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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 17, 2008
When the decisions of a network news division are Topic A on the campaign trail, drawing the fire not only of leading candidate Barack Obama but of more than 15,000 critical messages online, they should qualify as the major focus of the networks' nightly newscasts next night. Obama dubbed the questioning strategy selected by moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos the Gotcha Debate. Yet all three networks buried the lead, choosing not to make ABC News' strategy at its Philadelphia debate the Story of the Day. Instead, for a third straight day, Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the nation's capital qualified as top story, chosen as the lead by both CBS and ABC. NBC downplayed the Pope, as it did on Wednesday, this time leading with the mass custody case in Texas, where the state may take 416 children away from their polygamous parents.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR APRIL 17, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT ABC'S GOTCHA DEBATE When the decisions of a network news division are Topic A on the campaign trail, drawing the fire not only of leading candidate Barack Obama but of more than 15,000 critical messages online, they should qualify as the major focus of the networks' nightly newscasts next night. Obama dubbed the questioning strategy selected by moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos the Gotcha Debate. Yet all three networks buried the lead, choosing not to make ABC News' strategy at its Philadelphia debate the Story of the Day. Instead, for a third straight day, Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the nation's capital qualified as top story, chosen as the lead by both CBS and ABC. NBC downplayed the Pope, as it did on Wednesday, this time leading with the mass custody case in Texas, where the state may take 416 children away from their polygamous parents.
So the aftermath of ABC's Philadelphia debate was undercovered on the network newscasts. They punted when it came to assessing the validity of Obama's complaints. Sure, he went on his "45-minute" rant about ABC's lack of substance during the first battery of questions: "45 minutes before we heard about healthcare; 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq; 45 minutes before we heard about jobs…" but that soundbite carries little weight. It amounts to nothing more than special pleading since those 45 minutes made him look so bad.
"The consensus is that Barack Obama had a rough night," summarized ABC's David Wright. CBS' Dean Reynolds saw him on the "defensive…a series of questions that aides say left him dispirited." NBC anchor Brian Williams introduced Ron Allen's coverage by calling it "bruising." Allen saw Hillary Rodham Clinton do "everything she could to put Obama on his heels."
The fact is that Obama's description of ABC News' questioning strategy is accurate. It was indeed 45 minutes before public policy issues were raised. CBS' Reynolds summarized the range of non-issue topics from his "controversial preacher" to "the radical urban terrorists who used to be his neighbors" to his "past statements" to his choice to wear a "flag pin or lack thereof." In other words, those initial questions by Gibson and Stephanopoulos focused on guilt by association, loyalty tests and verbal gaffes.
The point is: so what?
Surely the networks should have interrogated Obama's complaints and those of the "thousands of angry viewers," as ABC's Wright called them, e-mailing abcnews.com, to see if this line of questioning was journalistically sound or not. Wright quoted from a couple of e-mails, one denouncing the questions as "shoddy journalism" another asking rhetorically: "Folks. If he cannot deal with the hostile questions from George and Charlie, how do you expect him to deal with McCain & Co in the fall?" On ABC's newscast, anchor Gibson declined to account for himself, merely noting that "the debate over the debate has been heated" as if his role ended as soon as the questions left his mouth.
As McCarthyite as questions concerning the words of one's associates and the absence of ostentatious displays of patriotism might be, there were nevertheless a couple of journalistic justifications for this line of questioning implied, but not explored in the debate coverage.
The first is the substantive argument. That 45 minutes of questioning would have been appropriate if ABC News sincerely believed that the failure to wear a flag in one's lapel can be a legitimate disqualification from office, or attending the Trinity United Church, or serving on a board with a onetime Weatherman, or describing downtrodden small town voters as bitter and clinging.
The second is the vetting argument implied in the "McCain & Co" e-mail ABC's Wright quoted. This justification belongs to the style of campaign reporting that we have dubbed Reality Gameshow Journalism. It sees the political reporter's job as subjecting candidates to a series of ordeals, to test how they react under pressure, as a way to measure their qualifications for the job--just as a winning contestant on Survivor has to weather the conspiracies of all others in order to emerge triumphant.
In this vetting model, it matters not whether Gibson or Stephanopoulos sincerely believe that the questions are appropriate tests of Obama's Presidential mettle; only whether they anticipate that they are going to be asked by someone or other eventually--by Rodham Clinton herself or by McCain or by other journalists or by ideological activists.
My suspicion is that Reality Gameshow Journalism informed ABC's choice of questions, not sincerely held civic beliefs.
The failure in the initial reporting on the debate lies not only in ABC's reluctance--and that of its rivals--to interrogate the underlying political judgment informing those questions. Actually it would have been highly unusual if campaign reporters had been that introspective. A less excusable oversight lies in their failure to get Rodham Clinton on the record on these issues.
We were left with guesswork: CBS' Jeff Greenfield seemed certain that she was in the vetting camp not that of substance: "She used all the critiques of Obama that the moderators used, to say: 'Well, you know, I would not say those things but we know how the Republicans behave so that is why it is relevant." NBC's Allen took a different view: "Clinton said everything was fair game," he reported. And her rival seemed to think so too: "Obama noted how much his opponent seemed to enjoy the evening," CBS' Reynolds observed.
So if reporters choose not to ask Gibson and Stephanopoulos, at least they can ask Rodham Clinton. Is it fair game to use a clumsy extemporaneous locution to criticize a rival or should he be entitled to retract and restate? Is using the words of associates against him fair game? Can the choice of church for worship be a disqualification or is that an unConstitutional religious test for office? Are loyalty tests on the absence or presence of flags fair game?
Were ABC News' questions legitimate? Or were they illegitimate yet inevitable? Her answer would be more interesting than those self-serving soundbites of Obama's "45 minutes" complaints.
HOLY FATHER MEETS FIVE Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an outdoor mass for 46,000 at the baseball stadium of the Washington Nationals and later met in private at the Vatican Embassy with five adults from Boston who were sexually assaulted by priests when they were children. ABC and CBS both led with the papal visit--CBS' Byron Pitts focused on the mass event; ABC's Dan Harris on the pedophile angle, calling the meeting "historic." Some activists countered that it was "insufficient" noting that Cardinal Bernard Law, "who allegedly covered up priest abuse as head of the Boston Archdiocese, now enjoys a prominent perch in Rome." At the meeting, the Pope was presented with a book with the names of 1,000 children who had been sexually abused by priests. The meeting was brokered, NBC's Tom Costello pointed out, by Law's successor in Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
On Tuesday, CBS displayed a glaring conflict of interest by hiring Thomas Williams, a Roman Catholic priest, as its in-house Vatican analyst. Now ABC shares the error. Its expert is Professor Keith Pecklers (no link), a priest and theologian, from Gregorian University in Rome. So how are we to interpret Pecklers' analysis of his leader's outreach on the pedophile priests scandal? He heard a Pope who is "speaking out very forthrightly, very prophetically, very directly and concretely." That may or may not be true--but Pecklers would say that, wouldn't he?
As for Pitts on CBS, he too mentioned the private meeting, but he concentrated on the Holy Father's scheduled events instead: the baseball stadium mass and interfaith outreach with Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems. Pitts also noted that His Holiness had "thrilled a whole new generation of young followers"--the keys were his "red shoes" and his "iPod."
It was a heavy day for religion coverage. CBS' John Blackstone offered a sidebar on the papal trip, profiling the Catholic Church's efforts to recruit priests. Nationwide, the clergy numbers just 41,000, down from 58,000 some 40 years ago. To make up the shortfall, Blackstone looked at the efforts at vocationmatch.com to attract mid-career seminarians such as former schoolteachers and pharmaceuticals workers. The average age of a newly ordained priest is now 37, up from 28 half a century ago.
ABC's religion closer turned to the Protestants of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City. The ministry of its pastor Will Bowen is to try to persuade 60m people worldwide to stop complaining. He runs complaintfreeworld.org complete with no-whining books, no-whining T-shirts and no-whining ocean cruises. Barbara Pinto (embargoed link) explained Bowen's behaviorist technique: wear a purple bracelet on one wrist; every time you complain switch it to the other wrist; count the days between switches; when you reach 21 you are living complaint free. Bowen has shipped 5.3m bracelets on track to his 60m target.
GETTING THE BISHOP’S RECORD STRAIGHT NBC chose to lead with the day's other big religion story--the start of the child custody hearings in San Angelo Texas over the 416 children and teenagers of the Yearning for Zion ranch, run by the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. The courthouse "looked like an emergency meeting of the Texas State Bar Association," joked NBC's Pete Williams. ABC's Neal Karlinsky (embargoed link) saw "a sea of lawyers" in the overflow courthouse. The news media were there in force too, and "even fathers, who have been camera-shy so far" joined the throng, observed CBS' Hari Sreenivasan.
A key new piece of evidence was introduced by child welfare investigators, a document called the Bishop's Record. It documented the 38 family units living at Yearning for Zion, naming the husbands and the women to whom they were "spiritually united" which, NBC's Williams explained, is the sect's term for marriage. The state of Texas argues that these 38 families form one household and that the presence of even a single child bride in the community constitutes evidence that every child and teenager is at risk of abuse, depriving all parents of custody. The network reporters disagreed about what to make of this Bishop's Record: of those 38 husbands, ABC's Karlinsky reported that it showed that a wife's age was "often" 16; CBS' Sreenivasan reported that "at least ten" wives were married by age 16; NBC's Williams found merely "several" under age.
Even more surprising, NBC's Williams reported that of the 38 families on the ranch, only "some" were polygamous.
FACTOR OF TEN Pentagon statistics measure about 32,000 members of the military as having suffered brain damage in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, stated ABC's Bob Woodruff (no link), as he covered a report from the RAND Corporation that finds that number to be wrong by a factor of ten. RAND counts 320,000 with brain injury and 300,000 with mental illness, mostly psychological depression or shell shock, known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Woodruff stated that number as a proportion: nearly one of five of those who went to war returned with PTSD. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski cited the RAND estimate that "only half" of those who need psychiatric treatment "actually seek it."
On CBS, Kimberly Dozier brought us the personal profile of Jonathan Norrell, a 22-year-old combat medic, to illustrate the statistics, After a year's duty in Iraq his PTSD symptoms included "anxiety, sleeplessness and flashbacks." His doctors recommended discharge. His army commanders refused. Norrell "turned to drugs and alcohol." The army, in response, "threatened to expel him without medical benefits." After months, Norrell's case was resolved and he is now under psychiatric care at Fort Hood. His story, Dozier reflected, "reveals the showdown between the new school and the old school view on how to handle PTSD."
EMERALD CITY For NBC's in Depth Andrea Mitchell claimed Exclusive access to still photographs of the just-completed "largest embassy in the world." The United States' diplomatic mission in the Green Zone of Baghdad covers 104 acres, with 27 separate buildings. Contractor First Kuwaiti claims to have finished the $700m project and has turned it over for occupancy. Not so fast, Mitchell warned. Now the State Department also wants the diplomatic complex to house some military as well--Gen David Petraeus and 200 other soldiers. That will "delay opening the embassy's two main office buildings for as long as a year" and add $35m to its cost.
WRONG TYPE This year's influenza season is over, the worst in four years, NBC's Robert Bazell reported. The problem was that this year's vaccine offered protection against Type A 'flu but the virus turned out to be Type B. Bazell traced the spread of each year's strain from southeast Asia westwards, infecting the rest of Asia and Europe first, before arriving in the western hemisphere, where it typically spreads north to south. The Centers for Disease Control announced that increased surveillance efforts in southeast Asia would "maybe identify the critical strains sooner."
MARIMBA EMERGENCY CBS closed with a cute musical feature from Kelly Wallace. She followed the fate of a teenage African marimba band on an American concert tour to raise funds for orphanages back home in Botswana. The tour was sabotaged when customs officials refused to allow them to check their instruments as airline luggage so the band arrived in New York City sans marimbas. "African marimbas are virtually nonexistent on the east coast," Wallace warned. Virtually but not quite. In Syracuse NY schoolteacher Martha Jenks leads a homemade marimba band. She woke at the crack of dawn to deliver her substitutes and to stay for a beer and a listen.
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: a series of terrorist bombings in Iraq have killed 110 civilians in Sunni provinces in the past three days…a domestic Japanese jetliner flying for ANA made a safe emergency landing in Fukuoka that was caught on videotape…the college student loan program needs federal guarantees because of the credit crunch…Harley-Davidson's motorcycle sales are slumping; production must be scaled back…Google, the Internet search engine, made record profits in the first quarter of 2008.
So the aftermath of ABC's Philadelphia debate was undercovered on the network newscasts. They punted when it came to assessing the validity of Obama's complaints. Sure, he went on his "45-minute" rant about ABC's lack of substance during the first battery of questions: "45 minutes before we heard about healthcare; 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq; 45 minutes before we heard about jobs…" but that soundbite carries little weight. It amounts to nothing more than special pleading since those 45 minutes made him look so bad.
"The consensus is that Barack Obama had a rough night," summarized ABC's David Wright. CBS' Dean Reynolds saw him on the "defensive…a series of questions that aides say left him dispirited." NBC anchor Brian Williams introduced Ron Allen's coverage by calling it "bruising." Allen saw Hillary Rodham Clinton do "everything she could to put Obama on his heels."
The fact is that Obama's description of ABC News' questioning strategy is accurate. It was indeed 45 minutes before public policy issues were raised. CBS' Reynolds summarized the range of non-issue topics from his "controversial preacher" to "the radical urban terrorists who used to be his neighbors" to his "past statements" to his choice to wear a "flag pin or lack thereof." In other words, those initial questions by Gibson and Stephanopoulos focused on guilt by association, loyalty tests and verbal gaffes.
The point is: so what?
Surely the networks should have interrogated Obama's complaints and those of the "thousands of angry viewers," as ABC's Wright called them, e-mailing abcnews.com, to see if this line of questioning was journalistically sound or not. Wright quoted from a couple of e-mails, one denouncing the questions as "shoddy journalism" another asking rhetorically: "Folks. If he cannot deal with the hostile questions from George and Charlie, how do you expect him to deal with McCain & Co in the fall?" On ABC's newscast, anchor Gibson declined to account for himself, merely noting that "the debate over the debate has been heated" as if his role ended as soon as the questions left his mouth.
As McCarthyite as questions concerning the words of one's associates and the absence of ostentatious displays of patriotism might be, there were nevertheless a couple of journalistic justifications for this line of questioning implied, but not explored in the debate coverage.
The first is the substantive argument. That 45 minutes of questioning would have been appropriate if ABC News sincerely believed that the failure to wear a flag in one's lapel can be a legitimate disqualification from office, or attending the Trinity United Church, or serving on a board with a onetime Weatherman, or describing downtrodden small town voters as bitter and clinging.
The second is the vetting argument implied in the "McCain & Co" e-mail ABC's Wright quoted. This justification belongs to the style of campaign reporting that we have dubbed Reality Gameshow Journalism. It sees the political reporter's job as subjecting candidates to a series of ordeals, to test how they react under pressure, as a way to measure their qualifications for the job--just as a winning contestant on Survivor has to weather the conspiracies of all others in order to emerge triumphant.
In this vetting model, it matters not whether Gibson or Stephanopoulos sincerely believe that the questions are appropriate tests of Obama's Presidential mettle; only whether they anticipate that they are going to be asked by someone or other eventually--by Rodham Clinton herself or by McCain or by other journalists or by ideological activists.
My suspicion is that Reality Gameshow Journalism informed ABC's choice of questions, not sincerely held civic beliefs.
The failure in the initial reporting on the debate lies not only in ABC's reluctance--and that of its rivals--to interrogate the underlying political judgment informing those questions. Actually it would have been highly unusual if campaign reporters had been that introspective. A less excusable oversight lies in their failure to get Rodham Clinton on the record on these issues.
We were left with guesswork: CBS' Jeff Greenfield seemed certain that she was in the vetting camp not that of substance: "She used all the critiques of Obama that the moderators used, to say: 'Well, you know, I would not say those things but we know how the Republicans behave so that is why it is relevant." NBC's Allen took a different view: "Clinton said everything was fair game," he reported. And her rival seemed to think so too: "Obama noted how much his opponent seemed to enjoy the evening," CBS' Reynolds observed.
So if reporters choose not to ask Gibson and Stephanopoulos, at least they can ask Rodham Clinton. Is it fair game to use a clumsy extemporaneous locution to criticize a rival or should he be entitled to retract and restate? Is using the words of associates against him fair game? Can the choice of church for worship be a disqualification or is that an unConstitutional religious test for office? Are loyalty tests on the absence or presence of flags fair game?
Were ABC News' questions legitimate? Or were they illegitimate yet inevitable? Her answer would be more interesting than those self-serving soundbites of Obama's "45 minutes" complaints.
HOLY FATHER MEETS FIVE Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an outdoor mass for 46,000 at the baseball stadium of the Washington Nationals and later met in private at the Vatican Embassy with five adults from Boston who were sexually assaulted by priests when they were children. ABC and CBS both led with the papal visit--CBS' Byron Pitts focused on the mass event; ABC's Dan Harris on the pedophile angle, calling the meeting "historic." Some activists countered that it was "insufficient" noting that Cardinal Bernard Law, "who allegedly covered up priest abuse as head of the Boston Archdiocese, now enjoys a prominent perch in Rome." At the meeting, the Pope was presented with a book with the names of 1,000 children who had been sexually abused by priests. The meeting was brokered, NBC's Tom Costello pointed out, by Law's successor in Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
On Tuesday, CBS displayed a glaring conflict of interest by hiring Thomas Williams, a Roman Catholic priest, as its in-house Vatican analyst. Now ABC shares the error. Its expert is Professor Keith Pecklers (no link), a priest and theologian, from Gregorian University in Rome. So how are we to interpret Pecklers' analysis of his leader's outreach on the pedophile priests scandal? He heard a Pope who is "speaking out very forthrightly, very prophetically, very directly and concretely." That may or may not be true--but Pecklers would say that, wouldn't he?
As for Pitts on CBS, he too mentioned the private meeting, but he concentrated on the Holy Father's scheduled events instead: the baseball stadium mass and interfaith outreach with Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems. Pitts also noted that His Holiness had "thrilled a whole new generation of young followers"--the keys were his "red shoes" and his "iPod."
It was a heavy day for religion coverage. CBS' John Blackstone offered a sidebar on the papal trip, profiling the Catholic Church's efforts to recruit priests. Nationwide, the clergy numbers just 41,000, down from 58,000 some 40 years ago. To make up the shortfall, Blackstone looked at the efforts at vocationmatch.com to attract mid-career seminarians such as former schoolteachers and pharmaceuticals workers. The average age of a newly ordained priest is now 37, up from 28 half a century ago.
ABC's religion closer turned to the Protestants of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City. The ministry of its pastor Will Bowen is to try to persuade 60m people worldwide to stop complaining. He runs complaintfreeworld.org complete with no-whining books, no-whining T-shirts and no-whining ocean cruises. Barbara Pinto (embargoed link) explained Bowen's behaviorist technique: wear a purple bracelet on one wrist; every time you complain switch it to the other wrist; count the days between switches; when you reach 21 you are living complaint free. Bowen has shipped 5.3m bracelets on track to his 60m target.
GETTING THE BISHOP’S RECORD STRAIGHT NBC chose to lead with the day's other big religion story--the start of the child custody hearings in San Angelo Texas over the 416 children and teenagers of the Yearning for Zion ranch, run by the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. The courthouse "looked like an emergency meeting of the Texas State Bar Association," joked NBC's Pete Williams. ABC's Neal Karlinsky (embargoed link) saw "a sea of lawyers" in the overflow courthouse. The news media were there in force too, and "even fathers, who have been camera-shy so far" joined the throng, observed CBS' Hari Sreenivasan.
A key new piece of evidence was introduced by child welfare investigators, a document called the Bishop's Record. It documented the 38 family units living at Yearning for Zion, naming the husbands and the women to whom they were "spiritually united" which, NBC's Williams explained, is the sect's term for marriage. The state of Texas argues that these 38 families form one household and that the presence of even a single child bride in the community constitutes evidence that every child and teenager is at risk of abuse, depriving all parents of custody. The network reporters disagreed about what to make of this Bishop's Record: of those 38 husbands, ABC's Karlinsky reported that it showed that a wife's age was "often" 16; CBS' Sreenivasan reported that "at least ten" wives were married by age 16; NBC's Williams found merely "several" under age.
Even more surprising, NBC's Williams reported that of the 38 families on the ranch, only "some" were polygamous.
FACTOR OF TEN Pentagon statistics measure about 32,000 members of the military as having suffered brain damage in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, stated ABC's Bob Woodruff (no link), as he covered a report from the RAND Corporation that finds that number to be wrong by a factor of ten. RAND counts 320,000 with brain injury and 300,000 with mental illness, mostly psychological depression or shell shock, known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Woodruff stated that number as a proportion: nearly one of five of those who went to war returned with PTSD. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski cited the RAND estimate that "only half" of those who need psychiatric treatment "actually seek it."
On CBS, Kimberly Dozier brought us the personal profile of Jonathan Norrell, a 22-year-old combat medic, to illustrate the statistics, After a year's duty in Iraq his PTSD symptoms included "anxiety, sleeplessness and flashbacks." His doctors recommended discharge. His army commanders refused. Norrell "turned to drugs and alcohol." The army, in response, "threatened to expel him without medical benefits." After months, Norrell's case was resolved and he is now under psychiatric care at Fort Hood. His story, Dozier reflected, "reveals the showdown between the new school and the old school view on how to handle PTSD."
EMERALD CITY For NBC's in Depth Andrea Mitchell claimed Exclusive access to still photographs of the just-completed "largest embassy in the world." The United States' diplomatic mission in the Green Zone of Baghdad covers 104 acres, with 27 separate buildings. Contractor First Kuwaiti claims to have finished the $700m project and has turned it over for occupancy. Not so fast, Mitchell warned. Now the State Department also wants the diplomatic complex to house some military as well--Gen David Petraeus and 200 other soldiers. That will "delay opening the embassy's two main office buildings for as long as a year" and add $35m to its cost.
WRONG TYPE This year's influenza season is over, the worst in four years, NBC's Robert Bazell reported. The problem was that this year's vaccine offered protection against Type A 'flu but the virus turned out to be Type B. Bazell traced the spread of each year's strain from southeast Asia westwards, infecting the rest of Asia and Europe first, before arriving in the western hemisphere, where it typically spreads north to south. The Centers for Disease Control announced that increased surveillance efforts in southeast Asia would "maybe identify the critical strains sooner."
MARIMBA EMERGENCY CBS closed with a cute musical feature from Kelly Wallace. She followed the fate of a teenage African marimba band on an American concert tour to raise funds for orphanages back home in Botswana. The tour was sabotaged when customs officials refused to allow them to check their instruments as airline luggage so the band arrived in New York City sans marimbas. "African marimbas are virtually nonexistent on the east coast," Wallace warned. Virtually but not quite. In Syracuse NY schoolteacher Martha Jenks leads a homemade marimba band. She woke at the crack of dawn to deliver her substitutes and to stay for a beer and a listen.
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: a series of terrorist bombings in Iraq have killed 110 civilians in Sunni provinces in the past three days…a domestic Japanese jetliner flying for ANA made a safe emergency landing in Fukuoka that was caught on videotape…the college student loan program needs federal guarantees because of the credit crunch…Harley-Davidson's motorcycle sales are slumping; production must be scaled back…Google, the Internet search engine, made record profits in the first quarter of 2008.
