclosure and bank owned properties are still being dumped on the retail market, continuing to drive down prices."
As the index of consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since it was devised 41 years ago, NBC sent Mike Taibbi out on the thankless task of profiling members of the 12% of Americans in his network's poll who believe the nation is "on the right track." Taibbi found a New York City graphic designer cum commercial landlord and a New Jersey sales manager for a home toolkit importer. The designer will stay optimistic until his real estate goes south; the handyman believes "in a recession people tend to fix things instead of replacing them" so his job is secure.
TALKING TO TALIBAN; RAPED BY GI JOE From the Pentagon, ABC's Jonathan Karl covered the latest reversal of policy. Central Command, soon to come under the leadership of Gen David Petraeus, is suggesting to the government of Afghanistan that it initiate peace talks with "supporters of the Taliban and possibly even elements of the Taliban itself." NBC had Richard Engel cover the same proposal from Baghdad. He quoted Petraeus' military prognosis: "The United States cannot fight its way--kill or capture its way--out of the war in Afghanistan."
CBS' Pentagon coverage concerned veterans of combat. David Martin told us that as many as 15% of women checking into VA hospitals after returning from war reported "sexual trauma" as a result of harassment or rape by their male comrades in arms. "Women serving in the US military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," was how Martin quoted Democrat Jane Harman, a California Congresswoman. "Really disturbing," was the reaction of CBS anchor Katie Couric.
LIMEY AMATEUR SMOKES JERSEY HOOPSTER For ABC's closer, the newscast went to London where Miguel Marquez introduced us to the faces behind the latest viral hit on YouTube. When Stuart Tanner went to bed one night there were 80,000 views of his two-minute video of pick-up playground basketball. "We woke up in the morning and rechecked and it was 2.5m." The game was a one-on-one between Tanner, a 28-year-old Englishman, and Devin Harris, professional point guard for the NBA's New Jersey Nets. "Smokes him," Marquez declared.
HERE’S GAFFNEY Adrienne Gaffney has joined our happy band of news junkies who "watched last night night's newscasts...so you do not have to." Here are her observations on the same content Tyndall Report just monitored at Vanity Fair magazine's Culture & Celebrity blog.
