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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JANUARY 16, 2009
The exhilaration of Thursday's Story of the Day--the successful ditching of USAirways Flight 1549 into New York City's icy Hudson River from which all 155 on board survived--was enough to generate a second day of intense coverage. Although there was no new development of note, the crash landing occupied 63% of the three-network newshole for the second straight day (36 min v 37 on Thursday). The wreckage of the jetliner is still submerged in the river. Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot, has still not spoken to the news media or to federal investigators. The jet engines have still not been found to confirm the theory that a flock of geese caused them to fail. Nevertheless a recap of Thursday's thrilling events sufficed to lead all three Friday newscasts. CBS was anchored by substitute Maggie Rodriguez from its Early Show.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JANUARY 16, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
HUDSON RIVER AIR CRASH ENJOYS SECOND DAY IN SPOTLIGHT The exhilaration of Thursday's Story of the Day--the successful ditching of USAirways Flight 1549 into New York City's icy Hudson River from which all 155 on board survived--was enough to generate a second day of intense coverage. Although there was no new development of note, the crash landing occupied 63% of the three-network newshole for the second straight day (36 min v 37 on Thursday). The wreckage of the jetliner is still submerged in the river. Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot, has still not spoken to the news media or to federal investigators. The jet engines have still not been found to confirm the theory that a flock of geese caused them to fail. Nevertheless a recap of Thursday's thrilling events sufficed to lead all three Friday newscasts. CBS was anchored by substitute Maggie Rodriguez from its Early Show.
Thursday's talk of miracles morphed into Friday's talk of mastery. It was human skill not magical powers that prevented catastrophe, the networks' transportation correspondents concluded. The flight crew "made all the right moves, all the key split-second decisions," stated CBS' Bob Orr. When its engines failed, the jetliner "became a glider," ABC's Lisa Stark summarized. "In a masterful move the cockpit crew cleared the George Washington Bridge by 900 feet and set the plane perfectly in the water." And NBC's Tom Costello called it a "textbook emergency landing that will likely be studied and analyzed for years to come."
ABC's in-house aviation consultant John Nance (embargoed link) went to a flight training simulator in order to talk anchor Charles Gibson through the proper piloting procedures. Once it became clear that the jet had lost power "the first thing to do is push the nose over, trading altitude for airspeed and setting up a stable descent." Once the decision had been made where to land, the next task is "getting down over the water about five or ten feet and then holding it and holding it and letting it slow…raise the nose up and set it down on the engines and the tail." Nance explained that the pod-style engines hanging below the wing are designed to snap off on impact so that the wings stay attached to the fuselage.
IN THE PASSENGERS’ OWN WORDS ABC decided to dispense with a reporter and string together a narrative of soundbites in order to let several passengers recount their six-minute rollercoaster flight from the runway in Queens to the waters off Manhattan in their own words. "The stewardess got up and she was looking like I need to stay calm and keep everybody else calm"…"Brace yourself for impact! You know, how do you brace yourself for impact?"…"We hit the water and all you felt was cold wind and snow just coming through the window"…"Wait a minute! The water is coming up on my knees. I have got to get out of there"…"I was in the plane trying to get to the wing. The water was up to my chest"…"A kind of calmness came over everybody"…"No survivor's guilt because we all survived."
CBS' Kelly Wallace, meanwhile, sat at the hospital bed of Barry Leonard. The 55-year-old passenger has a cracked chest bone. He showed Wallace the souvenir piece of clothing he was wearing when he was rescued. "The pilot gave me the shirt off his back," he recounted, so he was mistaken for a hero. "People were saying: 'A great job!'"
FERRY HEROES ABC's John Berman and NBC's Mike Taibbi took the waterborne angle on the USAirways plane. "This is not just a story about everything going right. It is a story about everything going right fast," Berman asserted. Taibbi told us that the plane ditched in just the right zone of the Hudson River, where it is heavily trafficked. "A couple of miles up or down the river and it would have taken ferries ten minutes to reach the sinking plane, when seconds counted." A total of 14 ferryboats rushed to the wreck, the first on the scene within two minutes, their crews trained in rescue drills. They deployed boarding ladders and rescued 142 of the 155 on board the plane before the Coast Guard, the Fire Department and scuba diving police officers arrived on the scene. The total time from touchdown to the final person, the pilot, being pulled out was 40 minutes, ABC's Berman calculated. NBC's Taibbi recommended a tickertape parade for the ferry crews.
SULLY’S THE MAN "No question!" exclaimed anchor Charles Gibson when he revealed that Chesley B Sullenberger III would be named ABC's Person of the Week, its regular weekly closing feature. Guess who NBC picked for its Making a Difference closer? "As modern heroes go he might have the most interesting name we have heard in a while," mused anchor Brian Williams, "Chesley B Sullenberger III." CBS profiled the veteran USAirways pilot too, although John Blackstone's report was not in that network's usual weekending Assignment America slot. Sully, as the 57-year-old USAF veteran and 29-year commercial pilot is known, already has a fan club on Facebook. If admirers want to express their appreciation directly, CBS' Blackstone shared his e-mail address: sully@safetyreliability.com.
BIRDS LOVE AIRPORTS There is still no proof that a flock of Canada geese caused the twin jet engines of the USAirways Airbus to fail but NBC's Anne Thompson traveled to Queens anyway to check out why the birds find the LaGuardia Airport ecosystem so attractive for year-round residence. "Surrounded by marshes and oceans," was her conclusion. Since 1990, the population of Canada geese in the United States has quadrupled to 4m. CBS' Bob Orr generalized that "a lot of airports right now are next to dumps, next to waterways, next to nesting areas and that creates a problem--because birds are in conflict with planes."
IT IS IN THE SEAT BACK POCKET In the spirit of News You Can Use, CBS' Ben Tracy traveled to HRD Aero Systems' training center near Los Angeles where flight crews are trained to evacuate a ditched airliner within 90 seconds. Tracy rehearsed the drill for us, putting on his life vest, bracing for a crash, making a quick exit, finding a life raft. "Now all of these emergency procedures are in these pamphlets that are in the seat back pocket on every airplane," he told us in a told-you-so sort of voice. "Many of us never read them."
THE CITI NEVER SLEEPS All that excitement over the plane crash squeezed out coverage from the rest of the world. News that Israel's War Cabinet is preparing to end its incursion into the Gaza Strip was mentioned only in passing and only by ABC. Not even the Hudson River excitement could block out the deteriorating stability of a couple of major banks. All three newscasts assigned a correspondent to cover Bank of America and Citigroup. The nationalization of the banking industry took another major stride as the Treasury Department committed another $138bn--$20bn in capital, $118bn in guarantees--to Bank of America. "It is back to the bailout trough!" exclaimed CBS' Anthony Mason. "The reason for the rescue this time? The bank's shotgun marriage with Merrill Lynch in September is on the rocks."
Citigroup, which lost $8bn in the final quarter of 2008, split into two entities, a functioning bank and a depository for its failed assets. CNBC's Trish Regan reminded us on NBC that the Treasury Department has already invested $45bn in Citi, with guarantees of more than $300bn. Even the so-called sound side of the bank, loans to businesses and consumers, may be in trouble, Betsy Stark warned on ABC: "They are starting to see defaults on the supposedly safe bets they have made."
THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND And looking forward to Inauguration Day, ABC and NBC both sent a White House correspondent to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, where Barack Obama will start his train ride to Washington. NBC's Savannah Guthrie reported on Republican skepticism about Obama's fiscal stimulus plan--"too much spending on the wrong things" and "not enough tax relief"--while ABC's Jake Tapper turned a sarcastic eye on Obama's jobs scheme. The President-elect publicized his proposal to create 459,000 new jobs in sustainable energy industries on the very day that, elsewhere in the economy, seven corporations announced a total of 48,000 layoffs. Obama visited Cardinal Fastener, a wind turbine parts factory in Ohio, to proclaim progress: "Cardinal hired two workers…jobs were created right here this week." Just 458,998 to go.
CBS filed a couple of Inauguration features. An Exclusive by Armen Keteyian displayed the clearer, stronger, less intrusive plexiglass screen that protects "Presidents and the Pope" invented by American Defense Systems on Long Island. Its transparent layers of glass and ceramic and crystal and polymers--the type of chemical used for the cover of a golf ball--make it excellently bulletproof. To prove it, Keteyian had a couple of New York City police sharpshooters riddle the plexi with 75 rounds of "high caliber ammo." None penetrated.
Instead of pilot Chesley Sullenberger, CBS decided to close its newscast with Michelle Miller's profile of Yo-Yo Ma. The cellist Ma, whose performance as a seven-year-old for President John Kennedy Miller shared with us and him on videotape, will be part of an Inaugural quartet. It will play Ode to Obama composed by John Williams, who wrote the theme for Star Wars, Miller reminded us. "What will you say to him when you meet him?" Miller asked Ma. "Congratulations, Mr President."
Thursday's talk of miracles morphed into Friday's talk of mastery. It was human skill not magical powers that prevented catastrophe, the networks' transportation correspondents concluded. The flight crew "made all the right moves, all the key split-second decisions," stated CBS' Bob Orr. When its engines failed, the jetliner "became a glider," ABC's Lisa Stark summarized. "In a masterful move the cockpit crew cleared the George Washington Bridge by 900 feet and set the plane perfectly in the water." And NBC's Tom Costello called it a "textbook emergency landing that will likely be studied and analyzed for years to come."
ABC's in-house aviation consultant John Nance (embargoed link) went to a flight training simulator in order to talk anchor Charles Gibson through the proper piloting procedures. Once it became clear that the jet had lost power "the first thing to do is push the nose over, trading altitude for airspeed and setting up a stable descent." Once the decision had been made where to land, the next task is "getting down over the water about five or ten feet and then holding it and holding it and letting it slow…raise the nose up and set it down on the engines and the tail." Nance explained that the pod-style engines hanging below the wing are designed to snap off on impact so that the wings stay attached to the fuselage.
IN THE PASSENGERS’ OWN WORDS ABC decided to dispense with a reporter and string together a narrative of soundbites in order to let several passengers recount their six-minute rollercoaster flight from the runway in Queens to the waters off Manhattan in their own words. "The stewardess got up and she was looking like I need to stay calm and keep everybody else calm"…"Brace yourself for impact! You know, how do you brace yourself for impact?"…"We hit the water and all you felt was cold wind and snow just coming through the window"…"Wait a minute! The water is coming up on my knees. I have got to get out of there"…"I was in the plane trying to get to the wing. The water was up to my chest"…"A kind of calmness came over everybody"…"No survivor's guilt because we all survived."
CBS' Kelly Wallace, meanwhile, sat at the hospital bed of Barry Leonard. The 55-year-old passenger has a cracked chest bone. He showed Wallace the souvenir piece of clothing he was wearing when he was rescued. "The pilot gave me the shirt off his back," he recounted, so he was mistaken for a hero. "People were saying: 'A great job!'"
FERRY HEROES ABC's John Berman and NBC's Mike Taibbi took the waterborne angle on the USAirways plane. "This is not just a story about everything going right. It is a story about everything going right fast," Berman asserted. Taibbi told us that the plane ditched in just the right zone of the Hudson River, where it is heavily trafficked. "A couple of miles up or down the river and it would have taken ferries ten minutes to reach the sinking plane, when seconds counted." A total of 14 ferryboats rushed to the wreck, the first on the scene within two minutes, their crews trained in rescue drills. They deployed boarding ladders and rescued 142 of the 155 on board the plane before the Coast Guard, the Fire Department and scuba diving police officers arrived on the scene. The total time from touchdown to the final person, the pilot, being pulled out was 40 minutes, ABC's Berman calculated. NBC's Taibbi recommended a tickertape parade for the ferry crews.
SULLY’S THE MAN "No question!" exclaimed anchor Charles Gibson when he revealed that Chesley B Sullenberger III would be named ABC's Person of the Week, its regular weekly closing feature. Guess who NBC picked for its Making a Difference closer? "As modern heroes go he might have the most interesting name we have heard in a while," mused anchor Brian Williams, "Chesley B Sullenberger III." CBS profiled the veteran USAirways pilot too, although John Blackstone's report was not in that network's usual weekending Assignment America slot. Sully, as the 57-year-old USAF veteran and 29-year commercial pilot is known, already has a fan club on Facebook. If admirers want to express their appreciation directly, CBS' Blackstone shared his e-mail address: sully@safetyreliability.com.
BIRDS LOVE AIRPORTS There is still no proof that a flock of Canada geese caused the twin jet engines of the USAirways Airbus to fail but NBC's Anne Thompson traveled to Queens anyway to check out why the birds find the LaGuardia Airport ecosystem so attractive for year-round residence. "Surrounded by marshes and oceans," was her conclusion. Since 1990, the population of Canada geese in the United States has quadrupled to 4m. CBS' Bob Orr generalized that "a lot of airports right now are next to dumps, next to waterways, next to nesting areas and that creates a problem--because birds are in conflict with planes."
IT IS IN THE SEAT BACK POCKET In the spirit of News You Can Use, CBS' Ben Tracy traveled to HRD Aero Systems' training center near Los Angeles where flight crews are trained to evacuate a ditched airliner within 90 seconds. Tracy rehearsed the drill for us, putting on his life vest, bracing for a crash, making a quick exit, finding a life raft. "Now all of these emergency procedures are in these pamphlets that are in the seat back pocket on every airplane," he told us in a told-you-so sort of voice. "Many of us never read them."
THE CITI NEVER SLEEPS All that excitement over the plane crash squeezed out coverage from the rest of the world. News that Israel's War Cabinet is preparing to end its incursion into the Gaza Strip was mentioned only in passing and only by ABC. Not even the Hudson River excitement could block out the deteriorating stability of a couple of major banks. All three newscasts assigned a correspondent to cover Bank of America and Citigroup. The nationalization of the banking industry took another major stride as the Treasury Department committed another $138bn--$20bn in capital, $118bn in guarantees--to Bank of America. "It is back to the bailout trough!" exclaimed CBS' Anthony Mason. "The reason for the rescue this time? The bank's shotgun marriage with Merrill Lynch in September is on the rocks."
Citigroup, which lost $8bn in the final quarter of 2008, split into two entities, a functioning bank and a depository for its failed assets. CNBC's Trish Regan reminded us on NBC that the Treasury Department has already invested $45bn in Citi, with guarantees of more than $300bn. Even the so-called sound side of the bank, loans to businesses and consumers, may be in trouble, Betsy Stark warned on ABC: "They are starting to see defaults on the supposedly safe bets they have made."
THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND And looking forward to Inauguration Day, ABC and NBC both sent a White House correspondent to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, where Barack Obama will start his train ride to Washington. NBC's Savannah Guthrie reported on Republican skepticism about Obama's fiscal stimulus plan--"too much spending on the wrong things" and "not enough tax relief"--while ABC's Jake Tapper turned a sarcastic eye on Obama's jobs scheme. The President-elect publicized his proposal to create 459,000 new jobs in sustainable energy industries on the very day that, elsewhere in the economy, seven corporations announced a total of 48,000 layoffs. Obama visited Cardinal Fastener, a wind turbine parts factory in Ohio, to proclaim progress: "Cardinal hired two workers…jobs were created right here this week." Just 458,998 to go.
CBS filed a couple of Inauguration features. An Exclusive by Armen Keteyian displayed the clearer, stronger, less intrusive plexiglass screen that protects "Presidents and the Pope" invented by American Defense Systems on Long Island. Its transparent layers of glass and ceramic and crystal and polymers--the type of chemical used for the cover of a golf ball--make it excellently bulletproof. To prove it, Keteyian had a couple of New York City police sharpshooters riddle the plexi with 75 rounds of "high caliber ammo." None penetrated.
Instead of pilot Chesley Sullenberger, CBS decided to close its newscast with Michelle Miller's profile of Yo-Yo Ma. The cellist Ma, whose performance as a seven-year-old for President John Kennedy Miller shared with us and him on videotape, will be part of an Inaugural quartet. It will play Ode to Obama composed by John Williams, who wrote the theme for Star Wars, Miller reminded us. "What will you say to him when you meet him?" Miller asked Ma. "Congratulations, Mr President."
