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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
Part two of the Exclusive interview by ABC anchor Charles Gibson with Sarah Palin made the Republican Vice Presidential nominee Story of the Day again. Gibson's topic on day two was the economy and domestic issues as he anchored from Palin's lakeside home in mountain-ringed Wasilla, where she used to be mayor. As ABC did Thursday, the interview was edited into a long ten-minutes segment and then a shorter closing one. That second topic was the so-called Mommy Wars. Together the interview accounted for 66% (12 min out of 18) of ABC's entire newshole. Yet the q-&-a was not important enough to qualify as the lead item. All three newscasts--including NBC with substitute anchor Ann Curry--opened with the threat to the Houston metropolitan area from Hurricane Ike.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR SEPTEMBER 12, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
IKE COMPETES WITH PALIN Part two of the Exclusive interview by ABC anchor Charles Gibson with Sarah Palin made the Republican Vice Presidential nominee Story of the Day again. Gibson's topic on day two was the economy and domestic issues as he anchored from Palin's lakeside home in mountain-ringed Wasilla, where she used to be mayor. As ABC did Thursday, the interview was edited into a long ten-minutes segment and then a shorter closing one. That second topic was the so-called Mommy Wars. Together the interview accounted for 66% (12 min out of 18) of ABC's entire newshole. Yet the q-&-a was not important enough to qualify as the lead item. All three newscasts--including NBC with substitute anchor Ann Curry--opened with the threat to the Houston metropolitan area from Hurricane Ike.
The sea wall protecting Galveston Island from the stormy Gulf of Mexico is 17 feet above sea level. In turn, ABC's Ryan Owens and David Price, weathercaster for CBS' Early Show and NBC's Amy Robach (featured in the videostream filed by her colleague Janet Shamlian), stood on top of the water-lapped wall to illustrate the warning that when Ike made landfall its storm surge would be yet another 20 feet higher. Price told us that majority of Galveston was already evacuated, with 14,000 of its 58,000 residents remaining to face the floods.
ABC's Owens warned that after Galveston, the surge could push a wall of water up the ship channel to Houston. NBC's Don Teague reported that "instead of evacuating the entire city as they did during Hurricane Rita, officials here have ordered evacuations only for those with special needs" and residents of nine low-lying ZIP codes. CBS' Hari Sreenivasan called downtown Houston "practically a ghost town" as residents hunkered down. He took a different angle from Teague's concerning the lack of an evacuation order: it would take at least 96 hours to accomplish "and Ike turned directly towards Houston only 48 hours ago."
NBC's Kerry Sanders pointed out that Port Arthur's Refinery Row is directly in the hurricane's path, so already 13 oil refineries have been closed, accounting for 17% of the nation's entire production of gasoline. Along with the Gulf waters, prices at the pump were rising across the entire southeast because of that supply shortage. Sanders pointed to hikes in Texas, Tennessee, Florida and the Carolinas. ABC's Barbara Pinto (embargoed link) cited Kentucky and Alabama too.
SARAH, SARAH, SARAH Even as ABC continued its interview with Sarah Palin (Thursday's segments are here and here), its rivals were covering Charles Gibson's newsmaking. CBS Sunday morning host Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation predicted that the Gibson interview would not be enough: "She is going to have to answer more questions," he argued, pointing out that nine of the 43 Presidents in the history of the United States have been elevated from the office of Vice President rather than being elected at the top of the ticket. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell (no link) saw John McCain's campaign "aggressively defending Palin. Their radar is on looking for any slight or gender bias…Palin is second on the ticket but the McCain campaign appears OK with letting her top the attention for now."
Most of Gibson's interview probed, mostly unsuccessfully, for ways in which a McCain-Palin change-based administration would depart from the economic policies pursued by George Bush. Palin listed the cornerstones of their platform: "Reduce taxes; control spending; reform the oversight and the overseeing agencies." Gibson commented: "I do not think anybody in the Bush Administration would disagree." He pressed her on which spending would be controled: "We are going to find efficiencies in every department."
Later Gibson inquired of the mother of five, including an infant with Down syndrome, whether it is "a sexist question" to inquire whether she can handle family chores and Vice Presidential ones simultaneously. "All of my life I am part of that generation where that question is kind of irrelevant," Palin answered, before implying that, yes, it was sexist to raise it: "I feel it is the same way the other governors have done it when they had a baby in office or raised a family. Granted, they are men, but I do it in the same way they do it."
LIES, SARCASM AND ALL THAT CHANGE NBC's Lee Cowan and CBS' Dean Reynolds both covered Barack Obama on the stump in New Hampshire where his supporters urged him to drop his polite criticism of John McCain's campaign tactics--"Just fabricated…they are just made up"--in favor of Lies. "That is the word I was looking for," he finally relented. Both noted a new tone in Obama's latest TV ad, mocking McCain for being an out of touch computer illiterate. Reynolds said the spot suggested "the 72-year-old McCain is very old school" while Cowan found it "filled with biting sarcasm." As part of CBS' Reality Check series Wyatt Andrews rapped McCain for making "two glaring mistakes" about Sarah Palin's record when appearing on The View, ABC's female-oriented daytime talkshow. Andrews characterized the week's advertising as "relentlessly negative" and concluded that "McCain has been the aggressor in this slide to negativity."
Earlier this week CBS unveiled its Where They Stand series on issues with Anthony Mason on tax policy and Lara Logan on Iraq. Now, funnily enough, NBC announced a special series, dubbed--Where They Stand! Mike Taibbi's kick-off report was not about issues but about slogans. Change is a word "used incessantly by both candidates now." Taibbi contrasted Obama and McCain with earlier transformative campaigns run by Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Each was an "agent of profound change who never campaigned on that word."
SLAP PUTIN IN THE FACE Foreign policy, unusually, is the focus of a second NBC series this fall. Jim Maceda kicked off a series of reports on Hot Spots with an assessment from Moscow on the rising tensions between NATO and Russia. He explained the Kremlin's response under then-President Vladimir Putin to proposals by the United States that NATO should expand along Russia's southern border to include Ukraine and Georgia. "From their view it is the West, especially the Bush Administration, who are to blame, answering every handshake offered up by Russia over the past decade or more with, they say, a slap in the face. Putin was personally instrumental after 9/11 in opening central Asia to US bases for the War in Afghanistan--but instead of respect…he got pro-Western revolts."
MORNING FARE Fashion Week is a bit of a bummer in the Big Apple, CBS' Michelle Miller moaned, in a report that was more suited for her network's Early Show than its evening newscast. The usual "seven days of the hottest trends and a frenzy of fabulous" has run into "a backdrop of the stagnant retail market." So original ensembles are less visible. Instead "new collections are emphasizing timelessness and versatility, eye-popping color, pretty prints and accessories like bags and chunky jewelry, pieces that can spice up existing wardrobes." And some couturiers are designing discount lines for Target.
FRIDAY FEATURES All three networks usually offer weekending features on Friday evening. Because of ABC's Exclusive Sarah Palin interview its Person of the Week was a no-show and only CBS and NBC made time for entries. On NBC's Making a Difference, Savannah Guthrie showcased the To Write Love on Her Arms page on myspace.com, a teenage mutual support site that counsels the depressed, the suicidal, the isolated and the drug addicted. It was started by a story written by Jamie Tworkowski about the five days he spent detoxifying his cocaine-addicted friend Renee Yohe, who was mutilating herself by cutting her arms. "The site now has more than 200,000 members."
CBS' Steve Hartman introduced us to Thomas Weller for Assignment America. He is a Good Samaritan auto repair mechanic on the highways of San Diego. Paying it forward for a good turn done to him 40 years ago, he stops to help broken down motorists for no fee. He offers a business card urging them in turn to pay that favor forward. Lo and behold, a do-gooder beat Weller to a particular traveler in distress: "He said four months earlier, his wife had a blowout on the freeway and somebody stopped to help her and he said: 'By the way, thank you for doing that for my wife.'"
The sea wall protecting Galveston Island from the stormy Gulf of Mexico is 17 feet above sea level. In turn, ABC's Ryan Owens and David Price, weathercaster for CBS' Early Show and NBC's Amy Robach (featured in the videostream filed by her colleague Janet Shamlian), stood on top of the water-lapped wall to illustrate the warning that when Ike made landfall its storm surge would be yet another 20 feet higher. Price told us that majority of Galveston was already evacuated, with 14,000 of its 58,000 residents remaining to face the floods.
ABC's Owens warned that after Galveston, the surge could push a wall of water up the ship channel to Houston. NBC's Don Teague reported that "instead of evacuating the entire city as they did during Hurricane Rita, officials here have ordered evacuations only for those with special needs" and residents of nine low-lying ZIP codes. CBS' Hari Sreenivasan called downtown Houston "practically a ghost town" as residents hunkered down. He took a different angle from Teague's concerning the lack of an evacuation order: it would take at least 96 hours to accomplish "and Ike turned directly towards Houston only 48 hours ago."
NBC's Kerry Sanders pointed out that Port Arthur's Refinery Row is directly in the hurricane's path, so already 13 oil refineries have been closed, accounting for 17% of the nation's entire production of gasoline. Along with the Gulf waters, prices at the pump were rising across the entire southeast because of that supply shortage. Sanders pointed to hikes in Texas, Tennessee, Florida and the Carolinas. ABC's Barbara Pinto (embargoed link) cited Kentucky and Alabama too.
SARAH, SARAH, SARAH Even as ABC continued its interview with Sarah Palin (Thursday's segments are here and here), its rivals were covering Charles Gibson's newsmaking. CBS Sunday morning host Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation predicted that the Gibson interview would not be enough: "She is going to have to answer more questions," he argued, pointing out that nine of the 43 Presidents in the history of the United States have been elevated from the office of Vice President rather than being elected at the top of the ticket. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell (no link) saw John McCain's campaign "aggressively defending Palin. Their radar is on looking for any slight or gender bias…Palin is second on the ticket but the McCain campaign appears OK with letting her top the attention for now."
Most of Gibson's interview probed, mostly unsuccessfully, for ways in which a McCain-Palin change-based administration would depart from the economic policies pursued by George Bush. Palin listed the cornerstones of their platform: "Reduce taxes; control spending; reform the oversight and the overseeing agencies." Gibson commented: "I do not think anybody in the Bush Administration would disagree." He pressed her on which spending would be controled: "We are going to find efficiencies in every department."
Later Gibson inquired of the mother of five, including an infant with Down syndrome, whether it is "a sexist question" to inquire whether she can handle family chores and Vice Presidential ones simultaneously. "All of my life I am part of that generation where that question is kind of irrelevant," Palin answered, before implying that, yes, it was sexist to raise it: "I feel it is the same way the other governors have done it when they had a baby in office or raised a family. Granted, they are men, but I do it in the same way they do it."
LIES, SARCASM AND ALL THAT CHANGE NBC's Lee Cowan and CBS' Dean Reynolds both covered Barack Obama on the stump in New Hampshire where his supporters urged him to drop his polite criticism of John McCain's campaign tactics--"Just fabricated…they are just made up"--in favor of Lies. "That is the word I was looking for," he finally relented. Both noted a new tone in Obama's latest TV ad, mocking McCain for being an out of touch computer illiterate. Reynolds said the spot suggested "the 72-year-old McCain is very old school" while Cowan found it "filled with biting sarcasm." As part of CBS' Reality Check series Wyatt Andrews rapped McCain for making "two glaring mistakes" about Sarah Palin's record when appearing on The View, ABC's female-oriented daytime talkshow. Andrews characterized the week's advertising as "relentlessly negative" and concluded that "McCain has been the aggressor in this slide to negativity."
Earlier this week CBS unveiled its Where They Stand series on issues with Anthony Mason on tax policy and Lara Logan on Iraq. Now, funnily enough, NBC announced a special series, dubbed--Where They Stand! Mike Taibbi's kick-off report was not about issues but about slogans. Change is a word "used incessantly by both candidates now." Taibbi contrasted Obama and McCain with earlier transformative campaigns run by Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Each was an "agent of profound change who never campaigned on that word."
SLAP PUTIN IN THE FACE Foreign policy, unusually, is the focus of a second NBC series this fall. Jim Maceda kicked off a series of reports on Hot Spots with an assessment from Moscow on the rising tensions between NATO and Russia. He explained the Kremlin's response under then-President Vladimir Putin to proposals by the United States that NATO should expand along Russia's southern border to include Ukraine and Georgia. "From their view it is the West, especially the Bush Administration, who are to blame, answering every handshake offered up by Russia over the past decade or more with, they say, a slap in the face. Putin was personally instrumental after 9/11 in opening central Asia to US bases for the War in Afghanistan--but instead of respect…he got pro-Western revolts."
MORNING FARE Fashion Week is a bit of a bummer in the Big Apple, CBS' Michelle Miller moaned, in a report that was more suited for her network's Early Show than its evening newscast. The usual "seven days of the hottest trends and a frenzy of fabulous" has run into "a backdrop of the stagnant retail market." So original ensembles are less visible. Instead "new collections are emphasizing timelessness and versatility, eye-popping color, pretty prints and accessories like bags and chunky jewelry, pieces that can spice up existing wardrobes." And some couturiers are designing discount lines for Target.
FRIDAY FEATURES All three networks usually offer weekending features on Friday evening. Because of ABC's Exclusive Sarah Palin interview its Person of the Week was a no-show and only CBS and NBC made time for entries. On NBC's Making a Difference, Savannah Guthrie showcased the To Write Love on Her Arms page on myspace.com, a teenage mutual support site that counsels the depressed, the suicidal, the isolated and the drug addicted. It was started by a story written by Jamie Tworkowski about the five days he spent detoxifying his cocaine-addicted friend Renee Yohe, who was mutilating herself by cutting her arms. "The site now has more than 200,000 members."
CBS' Steve Hartman introduced us to Thomas Weller for Assignment America. He is a Good Samaritan auto repair mechanic on the highways of San Diego. Paying it forward for a good turn done to him 40 years ago, he stops to help broken down motorists for no fee. He offers a business card urging them in turn to pay that favor forward. Lo and behold, a do-gooder beat Weller to a particular traveler in distress: "He said four months earlier, his wife had a blowout on the freeway and somebody stopped to help her and he said: 'By the way, thank you for doing that for my wife.'"
