 |           |
TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
Another day, another financial headline. The focus shifted from the Federal Reserve Board to the Department of the Treasury as Secretary Henry Paulson was expected to announce a plan to save financial capitalism from collapse--a federal fund to relieve banks of a mountain of debt in order to free them to resume offering credit to one another. On Wall Street, traders responded with a buy signal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 410 points to 11019. ABC and CBS, with Harry Smith co-anchoring with Katie Couric, made the stock market angle their headline, the Story of the Day. NBC chose the more difficult to explain, but more important, prospect of the Treasury plan as its lead.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR SEPTEMBER 18, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
NEW DEAL FROM THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT Another day, another financial headline. The focus shifted from the Federal Reserve Board to the Department of the Treasury as Secretary Henry Paulson was expected to announce a plan to save financial capitalism from collapse--a federal fund to relieve banks of a mountain of debt in order to free them to resume offering credit to one another. On Wall Street, traders responded with a buy signal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 410 points to 11019. ABC and CBS, with Harry Smith co-anchoring with Katie Couric, made the stock market angle their headline, the Story of the Day. NBC chose the more difficult to explain, but more important, prospect of the Treasury plan as its lead.
CNBC's Carl Quintanilla called Paulson's plan "shock and awe" in his report for NBC. It would create "a government entity that would buy all those troubled mortgages and, like a sick patient, put them in quarantine and sell them off later, allowing banks to clean up their books and start lending money again." Betsy Stark on ABC used a medical metaphor too: "It would be surgical. It is like cutting the cancer out of the patient and trying to put it on the road to recovery."
Moving from the Federal Reserve Board to the Treasury "would require Congressional legislation," CBS' Anthony Mason pointed out. ABC anchor Charles Gibson turned to George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's Sunday morning talkshow This Week, to assess the political popularity of any bailout for financiers. Stephanopoulos predicted that Democrats would insist that "direct aid to taxpayers and consumers" be added to make it palatable. His examples included a second round of stimulus checks, unemployment benefits, funding for food stamps and assistance for home heating this winter. "This is really going to add up into the hundreds of billions, eventually maybe more than $1tr."
CNBC economist Steve Liesman weighed the consequences of such a massive expenditure on NBC: "Some people would say that this creates a danger--taking on all this bad debt--of the United States becoming a banana republic. I think those proponents of this plan would say that by losing our banking system, and maybe even Wall Street the way we are going, we would be that much closer to being a banana republic!" To which anchor Brian Williams exclaimed: "Wow!"
ANGELS? SWOOPING? WHAT WAS ABC THINKING? Surely, in the heat of the Presidential campaign, the next story to file would be the candidates' reaction to such a monumental development. NBC went to Kelly O'Donnell and Lee Cowan, covering John McCain and Barack Obama respectively. CBS had Chip Reid with the McCain campaign. ABC did not file a single campaign package in its entire newscast. Instead it made room for A Closer Look from Dan Harris into why Americans believe in angels and a closing adventure feature from Ryan Owens on a new form of low-altitude sky-diving called swooping. What was ABC thinking?
"It was the fourth day in a row the economy has been front and center," mused NBC's Cowan, reflecting the nightly newscasts' own agenda. He called it "an opportunity for Obama to be on the offensive for a change." His colleague O'Donnell agreed: "The financial crisis has so overtaken this race," she exclaimed as McCain responded by demanding the resignation of Christopher Cox, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and blasted Obama for being too cozy with FannieMae and FreddieMac, the federal mortgage guarantee corporations that were nationalized last week. CBS' Reid explained that McCain was adopting such a populist tone because "he is not known for tough regulation of Wall Street."
THE FORGOTTEN BIDEN CBS anchor Katie Couric was on the road in Ohio for a profile of the forgotten running mate Joe Biden. This was the first evening newscast story focusing on the Democrats' VP pick since his nomination in Denver. His counterpart Sarah Palin, by contrast, was Story of the Day twice last week, courtesy of Charles Gibson's Exclusive interviews on ABC (here and here), as well as being followed this week by NBC's Savannah Guthrie and CBS' Nancy Cordes on the campaign trail. Couric asked Biden to respond to Palin's criticism that the Democrats' plan not to prolong George Bush's temporary tax cuts on the wealthy would hurt small businesses: "How many small businessmen are making $1.4m, your average in the top 1%? Give me a break!"
TWO MINUTE DRILL ABC's daylong boycott of campaign coverage extended to features too. CBS had Jeff Greenfield file his weekly jocular look at The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the stump. He approved of Barack Obama's two-minute straight-to-the-camera ad on the financial crisis as "a rarity in today's 30-second universe." The Bad 30-second ad was a Democratic spot on the Iraq War against Sen Norm Coleman in Minnesota. The Ugly was a conservative spot depicting Mark Udall as a hippie fellow traveler. Udall is the Democrat running for the Senate in Colorado. NBC's feature was another entry in its issues series Where They Stand. Robert Bazell called Obama's healthcare platform "drastically different" from John McCain's.
EYE IN THE SKY, EARS ON THE GROUND Houston is still struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and all three newscasts stayed on the case. CBS' Mark Strassmann monitored FEMA's response. ABC's Mike von Fremd (embargoed link) covered the continuing crisis in Galveston: "The running water is not fit to drink. There is still no natural gas, no telephones and it may be months before electricity is completely restored." The island's 60,000 evacuated residents are still barred from returning to their former homes. NBC's Janet Shamlian showed us the service being offered by KRPC-TV, the local NBC affiliate. Its news helicopter is documenting the devastation in a "gutted Galveston" beaming back bad news and condolences to the newly homeless.
Besides the hurricane, last weekend's other disaster was the Metrolink commuter train crash in California's San Fernando Valley that killed 25. All three newscasts aired audiotape of the passengers' 911 cellphone calls from the wreckage. NBC's Tom Costello called them "desperate." ABC's Lisa Stark (embargoed link) used the word "frantic." CBS' Ben Tracy found the scene "chaotic."
SIGNS & WONDERS Such a serious day of financial news still found time for closing features. CBS had business correspondent Anthony Mason do double duty, kicking off the newscast with stocks and closing with his entry in the Games Our Children Play series. Unfortunately CBS does not offer a link to Mason playing air guitar with Aerosmith on Rock Band. On NBC, Anne Thompson continued her Amazon adventure. Last week she was in Brazil's Mato Grasso; now she is in Peru's rainforest, publicizing the search for traditional medicines by Naturex, the herbal supplement and cosmetics company. ABC, as mentioned, gave as Ryan Owens on swooping skydivers and Dan Harris on angel believers. "Many of us disregard church teachings and engage in what one theologian has called casual mysticism," declared Harris.
Harris' feature on angels and demons follows Monday's hints by John McKenzie that a coordinated prayer circle might have healed a West Virginia woman's stroke. What signs and wonders are next on ABC's news agenda?
CNBC's Carl Quintanilla called Paulson's plan "shock and awe" in his report for NBC. It would create "a government entity that would buy all those troubled mortgages and, like a sick patient, put them in quarantine and sell them off later, allowing banks to clean up their books and start lending money again." Betsy Stark on ABC used a medical metaphor too: "It would be surgical. It is like cutting the cancer out of the patient and trying to put it on the road to recovery."
Moving from the Federal Reserve Board to the Treasury "would require Congressional legislation," CBS' Anthony Mason pointed out. ABC anchor Charles Gibson turned to George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's Sunday morning talkshow This Week, to assess the political popularity of any bailout for financiers. Stephanopoulos predicted that Democrats would insist that "direct aid to taxpayers and consumers" be added to make it palatable. His examples included a second round of stimulus checks, unemployment benefits, funding for food stamps and assistance for home heating this winter. "This is really going to add up into the hundreds of billions, eventually maybe more than $1tr."
CNBC economist Steve Liesman weighed the consequences of such a massive expenditure on NBC: "Some people would say that this creates a danger--taking on all this bad debt--of the United States becoming a banana republic. I think those proponents of this plan would say that by losing our banking system, and maybe even Wall Street the way we are going, we would be that much closer to being a banana republic!" To which anchor Brian Williams exclaimed: "Wow!"
ANGELS? SWOOPING? WHAT WAS ABC THINKING? Surely, in the heat of the Presidential campaign, the next story to file would be the candidates' reaction to such a monumental development. NBC went to Kelly O'Donnell and Lee Cowan, covering John McCain and Barack Obama respectively. CBS had Chip Reid with the McCain campaign. ABC did not file a single campaign package in its entire newscast. Instead it made room for A Closer Look from Dan Harris into why Americans believe in angels and a closing adventure feature from Ryan Owens on a new form of low-altitude sky-diving called swooping. What was ABC thinking?
"It was the fourth day in a row the economy has been front and center," mused NBC's Cowan, reflecting the nightly newscasts' own agenda. He called it "an opportunity for Obama to be on the offensive for a change." His colleague O'Donnell agreed: "The financial crisis has so overtaken this race," she exclaimed as McCain responded by demanding the resignation of Christopher Cox, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and blasted Obama for being too cozy with FannieMae and FreddieMac, the federal mortgage guarantee corporations that were nationalized last week. CBS' Reid explained that McCain was adopting such a populist tone because "he is not known for tough regulation of Wall Street."
THE FORGOTTEN BIDEN CBS anchor Katie Couric was on the road in Ohio for a profile of the forgotten running mate Joe Biden. This was the first evening newscast story focusing on the Democrats' VP pick since his nomination in Denver. His counterpart Sarah Palin, by contrast, was Story of the Day twice last week, courtesy of Charles Gibson's Exclusive interviews on ABC (here and here), as well as being followed this week by NBC's Savannah Guthrie and CBS' Nancy Cordes on the campaign trail. Couric asked Biden to respond to Palin's criticism that the Democrats' plan not to prolong George Bush's temporary tax cuts on the wealthy would hurt small businesses: "How many small businessmen are making $1.4m, your average in the top 1%? Give me a break!"
TWO MINUTE DRILL ABC's daylong boycott of campaign coverage extended to features too. CBS had Jeff Greenfield file his weekly jocular look at The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the stump. He approved of Barack Obama's two-minute straight-to-the-camera ad on the financial crisis as "a rarity in today's 30-second universe." The Bad 30-second ad was a Democratic spot on the Iraq War against Sen Norm Coleman in Minnesota. The Ugly was a conservative spot depicting Mark Udall as a hippie fellow traveler. Udall is the Democrat running for the Senate in Colorado. NBC's feature was another entry in its issues series Where They Stand. Robert Bazell called Obama's healthcare platform "drastically different" from John McCain's.
EYE IN THE SKY, EARS ON THE GROUND Houston is still struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and all three newscasts stayed on the case. CBS' Mark Strassmann monitored FEMA's response. ABC's Mike von Fremd (embargoed link) covered the continuing crisis in Galveston: "The running water is not fit to drink. There is still no natural gas, no telephones and it may be months before electricity is completely restored." The island's 60,000 evacuated residents are still barred from returning to their former homes. NBC's Janet Shamlian showed us the service being offered by KRPC-TV, the local NBC affiliate. Its news helicopter is documenting the devastation in a "gutted Galveston" beaming back bad news and condolences to the newly homeless.
Besides the hurricane, last weekend's other disaster was the Metrolink commuter train crash in California's San Fernando Valley that killed 25. All three newscasts aired audiotape of the passengers' 911 cellphone calls from the wreckage. NBC's Tom Costello called them "desperate." ABC's Lisa Stark (embargoed link) used the word "frantic." CBS' Ben Tracy found the scene "chaotic."
SIGNS & WONDERS Such a serious day of financial news still found time for closing features. CBS had business correspondent Anthony Mason do double duty, kicking off the newscast with stocks and closing with his entry in the Games Our Children Play series. Unfortunately CBS does not offer a link to Mason playing air guitar with Aerosmith on Rock Band. On NBC, Anne Thompson continued her Amazon adventure. Last week she was in Brazil's Mato Grasso; now she is in Peru's rainforest, publicizing the search for traditional medicines by Naturex, the herbal supplement and cosmetics company. ABC, as mentioned, gave as Ryan Owens on swooping skydivers and Dan Harris on angel believers. "Many of us disregard church teachings and engage in what one theologian has called casual mysticism," declared Harris.
Harris' feature on angels and demons follows Monday's hints by John McKenzie that a coordinated prayer circle might have healed a West Virginia woman's stroke. What signs and wonders are next on ABC's news agenda?
