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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SEPTEMBER 11, 2008
The Exclusive interview by ABC anchor Charles Gibson with Sarah Palin was the Story of the Day. Gibson anchored from Fairbanks after sitting down with the 44-year-old Governor of Alaska for her first interview since accepting the Republican nomination for Vice President. Gibson's q-&-a on foreign policy issues was edited into two segments that totaled 13 minutes, or 70% of his newscast's entire newshole. This is September 11th, so CBS decided to lead with the seventh anniversary commemoration of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. NBC kicked off with the gathering storm in the Gulf of Mexico, as Hurricane Ike is forecast to make landfall near Houston.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR SEPTEMBER 11, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
PALIN QUESTIONED BY GIBSON The Exclusive interview by ABC anchor Charles Gibson with Sarah Palin was the Story of the Day. Gibson anchored from Fairbanks after sitting down with the 44-year-old Governor of Alaska for her first interview since accepting the Republican nomination for Vice President. Gibson's q-&-a on foreign policy issues was edited into two segments that totaled 13 minutes, or 70% of his newscast's entire newshole. This is September 11th, so CBS decided to lead with the seventh anniversary commemoration of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. NBC kicked off with the gathering storm in the Gulf of Mexico, as Hurricane Ike is forecast to make landfall near Houston.
Part one of Gibson's interview concerned Palin's foreign policy expertise and worldview and her specific positions on NATO and Russia, on Iran and Israel, and on Afghanistan and Pakistan. His most aggressive question concerned Palin's position on the Bush Doctrine. Gibson referred to the doctrine by its date of promulgation, September 2002, but not by its content. Palin was clearly unaware of the doctrine's assertion that wars of pre-emption are legal and legitimate. When Gibson relented and informed her of its details, Palin implicitly rejected the President's prophylactic notions, limiting the right of self-defense to imminent threats.
Gibson used follow-up questions most aggressively with his hypothetical about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran posing a threat to Israel's very existence. Palin was certain that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would never use nuclear weapons--even if he had them--but she was afraid that such an arsenal might be transferred to terrorists. Gibson asked Palin to imagine a scenario under which Israel decided unilaterally to attack Iran because "it felt threatened." Palin at first said: "I do not think we should second guess" Israel. Gibson probed further: "I do not think we can second guess," was her next formulation. A further follow-up brought an even more generous carte blanche: "We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself."
Part two of Gibson's interview concerned Palin's view of the Iraq War. It contained the most glaring error in his day's journalism. In Gibson's defense, part of the problem derived from Palin's rambling rhetorical style, in which the start and finish of a sentence tend to lose their connection. Nevertheless, this was the soundbite from a sermon Palin preached on Iraq that Gibson asked about: "Pray for our military men and women, who are striving to do what is right also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God." Gibson interpreted that as Palin's assertion that the occupation of Iraq is "a task that is from God" and that the United States is therefore fighting a Holy War. In fact, Palin was soliciting prayers to ensure that the war should conform God's will. Palin accurately set Gibson straight, citing Republican Abraham Lincoln: "Let us not pray that God is on our side…but let us pray that we are on God's side."
The other two networks covered ABC's newsmaking. CBS' Nancy Cordes (no link) included a clip from the start of the interview about Palin's experience and ability; NBC's Kelly O'Donnell did not use video, merely recounting Palin's response when asked about an expansion of NATO to include Georgia and the potential for war with Russia as a result. "Perhaps so," Palin conceded.
FIXING A HOLE The two Presidential candidates suspended their campaigns for the day to pay respect to those killed on September 11th seven years ago. "For this one day instead of verbal combat, single long-stemmed roses of remembrance," observed NBC's Andrea Mitchell. She reminded us that Republicans usually use 9/11 "as a wedge issue against Democrats portraying them as weak on national security" yet found hints that this year that would change. CBS' Dean Reynolds called it "something of a ceasefire" even as he noted that John McCain had recently been much more belligerent than his rival. Barack Obama has "struggled to match--or even approach--the Republican's gut-level ferocity."
ABC's Dan Harris covered the commemorations at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon, where President George Bush dedicated a memorial, and in Shanksville Pa, where the fourth hijacked jetliner crashed. Harris noted that there was no memorial built yet at Ground Zero, contentiously quoting The Wall Street Journal's preposterous hyperbole: "Arguably the biggest political and bureaucratic fiasco in the history of the world." NBC's Mike Taibbi offered a corrective from the construction site itself. After years of "evaporating completion dates and flyaway cost projections" he reported that the Freedom Tower was going up, that the mass transit hub is being built, and that the facing of the memorial is taking shape: "The hole is being filled. You can see it."
MISSION CREEPS INTO PAKISTAN Let us recall that the invasion of Afghanistan to oust its Taliban regime was the immediate response to al-Qaeda's 9/11 outrage. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski offered a bleak progress report from the Pentagon, after Chairman Mike Mullen of the Joint Chief of Staff told Congress: "I am not convinced we are winning yet in Afghanistan." Miklaszewski's unnamed sources in uniform told him that the guerrillas are using "more sophisticated and deadly battle tactics" as the result of training by veterans of Chechnya's separatist struggle against Russia.
CBS anchor Katie Couric was debriefed by Lara Logan via satellite phone from Afghanistan. She reported that the United States has widened its regional military involvement and is now involved in the fighting in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan. President George Bush has given the green light for commando forces to fight on the ground in Pakistan "whenever they see fit." Previously commandos had been ordered to obtain permission from Islamabad before crossing the border. Logan paraphrased the new US policy towards Pakistan: "You cannot have so much US aid and support and at the same time not do anything about the fact that your territory is being used by al-Qaeda and other fighters as a safe haven."
CBS GETS SERIOUS WITH STUMP SERIES CBS is stepping up its campaign feature coverage. Last week it unveiled its Reality Check beat: Wyatt Andrews fact-checked Sarah Palin's record on porkbarrel spending; Tuesday Andrews fact-checked her Bridge to Nowhere claims; Wednesday Bill Plante looked at John McCain's negative advertising. Next we have CBS' Where They Stand issues analysis: Tuesday Anthony Mason looked at the candidates' income tax platforms; now Lara Logan examines their troops-out plans for Iraq. "The gap between them has narrowed," she assured us. The third feature series strikes a lighthearted note, pledging a weekly review of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the campaign trail from Jeff Greenfield. This week's ugly was an obscenity laden anti-Democrat online attack ad from the Bruce Lunsford-Mitch McConnell Senate race in Kentucky.
HERE COMES IKE Reporters are starting to line up along the Texas shore in anticipation of Hurricane Ike's landfall and storm surge. Galveston Island has been ordered evacuated. NASA's Johnson Space Center has been closed. Airlines are canceling flights at Houston's airports. "It has already paralyzed oil production," reported NBC's Janet Shamlian, with eleven refineries shut down. Shamlian was in Galveston and ABC's Ryan Owens (embargoed link) was in Houston. For meteorology, NBC used the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore while CBS used Dave Price, weathercaster for its Early Show.
KEVIN TIBBLES’ BOOK CLUB My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor received generous free publicity from NBC's Kevin Tibbles. Tibbles was clearly taken with the memoir by a brain researcher who happened to suffer a stroke herself twelve years ago: "My first thought was Oh my gosh! I am having a stroke and then the next thought was Wow! This is so cool." The stroke damaged the analytic functions of her left brain, wiping out her ability to speak, to read, to write, to walk, to recognize faces. What remained was the consciousness afforded by the right brain: "I was in absolute tranquility. It was so peaceful."
BACK TO SCHOOL NBC filed part four of its Educating America series. George Lewis kicked off Monday on college campus, where the high tuition costs and a weak economy have combined to drive students into debt and increase their dependence on financial aid. The next three entries saw Rehema Ellis turn to the public schools: Tuesday she offered a primer on No Child Left Behind; Wednesday she surveyed budget cuts forced by the high price of school bus diesel and heating fuel; now Ellis praises the contribution of Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad. Broad believes that urban school districts need better managers so he founded a Superintendents Academy that trains second-career non-educators. So far Broad's $14m investment has produced 38 superintendents working in 30 cities in charge of the education of 2m schoolchildren. Ellis gave the academy's graduates high marks: "90% have spearheaded improvements in reading and math."
Part one of Gibson's interview concerned Palin's foreign policy expertise and worldview and her specific positions on NATO and Russia, on Iran and Israel, and on Afghanistan and Pakistan. His most aggressive question concerned Palin's position on the Bush Doctrine. Gibson referred to the doctrine by its date of promulgation, September 2002, but not by its content. Palin was clearly unaware of the doctrine's assertion that wars of pre-emption are legal and legitimate. When Gibson relented and informed her of its details, Palin implicitly rejected the President's prophylactic notions, limiting the right of self-defense to imminent threats.
Gibson used follow-up questions most aggressively with his hypothetical about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran posing a threat to Israel's very existence. Palin was certain that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would never use nuclear weapons--even if he had them--but she was afraid that such an arsenal might be transferred to terrorists. Gibson asked Palin to imagine a scenario under which Israel decided unilaterally to attack Iran because "it felt threatened." Palin at first said: "I do not think we should second guess" Israel. Gibson probed further: "I do not think we can second guess," was her next formulation. A further follow-up brought an even more generous carte blanche: "We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself."
Part two of Gibson's interview concerned Palin's view of the Iraq War. It contained the most glaring error in his day's journalism. In Gibson's defense, part of the problem derived from Palin's rambling rhetorical style, in which the start and finish of a sentence tend to lose their connection. Nevertheless, this was the soundbite from a sermon Palin preached on Iraq that Gibson asked about: "Pray for our military men and women, who are striving to do what is right also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God." Gibson interpreted that as Palin's assertion that the occupation of Iraq is "a task that is from God" and that the United States is therefore fighting a Holy War. In fact, Palin was soliciting prayers to ensure that the war should conform God's will. Palin accurately set Gibson straight, citing Republican Abraham Lincoln: "Let us not pray that God is on our side…but let us pray that we are on God's side."
The other two networks covered ABC's newsmaking. CBS' Nancy Cordes (no link) included a clip from the start of the interview about Palin's experience and ability; NBC's Kelly O'Donnell did not use video, merely recounting Palin's response when asked about an expansion of NATO to include Georgia and the potential for war with Russia as a result. "Perhaps so," Palin conceded.
FIXING A HOLE The two Presidential candidates suspended their campaigns for the day to pay respect to those killed on September 11th seven years ago. "For this one day instead of verbal combat, single long-stemmed roses of remembrance," observed NBC's Andrea Mitchell. She reminded us that Republicans usually use 9/11 "as a wedge issue against Democrats portraying them as weak on national security" yet found hints that this year that would change. CBS' Dean Reynolds called it "something of a ceasefire" even as he noted that John McCain had recently been much more belligerent than his rival. Barack Obama has "struggled to match--or even approach--the Republican's gut-level ferocity."
ABC's Dan Harris covered the commemorations at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon, where President George Bush dedicated a memorial, and in Shanksville Pa, where the fourth hijacked jetliner crashed. Harris noted that there was no memorial built yet at Ground Zero, contentiously quoting The Wall Street Journal's preposterous hyperbole: "Arguably the biggest political and bureaucratic fiasco in the history of the world." NBC's Mike Taibbi offered a corrective from the construction site itself. After years of "evaporating completion dates and flyaway cost projections" he reported that the Freedom Tower was going up, that the mass transit hub is being built, and that the facing of the memorial is taking shape: "The hole is being filled. You can see it."
MISSION CREEPS INTO PAKISTAN Let us recall that the invasion of Afghanistan to oust its Taliban regime was the immediate response to al-Qaeda's 9/11 outrage. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski offered a bleak progress report from the Pentagon, after Chairman Mike Mullen of the Joint Chief of Staff told Congress: "I am not convinced we are winning yet in Afghanistan." Miklaszewski's unnamed sources in uniform told him that the guerrillas are using "more sophisticated and deadly battle tactics" as the result of training by veterans of Chechnya's separatist struggle against Russia.
CBS anchor Katie Couric was debriefed by Lara Logan via satellite phone from Afghanistan. She reported that the United States has widened its regional military involvement and is now involved in the fighting in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan. President George Bush has given the green light for commando forces to fight on the ground in Pakistan "whenever they see fit." Previously commandos had been ordered to obtain permission from Islamabad before crossing the border. Logan paraphrased the new US policy towards Pakistan: "You cannot have so much US aid and support and at the same time not do anything about the fact that your territory is being used by al-Qaeda and other fighters as a safe haven."
CBS GETS SERIOUS WITH STUMP SERIES CBS is stepping up its campaign feature coverage. Last week it unveiled its Reality Check beat: Wyatt Andrews fact-checked Sarah Palin's record on porkbarrel spending; Tuesday Andrews fact-checked her Bridge to Nowhere claims; Wednesday Bill Plante looked at John McCain's negative advertising. Next we have CBS' Where They Stand issues analysis: Tuesday Anthony Mason looked at the candidates' income tax platforms; now Lara Logan examines their troops-out plans for Iraq. "The gap between them has narrowed," she assured us. The third feature series strikes a lighthearted note, pledging a weekly review of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the campaign trail from Jeff Greenfield. This week's ugly was an obscenity laden anti-Democrat online attack ad from the Bruce Lunsford-Mitch McConnell Senate race in Kentucky.
HERE COMES IKE Reporters are starting to line up along the Texas shore in anticipation of Hurricane Ike's landfall and storm surge. Galveston Island has been ordered evacuated. NASA's Johnson Space Center has been closed. Airlines are canceling flights at Houston's airports. "It has already paralyzed oil production," reported NBC's Janet Shamlian, with eleven refineries shut down. Shamlian was in Galveston and ABC's Ryan Owens (embargoed link) was in Houston. For meteorology, NBC used the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore while CBS used Dave Price, weathercaster for its Early Show.
KEVIN TIBBLES’ BOOK CLUB My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor received generous free publicity from NBC's Kevin Tibbles. Tibbles was clearly taken with the memoir by a brain researcher who happened to suffer a stroke herself twelve years ago: "My first thought was Oh my gosh! I am having a stroke and then the next thought was Wow! This is so cool." The stroke damaged the analytic functions of her left brain, wiping out her ability to speak, to read, to write, to walk, to recognize faces. What remained was the consciousness afforded by the right brain: "I was in absolute tranquility. It was so peaceful."
BACK TO SCHOOL NBC filed part four of its Educating America series. George Lewis kicked off Monday on college campus, where the high tuition costs and a weak economy have combined to drive students into debt and increase their dependence on financial aid. The next three entries saw Rehema Ellis turn to the public schools: Tuesday she offered a primer on No Child Left Behind; Wednesday she surveyed budget cuts forced by the high price of school bus diesel and heating fuel; now Ellis praises the contribution of Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad. Broad believes that urban school districts need better managers so he founded a Superintendents Academy that trains second-career non-educators. So far Broad's $14m investment has produced 38 superintendents working in 30 cities in charge of the education of 2m schoolchildren. Ellis gave the academy's graduates high marks: "90% have spearheaded improvements in reading and math."
