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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM AUGUST 6, 2008
The posthumous prosecution case against Bruce Ivins was Story of the Day, leading both ABC's and NBC's newscast. Ivins was a civilian microbiologist at the Pentagon's germ warfare base at Fort Detrick. He was an expert in the anthrax vaccine and had become the FBI's chief suspect in the five anthrax murders committed in the fall of 2001 by sending spores anonymously through the mails. Ivins killed himself last week, so the coverage largely consisted of the best case the feds could make against him--with the defendant unable to speak for himself. Only ABC balanced coverage of the prosecution press conference with an outline of its hypothetical rebuttal. NBC anchor Brian Williams was en route to Beijing for the Olympic Games so its newscast had Amy Robach as his substitute. CBS chose to lead with its in-house Campaign '08 coverage: the network's poll, conducted with The New York Times, measured Barack Obama with a 45%-39% lead over John McCain.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR AUGUST 6, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
ANTHRAX PROSECUTION CASE AGAINST DEAD SCIENTIST The posthumous prosecution case against Bruce Ivins was Story of the Day, leading both ABC's and NBC's newscast. Ivins was a civilian microbiologist at the Pentagon's germ warfare base at Fort Detrick. He was an expert in the anthrax vaccine and had become the FBI's chief suspect in the five anthrax murders committed in the fall of 2001 by sending spores anonymously through the mails. Ivins killed himself last week, so the coverage largely consisted of the best case the feds could make against him--with the defendant unable to speak for himself. Only ABC balanced coverage of the prosecution press conference with an outline of its hypothetical rebuttal. NBC anchor Brian Williams was en route to Beijing for the Olympic Games so its newscast had Amy Robach as his substitute. CBS chose to lead with its in-house Campaign '08 coverage: the network's poll, conducted with The New York Times, measured Barack Obama with a 45%-39% lead over John McCain.
Ivins' former lawyers, according to ABC anchor Charles Gibson, characterized the FBI's case against the suicidal scientist as "heaps of innuendo" with evidence "contorted to create the illusion of guilt." So how did the networks' three justice correspondents--ABC's Pierre Thomas (no link), CBS' Bob Orr, NBC's Pete Williams--treat the FBI's case? All three zeroed in on two pieces of evidence: Ivins was in control of a flask of anthrax spores whose DNA was genetically identical to the spores in the mail; and he logged unusual extra hours in his laboratory in the days before the letters were mailed. Orr and Williams both pointed out that the FBI case was only circumstantial--although Orr called it a "strong circumstantial case." Orr, who spoke ill of the dead Ivins on Monday, appears to harbor an especial animus. He saw Ivins being portrayed as a "delusional sociopath" yet left that insult hanging without elaboration.
There certainly was innuendo in the feds' case, too. All three reporters recounted an e-mail Ivins sent to a friend in the days after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, characterizing Osama bin Laden as an anti-Semitic mass murderer. Please! If such sentiments qualified as evidence in a murder case, Ivins would have plenty of company on the FBI's list of suspects.
Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC's legal correspondent, was the reporter who ventured what Ivins might have said in his own defense had this evidence come to trial. She pointed out that the admissibility of the FBI's vaunted genetic test of the anthrax DNA--her colleague Thomas called that the "lynchpin" of the feds' case--had never before been accepted in a court of law. The defense could "just poke holes all through this case."
THE CHAUFFEUR IS NO CONSPIRATOR NBC had a reporter cover the war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay while CBS filed on the Government Accountability Office report on funding for reconstruction in Iraq. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski was at the Pentagon, not in Cuba, to tell us about the conviction of Salim Hamdan for using his car to transport anti-aircraft missiles in Afghanistan, where he worked as Osama bin Laden's chauffeur. A military tribunal cleared him of charges of al-Qaeda conspiracy. "Judicial overkill," was the verdict on the tribunal from human rights activists that Miklaszewski quoted. The White House called it "fair and appropriate." CBS' Chip Reid filed from Capitol Hill on Iraq's unspent budget surplus. The soaring price of crude oil will have put $79bn in Baghdad's coffers by the end of the year. Reid contrasted funding for infrastructure since the United States invaded in 2003: the US has spent $48bn; Iraq spent less than $7bn in two years.
GETTING ENGAGED AND ARGUING WITH PARIS Both CBS and ABC chose to adopt a lighthearted tone for their campaign coverage. ABC surveyed the shortlists for running mates for each party: Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, Tim Kaine, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden; Republicans Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Ridge. Then John Berman (embargoed link) wondered what politicians should do if they happened actually to want the job. He called it "a campaign no one admits to waging." Still, Romney has made himself ubiquitous on the cable news channels; Pawlenty got a haircut; and Florida's Charlie Crist got engaged.
CBS' Dean Reynolds used a clip offered by Paris Hilton on funnyordie.com in response to John McCain's negative ad against Barack Obama that used Hilton to illustrate the charge that the Democrat is a vacuous celebrity. The bikiniclad socialite responded to "that wrinkly white haired guy" teasing him as "the oldest celebrity in the world," even older than The Golden Girls. Meanwhile Jeff Greenfield isolated a demographic tidbit in CBS News' poll. Is Obama having trouble attracting white working class support? No, if the class is defined by its lower income. Yes, if the class is defined by its lack of education.
EYES TURN TO CHINA The mounting excitement about the Olympic Games made this a very light day for domestic news. A Sikorsky S-61N firefighting helicopter crashed in California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest, killing nine of those on board. ABC's Lisa Stark (embargoed link) covered the accident from Washington while George Lewis filed a brief stand-up from Los Angeles. Both ABC and CBS used the high price of food as a hook for feature coverage: CBS' Seth Doane took us to a food pantry in Endicott NY for his The Other America series; ABC's Erin Hayes showed us St Louis residents growing their own veggies in inner city community gardens.
As for those Olympics: NBC's Richard Engel looked at Beijing's airtight security to clamp down on political protests and civil unrest. CBS' Barry Petersen showed us the drills in polite manners and English phrases to make the populace hospitable to foreign sports fans. On ABC's A Closer Look, Stephanie Sy stated that the Games' sponsors, such as McDonald's, have exerted zero pressure on China's Communist rulers to moderate their abuses of human rights. In fact, "there is evidence that the Olympics have actually deprived people of rights. Ahead of the Games, dozens of prominent dissidents were jailed or placed under house arrest." ABC also had Lisa Fletcher (no link) profile Lopez Lomong, the track and field athlete who will carry the Stars and Stripes for the USOC in the opening ceremonies. Lomong was born in Sudan, where he was one of the lost boy refugees in the civil war. As is often the case with packages involving sports footage, ABC decided not to invoke copyright fair use and did not make the videostream available online.
Also in Beijing, NBC offered a preview of Phil LeBeau's CNBC documentary Saving GM on General Motors' prospects for financial survival. In China, things are on the bright side for the Detroit giant. It is the nation's leading seller of automobiles, with Cadillac and Chevrolet popular brands and "Buick is actually hip."
CHECK OUT HIS TOES Videotape from China's extreme southwest border with Pakistan was narrated by Richard Roth from CBS' London bureau. It showed the aftermath of the mountaineering calamity on K2, the Himalayas' second tallest peak. An ice ledge broke off as exhausted climbers began their descent, cutting guide ropes. In all, eleven members of the expedition were killed. "Climbers call it the world's deadliest mountain. For every three who make it to the top, one dies trying," Roth recounted. The video showed nauseating images of the black toes of the last survivor--black with frostbite.
Ivins' former lawyers, according to ABC anchor Charles Gibson, characterized the FBI's case against the suicidal scientist as "heaps of innuendo" with evidence "contorted to create the illusion of guilt." So how did the networks' three justice correspondents--ABC's Pierre Thomas (no link), CBS' Bob Orr, NBC's Pete Williams--treat the FBI's case? All three zeroed in on two pieces of evidence: Ivins was in control of a flask of anthrax spores whose DNA was genetically identical to the spores in the mail; and he logged unusual extra hours in his laboratory in the days before the letters were mailed. Orr and Williams both pointed out that the FBI case was only circumstantial--although Orr called it a "strong circumstantial case." Orr, who spoke ill of the dead Ivins on Monday, appears to harbor an especial animus. He saw Ivins being portrayed as a "delusional sociopath" yet left that insult hanging without elaboration.
There certainly was innuendo in the feds' case, too. All three reporters recounted an e-mail Ivins sent to a friend in the days after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, characterizing Osama bin Laden as an anti-Semitic mass murderer. Please! If such sentiments qualified as evidence in a murder case, Ivins would have plenty of company on the FBI's list of suspects.
Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC's legal correspondent, was the reporter who ventured what Ivins might have said in his own defense had this evidence come to trial. She pointed out that the admissibility of the FBI's vaunted genetic test of the anthrax DNA--her colleague Thomas called that the "lynchpin" of the feds' case--had never before been accepted in a court of law. The defense could "just poke holes all through this case."
THE CHAUFFEUR IS NO CONSPIRATOR NBC had a reporter cover the war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay while CBS filed on the Government Accountability Office report on funding for reconstruction in Iraq. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski was at the Pentagon, not in Cuba, to tell us about the conviction of Salim Hamdan for using his car to transport anti-aircraft missiles in Afghanistan, where he worked as Osama bin Laden's chauffeur. A military tribunal cleared him of charges of al-Qaeda conspiracy. "Judicial overkill," was the verdict on the tribunal from human rights activists that Miklaszewski quoted. The White House called it "fair and appropriate." CBS' Chip Reid filed from Capitol Hill on Iraq's unspent budget surplus. The soaring price of crude oil will have put $79bn in Baghdad's coffers by the end of the year. Reid contrasted funding for infrastructure since the United States invaded in 2003: the US has spent $48bn; Iraq spent less than $7bn in two years.
GETTING ENGAGED AND ARGUING WITH PARIS Both CBS and ABC chose to adopt a lighthearted tone for their campaign coverage. ABC surveyed the shortlists for running mates for each party: Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, Tim Kaine, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden; Republicans Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Ridge. Then John Berman (embargoed link) wondered what politicians should do if they happened actually to want the job. He called it "a campaign no one admits to waging." Still, Romney has made himself ubiquitous on the cable news channels; Pawlenty got a haircut; and Florida's Charlie Crist got engaged.
CBS' Dean Reynolds used a clip offered by Paris Hilton on funnyordie.com in response to John McCain's negative ad against Barack Obama that used Hilton to illustrate the charge that the Democrat is a vacuous celebrity. The bikiniclad socialite responded to "that wrinkly white haired guy" teasing him as "the oldest celebrity in the world," even older than The Golden Girls. Meanwhile Jeff Greenfield isolated a demographic tidbit in CBS News' poll. Is Obama having trouble attracting white working class support? No, if the class is defined by its lower income. Yes, if the class is defined by its lack of education.
EYES TURN TO CHINA The mounting excitement about the Olympic Games made this a very light day for domestic news. A Sikorsky S-61N firefighting helicopter crashed in California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest, killing nine of those on board. ABC's Lisa Stark (embargoed link) covered the accident from Washington while George Lewis filed a brief stand-up from Los Angeles. Both ABC and CBS used the high price of food as a hook for feature coverage: CBS' Seth Doane took us to a food pantry in Endicott NY for his The Other America series; ABC's Erin Hayes showed us St Louis residents growing their own veggies in inner city community gardens.
As for those Olympics: NBC's Richard Engel looked at Beijing's airtight security to clamp down on political protests and civil unrest. CBS' Barry Petersen showed us the drills in polite manners and English phrases to make the populace hospitable to foreign sports fans. On ABC's A Closer Look, Stephanie Sy stated that the Games' sponsors, such as McDonald's, have exerted zero pressure on China's Communist rulers to moderate their abuses of human rights. In fact, "there is evidence that the Olympics have actually deprived people of rights. Ahead of the Games, dozens of prominent dissidents were jailed or placed under house arrest." ABC also had Lisa Fletcher (no link) profile Lopez Lomong, the track and field athlete who will carry the Stars and Stripes for the USOC in the opening ceremonies. Lomong was born in Sudan, where he was one of the lost boy refugees in the civil war. As is often the case with packages involving sports footage, ABC decided not to invoke copyright fair use and did not make the videostream available online.
Also in Beijing, NBC offered a preview of Phil LeBeau's CNBC documentary Saving GM on General Motors' prospects for financial survival. In China, things are on the bright side for the Detroit giant. It is the nation's leading seller of automobiles, with Cadillac and Chevrolet popular brands and "Buick is actually hip."
CHECK OUT HIS TOES Videotape from China's extreme southwest border with Pakistan was narrated by Richard Roth from CBS' London bureau. It showed the aftermath of the mountaineering calamity on K2, the Himalayas' second tallest peak. An ice ledge broke off as exhausted climbers began their descent, cutting guide ropes. In all, eleven members of the expedition were killed. "Climbers call it the world's deadliest mountain. For every three who make it to the top, one dies trying," Roth recounted. The video showed nauseating images of the black toes of the last survivor--black with frostbite.
