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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JANUARY 29, 2009
"The height of irresponsibility. It is shameful." Perhaps he meant shameless in characterizing the gall of Wall Street financiers who paid themselves $18bn in year-end bonuses to cap a 2008 in which their industry posted hundreds of billions in losses. Anyway Barack Obama's use of the bully pulpit of the Presidency to castigate high finance was the lead on all three network newscasts, the unanimous choice for Story of the Day. CBS and NBC both led from the White House--for an Obamaniacal at NBC it was the first of three reports with a White House angle. ABC led from Wall Street's home of New York City.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JANUARY 29, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
SHAMEFUL IRRESPONSIBILITY ON WALL STREET "The height of irresponsibility. It is shameful." Perhaps he meant shameless in characterizing the gall of Wall Street financiers who paid themselves $18bn in year-end bonuses to cap a 2008 in which their industry posted hundreds of billions in losses. Anyway Barack Obama's use of the bully pulpit of the Presidency to castigate high finance was the lead on all three network newscasts, the unanimous choice for Story of the Day. CBS and NBC both led from the White House--for an Obamaniacal at NBC it was the first of three reports with a White House angle. ABC led from Wall Street's home of New York City.
NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd heard the President "channeling his inner populist" as the bonuses ticked him off. He predicted that Obama will "roll out new rules that these executives will have to follow if they want bailout money from the government." Chip Reid of CBS went further. His unidentified White House sources told him "the President wants nothing less than to redo the way Wall Street does business."
ABC's Dan Harris and CBS' Anthony Mason covered the arguments on Wall Street to justify bonus pay in a loss-making year. Mason argued to his anchor Katie Couric that the billions were "not nearly as nefarious as they sound" because "bonus" was really a misnomer--it is more like a sales commission for bringing in business. The average bonus in 2008 was 37% lower than that of 2007. Still Mason conceded "by Main Street standards Wall Streeters are extremely well paid." ABC' Harris examined the argument that bonus pay is necessary for a firm to stop its "best people" from seeking work elsewhere. The polite riposte to that is that "banks are firing not hiring these days." Harris also quoted Jon Stewart's sarcastic version on Comedy Central's The Daily Show: "You lost $27bn. Do you live in Bizarro World?"
DEVOURING OBAMA DETAILS NBC's other two White House stories were filed by Savannah Guthrie and anchor Brian Williams. Guthrie covered the signing ceremony for the Lilly Ledbetter Act, a law named for a Goodyear Tire supervisor who worked for 19 years in an Alabama factory, unaware that she was being paid less than her male counterparts. When she finally found out, she sued for $200,000 in back pay but the Supreme Court ruled that she had to file her claim with 180 days of her original underpayment. The new law starts that 180-day clock at each discriminatory underpayment not just the initial one. Guthrie observed that the law passed to late to help Ledbetter herself. "You lost your case. What did you win?" "Something that money could never buy and two really good friends in the White House."
The NBC anchor picked up on a photograph in The New York Times of a shirtsleeved President working at his desk in the Oval Office. Williams reminded us that George Bush laid down a jackets-only dress code in "direct response to the discomfort her felt" over seeing pictures of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in a sweaty jogging outfit. The nuances may seem petty to the rest of us but NBC's Williams assured us that Washington DC is a "city that devours details and tea leaves" and "has been so fascinated by the new Obama style." On ABC, White House correspondent Jake Tapper filed an Obama lifestyle primer--his gym habits, his iPod playlist, his preferred breakfast, his working hours, his office thermostat setting--but his report is not available for videostreaming online.
BYE-BYE BLAGO Rod Blagojevich is Governor of Illinois no more. By a unanimous 59-0 vote the state senate approved articles of impeachment and removed him from office. All three newscasts had a correspondent cover his return from his national media tour to Springfield where he gave a futile speech in his own defense. What sort of figure did he cut as he went down to defeat? "Defiant to the very end"--NBC's Kevin Tibbles…"By turns defiant and deferential"--CBS' Cynthia Bowers…"Defiant to the bitter end"--ABC's Chris Bury. "Having lost his job he has something else big to worry about," Bury added, "that federal criminal prosecution."
NBC KEEPS ITS EYE ON PEANUTS For the third straight day only NBC has considered the Peanut Corporation of America worthy of coverage by a reporter. Tuesday Tom Costello covered FDA charges that the firm went "lab shopping" for negative results when its batches of processed peanuts tested positive for salmonella. Wednesday Robert Bazell covered the Georgia Department of Agriculture's failure to spot safety violations. Now Bazell turns to the results of the Food & Drug Administration's inspection earlier this month that found mold on the ceiling, leaks of rain water, slimy residue on a conveyor belt, cockroaches dead and alive--and a sink that "was used interchangeably as a point for cleaning hands and utensils and washing out mops."
MOUNTAIN DIVISION IN LOWGAR MOUNTAINS Last week, CBS' Elizabeth Palmer was in Afghanistan to show us reinforcements from the USArmy's Tenth Mountain Division arrive in Kabul. Now ABC's Martha Raddatz takes a helicopter over frigid mountains to Camp Shank, the division's tent city in Lowgar Province. The soldiers' role will be to protect the Kabul-Kandahar highway from guerrilla attacks and criminal kidnappings. Raddatz explained that the troops' mission is similar to what it would have been in Iraq but the country "is far different, nearly twice the size and largely rural." President Barack Obama "may soon find that it is easier to get 25,000 additional troops into Afghanistan than it will be getting them out."
COLLECTING BACK PAY FROM RUSSIA Wednesday ABC's Brian Ross led with a spy story from Algeria. Now CBS' Bob Orr leads us through a trail of espionage that starts in a federal prison in Oregon and tracks through San Francisco, Mexico City, Lima and Cyprus. Orr recounted federal allegations against Harold Nicholson, once a high ranking official in the CIA, and his son Nathaniel. Nicholson was convicted of spying for Russia in 1997 and is serving a 23-year prison term. The allegation is that Russia still owed Nicholson money so he sent his son on a series of fake vacations to collect $35,000 in back pay. Both father and son could face a further 100 years behind bars if convicted. Orr's unnamed spook sources reassured him that only money--not "any new sensitive information"--was handed over.
ASIAN TIGERS DEFANGED Before the recession started, there was plenty of coverage of outsourcing of American jobs to China and India--manufacturing to China, service to India. Now NBC and ABC and NBC show the flipside in a shrinking economy. ABC's Gigi Stone was in New Jersey where firms such as Delta Airlines and Apple Computers, Dell, A&T and Netflix are bringing call centers home. Patriotism or nativism? "Are these companies really trying to benefit their customers? Or are they capitalizing on the fact that some are complaining because they are prejudiced against foreigners?"
For NBC's In Depth, Ian Williams wangled an invitation to celebrate the Year of the Ox in a rural village in Sichuan Province. Joining the feast were migrant workers returning home. During boom times the village's prosperity was built on remittances from its sons and daughters working in the manufacturing zones: "Officials say nearly 70,000 businesses have closed in the coastal regions that were China's export power house. They estimate that 10m migrants have already returned to the countryside they had left for a better life."
NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd heard the President "channeling his inner populist" as the bonuses ticked him off. He predicted that Obama will "roll out new rules that these executives will have to follow if they want bailout money from the government." Chip Reid of CBS went further. His unidentified White House sources told him "the President wants nothing less than to redo the way Wall Street does business."
ABC's Dan Harris and CBS' Anthony Mason covered the arguments on Wall Street to justify bonus pay in a loss-making year. Mason argued to his anchor Katie Couric that the billions were "not nearly as nefarious as they sound" because "bonus" was really a misnomer--it is more like a sales commission for bringing in business. The average bonus in 2008 was 37% lower than that of 2007. Still Mason conceded "by Main Street standards Wall Streeters are extremely well paid." ABC' Harris examined the argument that bonus pay is necessary for a firm to stop its "best people" from seeking work elsewhere. The polite riposte to that is that "banks are firing not hiring these days." Harris also quoted Jon Stewart's sarcastic version on Comedy Central's The Daily Show: "You lost $27bn. Do you live in Bizarro World?"
DEVOURING OBAMA DETAILS NBC's other two White House stories were filed by Savannah Guthrie and anchor Brian Williams. Guthrie covered the signing ceremony for the Lilly Ledbetter Act, a law named for a Goodyear Tire supervisor who worked for 19 years in an Alabama factory, unaware that she was being paid less than her male counterparts. When she finally found out, she sued for $200,000 in back pay but the Supreme Court ruled that she had to file her claim with 180 days of her original underpayment. The new law starts that 180-day clock at each discriminatory underpayment not just the initial one. Guthrie observed that the law passed to late to help Ledbetter herself. "You lost your case. What did you win?" "Something that money could never buy and two really good friends in the White House."
The NBC anchor picked up on a photograph in The New York Times of a shirtsleeved President working at his desk in the Oval Office. Williams reminded us that George Bush laid down a jackets-only dress code in "direct response to the discomfort her felt" over seeing pictures of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in a sweaty jogging outfit. The nuances may seem petty to the rest of us but NBC's Williams assured us that Washington DC is a "city that devours details and tea leaves" and "has been so fascinated by the new Obama style." On ABC, White House correspondent Jake Tapper filed an Obama lifestyle primer--his gym habits, his iPod playlist, his preferred breakfast, his working hours, his office thermostat setting--but his report is not available for videostreaming online.
BYE-BYE BLAGO Rod Blagojevich is Governor of Illinois no more. By a unanimous 59-0 vote the state senate approved articles of impeachment and removed him from office. All three newscasts had a correspondent cover his return from his national media tour to Springfield where he gave a futile speech in his own defense. What sort of figure did he cut as he went down to defeat? "Defiant to the very end"--NBC's Kevin Tibbles…"By turns defiant and deferential"--CBS' Cynthia Bowers…"Defiant to the bitter end"--ABC's Chris Bury. "Having lost his job he has something else big to worry about," Bury added, "that federal criminal prosecution."
NBC KEEPS ITS EYE ON PEANUTS For the third straight day only NBC has considered the Peanut Corporation of America worthy of coverage by a reporter. Tuesday Tom Costello covered FDA charges that the firm went "lab shopping" for negative results when its batches of processed peanuts tested positive for salmonella. Wednesday Robert Bazell covered the Georgia Department of Agriculture's failure to spot safety violations. Now Bazell turns to the results of the Food & Drug Administration's inspection earlier this month that found mold on the ceiling, leaks of rain water, slimy residue on a conveyor belt, cockroaches dead and alive--and a sink that "was used interchangeably as a point for cleaning hands and utensils and washing out mops."
MOUNTAIN DIVISION IN LOWGAR MOUNTAINS Last week, CBS' Elizabeth Palmer was in Afghanistan to show us reinforcements from the USArmy's Tenth Mountain Division arrive in Kabul. Now ABC's Martha Raddatz takes a helicopter over frigid mountains to Camp Shank, the division's tent city in Lowgar Province. The soldiers' role will be to protect the Kabul-Kandahar highway from guerrilla attacks and criminal kidnappings. Raddatz explained that the troops' mission is similar to what it would have been in Iraq but the country "is far different, nearly twice the size and largely rural." President Barack Obama "may soon find that it is easier to get 25,000 additional troops into Afghanistan than it will be getting them out."
COLLECTING BACK PAY FROM RUSSIA Wednesday ABC's Brian Ross led with a spy story from Algeria. Now CBS' Bob Orr leads us through a trail of espionage that starts in a federal prison in Oregon and tracks through San Francisco, Mexico City, Lima and Cyprus. Orr recounted federal allegations against Harold Nicholson, once a high ranking official in the CIA, and his son Nathaniel. Nicholson was convicted of spying for Russia in 1997 and is serving a 23-year prison term. The allegation is that Russia still owed Nicholson money so he sent his son on a series of fake vacations to collect $35,000 in back pay. Both father and son could face a further 100 years behind bars if convicted. Orr's unnamed spook sources reassured him that only money--not "any new sensitive information"--was handed over.
ASIAN TIGERS DEFANGED Before the recession started, there was plenty of coverage of outsourcing of American jobs to China and India--manufacturing to China, service to India. Now NBC and ABC and NBC show the flipside in a shrinking economy. ABC's Gigi Stone was in New Jersey where firms such as Delta Airlines and Apple Computers, Dell, A&T and Netflix are bringing call centers home. Patriotism or nativism? "Are these companies really trying to benefit their customers? Or are they capitalizing on the fact that some are complaining because they are prejudiced against foreigners?"
For NBC's In Depth, Ian Williams wangled an invitation to celebrate the Year of the Ox in a rural village in Sichuan Province. Joining the feast were migrant workers returning home. During boom times the village's prosperity was built on remittances from its sons and daughters working in the manufacturing zones: "Officials say nearly 70,000 businesses have closed in the coastal regions that were China's export power house. They estimate that 10m migrants have already returned to the countryside they had left for a better life."
