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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 07, 2009
A trio of big stories shared the day's agenda. All three newscasts led with the final stop in the President's transAtlantic trip. Instead of returning home directly from Istanbul, he flew to Baghdad for a surprise inspection of the troops at Camp Victory. All three also filed follow-ups from Monday' Story of the Day, the earthquake in Italy's Abruzzo, where 225 are now dead. The Story of the Day was the acquittal of Ted Stevens, the Republican former Senator from Alaska. Judge Emmet Sullivan overturned last fall's conviction in a $250K graft case because of misconduct by the federal prosecutors. The Stevens case qualified as the day's #1 courtesy of CBS anchor Katie Couric, who filed an Exclusive interview with Attorney General Eric Holder on the embarrassment at the Justice Department.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR APRIL 07, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
WHO WILL PROSECUTE THE PROSECUTORS? A trio of big stories shared the day's agenda. All three newscasts led with the final stop in the President's transAtlantic trip. Instead of returning home directly from Istanbul, he flew to Baghdad for a surprise inspection of the troops at Camp Victory. All three also filed follow-ups from Monday' Story of the Day, the earthquake in Italy's Abruzzo, where 225 are now dead. The Story of the Day was the acquittal of Ted Stevens, the Republican former Senator from Alaska. Judge Emmet Sullivan overturned last fall's conviction in a $250K graft case because of misconduct by the federal prosecutors. The Stevens case qualified as the day's #1 courtesy of CBS anchor Katie Couric, who filed an Exclusive interview with Attorney General Eric Holder on the embarrassment at the Justice Department.
"In nearly 25 years on the bench I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and the misconduct that I have seen in this case." That was Judge Sullivan's rebuke as he appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Stevens' prosecutors had broken the law. ABC's Pierre Thomas called such an appointment "an extremely rare move" and CBS' Bob Orr called it "an extraordinary step." NBC's Pete Williams reported that the prosecution team had been accused of ten separate failures to handle evidence properly.
NBC's Williams outlined the prosecution's most egregious alleged failure. Bill Allen, the oil company executive who purportedly lined Stevens' pockets, testified at trial that he remembered discussing Stevens' request for an invoice for services rendered and dismissing it at the time as a joke. Prosecutors should have revealed that six months earlier Allen could remember no such conversation yet they kept Allen's selective memory secret from the defense team.
Attorney General Eric Holder sat down with CBS anchor Couric. The judge is suggesting that the Justice Department "dragged its feet looking into the misconduct," she charged. "I have only been Attorney General for a little over eight weeks now. I do not think that anybody can say that this department has dragged its feet."
EAST BY SOUTHEAST FROM ISTANBUL NBC had Richard Engel prepositioned in Baghdad for Barack Obama's trip to Iraq. The other two network's White House correspondents ,ABC's Jake Tapper and CBS' Bill Plante, taken by surprise by the secret trip eastwards were left to file in Istanbul. CBS actually had Chip Reid aboard Air Force One with the President. He voiced over footage of the "raucous troops" who greeted Obama in the rotunda of a palace built for former dictator Saddam Hussein as part of Plante's report. NBC's Engel called the troops "frenzied, excited, like a rock concert" with the biggest applause line coming when Obama promised to hand over military chores in Iraq to its own forces. ABC's Tapper noted that during Obama's trip to Turkey "a big topic" was to seek permission to use routes through Turkey as part of the military exit. Turkey "did not allow US troops to enter into Iraq through their country at the start," Tapper reminded us.
George Stephanopoulos, anchor of ABC's This Week, took the opportunity of this final stop to assess Obama's overall performance during his weeklong trip. Notwithstanding his lack of success on global G20 stimulus, on NATO troops for Afghanistan, or on United Nations opposition to North Korea's rocketry, Stephanopoulos gave the President a thumbs up for his confidence and sense of command: "When you have got American troops fighting on two fronts you have to end that visit with a strong visit with the troops. And he did." On NBC, Chuck Todd (as part of the Engel videostream) judged the "real accomplishment" of the trip to be Obama's "enhanced Presidential stature."
ALL I’VE GOT IS A PHOTOGRAPH Aftershocks in Abruzzo disrupted rescuers' efforts to find residents alive under the rubble from Monday morning's earthquake. CBS' Allen Pizzey showed the tremors "sending rescue workers fleeing the danger of falling debris" as a wall of an already-damaged ancient cathedral collapsed. ABC's Miguel Marquez offered some seismology. The fault line in the Apennine Mountains was nine miles long and five miles deep and moved the earth by 18 inches "a remarkable distance." NBC's Martin Fletcher achieved the human touch in the 1,000-year-old mountain village of Onna, population 300 on Sunday, now 260. "It is always sad in these situations when you find the family photographs," he showed us. "I suppose, hopefully, someone will come and reclaim this pretty soon. I shall just leave it here so they can find it as they come." Later, "as it turns out they died too."
EXPECTING A CENSUS UNDERCOUNT NBC filed a feature on the Census Bureau's preparations of the 2010 count and assigned Jose Diaz-Balart of its sibling network Telemundo to fill in the details from Florida. Where is the census most likely to fail? "There are entire communities in this country that fear the United States government," Diaz-Balart told us--and he was not talking about libertarian survivalists or marijuana farmers. "Getting them to answer questions is not going to be easy, especially in communities where illegal immigrants have been subject to frequent raids and deportations."
EASIER THAN NARCOTICS, ALMOST AS DANGEROUS AS TERRORISM The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jim Avila announced on ABC, has now elevated real estate fraud to its second most important law enforcement priority, behind only counterterrorism. Avila cited an estimate by the Center for Responsible Lending that any time a fraud causes a home foreclosure, it costs that home's neighbors an average of $8,600 in eroded asset values. Avila narrated footage from San Diego of two dozen arrests in an alleged scam that caused 220 such foreclosures. He described an example: a home with a $499K purchase price would be appraised by a conspirator at a value of $600K; based on the appraisal, the buyer, also a conspirator, would apply for a no-downpayment $600K mortgage; upon receiving the loan the house would be abandoned and the $101K pocketed. "Real estate scams are more profitable than selling drugs," the alleged gang leader is said to have told the feds.
GOOFY INSPIRES GIGGLES "It is kind of goofy looking. Can you pick up girls with this car?" ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi flirted, digital camcorder in hand, as she enjoyed a spin in a Puma USV. "Well you are here," grinned the driver. Alfonsi giggled. Puma is a two-wheeled micro-car, "the love child of Segway and General Motors." It is powered by a lithium battery, seats two with no luggage, has a top speed of 35 mph, will cost $6,000 and is planned to be on sale in four years. Being the anti-SUV, USV stands for Ultra Small Vehicle.
DEATH BY F-16 PLAN FAILS ABC's Ryan Owens told us the sad tale of Adam Leon, a 31-year-old mental patient from Ontario, who apparently wanted to commit suicide but did not have the courage to do it himself. His plan was to get blown out of the sky by the United States Air Force. He borrowed a Cessna and with "no flight plan, no explanation" flew across Lake Superior into US airspace. Sure enough F-16 fighter jets intercepted the small plane--but held their fire. Some five hours later, almost out of fuel, the plane touched down on a rural highway in Missouri. No harm done.
PUBLISHERS’ PUBLICITY Book promotion was on the agenda at both CBS and NBC. Amy Robach dug out Beijing Olympics archive videotape from the NBC vault to illustrate her profile of Dara Torres, the 41-year-old swimmer. Torres was ostensibly making news by announcing that her decision to retire from Olympic competition--"No this is it. This is definitely it"--was not irreversible, looking forward to London 2012. Her authentic motive for granting the interview was presumably to boost sales of her memoir Age is Just a Number.
CBS anchor Katie Couric, who had a busy day counting the Eric Holder interview, also dug up archive videotape from NBC News as she promoted the book No Right to Remain Silent by Lucinda Roy. Professor Roy teaches English at Virginia Tech University--or she does not. Couric called her a "former professor" at the start of her report and said she "may have put her career there in jeopardy" at its conclusion. Anyway, in her book Roy recounts the contacts she made to four different campus departments registering concern about Seung-Hui Cho, the suicidal student who killed 32 others in a shooting rampage when he took his own life two years ago. After Roy's intervention, Cho received help from an off-campus mental healthcare facility and voluntarily contacted an on-campus clinic. "Records of any treatment he may have had there are missing," Couric reported. Cho went ahead with his killings anyway. The NBC footage Couric aired was a clip from the video suicide note Cho mailed to that network on the morning of the massacre.
"In nearly 25 years on the bench I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and the misconduct that I have seen in this case." That was Judge Sullivan's rebuke as he appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Stevens' prosecutors had broken the law. ABC's Pierre Thomas called such an appointment "an extremely rare move" and CBS' Bob Orr called it "an extraordinary step." NBC's Pete Williams reported that the prosecution team had been accused of ten separate failures to handle evidence properly.
NBC's Williams outlined the prosecution's most egregious alleged failure. Bill Allen, the oil company executive who purportedly lined Stevens' pockets, testified at trial that he remembered discussing Stevens' request for an invoice for services rendered and dismissing it at the time as a joke. Prosecutors should have revealed that six months earlier Allen could remember no such conversation yet they kept Allen's selective memory secret from the defense team.
Attorney General Eric Holder sat down with CBS anchor Couric. The judge is suggesting that the Justice Department "dragged its feet looking into the misconduct," she charged. "I have only been Attorney General for a little over eight weeks now. I do not think that anybody can say that this department has dragged its feet."
EAST BY SOUTHEAST FROM ISTANBUL NBC had Richard Engel prepositioned in Baghdad for Barack Obama's trip to Iraq. The other two network's White House correspondents ,ABC's Jake Tapper and CBS' Bill Plante, taken by surprise by the secret trip eastwards were left to file in Istanbul. CBS actually had Chip Reid aboard Air Force One with the President. He voiced over footage of the "raucous troops" who greeted Obama in the rotunda of a palace built for former dictator Saddam Hussein as part of Plante's report. NBC's Engel called the troops "frenzied, excited, like a rock concert" with the biggest applause line coming when Obama promised to hand over military chores in Iraq to its own forces. ABC's Tapper noted that during Obama's trip to Turkey "a big topic" was to seek permission to use routes through Turkey as part of the military exit. Turkey "did not allow US troops to enter into Iraq through their country at the start," Tapper reminded us.
George Stephanopoulos, anchor of ABC's This Week, took the opportunity of this final stop to assess Obama's overall performance during his weeklong trip. Notwithstanding his lack of success on global G20 stimulus, on NATO troops for Afghanistan, or on United Nations opposition to North Korea's rocketry, Stephanopoulos gave the President a thumbs up for his confidence and sense of command: "When you have got American troops fighting on two fronts you have to end that visit with a strong visit with the troops. And he did." On NBC, Chuck Todd (as part of the Engel videostream) judged the "real accomplishment" of the trip to be Obama's "enhanced Presidential stature."
ALL I’VE GOT IS A PHOTOGRAPH Aftershocks in Abruzzo disrupted rescuers' efforts to find residents alive under the rubble from Monday morning's earthquake. CBS' Allen Pizzey showed the tremors "sending rescue workers fleeing the danger of falling debris" as a wall of an already-damaged ancient cathedral collapsed. ABC's Miguel Marquez offered some seismology. The fault line in the Apennine Mountains was nine miles long and five miles deep and moved the earth by 18 inches "a remarkable distance." NBC's Martin Fletcher achieved the human touch in the 1,000-year-old mountain village of Onna, population 300 on Sunday, now 260. "It is always sad in these situations when you find the family photographs," he showed us. "I suppose, hopefully, someone will come and reclaim this pretty soon. I shall just leave it here so they can find it as they come." Later, "as it turns out they died too."
EXPECTING A CENSUS UNDERCOUNT NBC filed a feature on the Census Bureau's preparations of the 2010 count and assigned Jose Diaz-Balart of its sibling network Telemundo to fill in the details from Florida. Where is the census most likely to fail? "There are entire communities in this country that fear the United States government," Diaz-Balart told us--and he was not talking about libertarian survivalists or marijuana farmers. "Getting them to answer questions is not going to be easy, especially in communities where illegal immigrants have been subject to frequent raids and deportations."
EASIER THAN NARCOTICS, ALMOST AS DANGEROUS AS TERRORISM The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jim Avila announced on ABC, has now elevated real estate fraud to its second most important law enforcement priority, behind only counterterrorism. Avila cited an estimate by the Center for Responsible Lending that any time a fraud causes a home foreclosure, it costs that home's neighbors an average of $8,600 in eroded asset values. Avila narrated footage from San Diego of two dozen arrests in an alleged scam that caused 220 such foreclosures. He described an example: a home with a $499K purchase price would be appraised by a conspirator at a value of $600K; based on the appraisal, the buyer, also a conspirator, would apply for a no-downpayment $600K mortgage; upon receiving the loan the house would be abandoned and the $101K pocketed. "Real estate scams are more profitable than selling drugs," the alleged gang leader is said to have told the feds.
GOOFY INSPIRES GIGGLES "It is kind of goofy looking. Can you pick up girls with this car?" ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi flirted, digital camcorder in hand, as she enjoyed a spin in a Puma USV. "Well you are here," grinned the driver. Alfonsi giggled. Puma is a two-wheeled micro-car, "the love child of Segway and General Motors." It is powered by a lithium battery, seats two with no luggage, has a top speed of 35 mph, will cost $6,000 and is planned to be on sale in four years. Being the anti-SUV, USV stands for Ultra Small Vehicle.
DEATH BY F-16 PLAN FAILS ABC's Ryan Owens told us the sad tale of Adam Leon, a 31-year-old mental patient from Ontario, who apparently wanted to commit suicide but did not have the courage to do it himself. His plan was to get blown out of the sky by the United States Air Force. He borrowed a Cessna and with "no flight plan, no explanation" flew across Lake Superior into US airspace. Sure enough F-16 fighter jets intercepted the small plane--but held their fire. Some five hours later, almost out of fuel, the plane touched down on a rural highway in Missouri. No harm done.
PUBLISHERS’ PUBLICITY Book promotion was on the agenda at both CBS and NBC. Amy Robach dug out Beijing Olympics archive videotape from the NBC vault to illustrate her profile of Dara Torres, the 41-year-old swimmer. Torres was ostensibly making news by announcing that her decision to retire from Olympic competition--"No this is it. This is definitely it"--was not irreversible, looking forward to London 2012. Her authentic motive for granting the interview was presumably to boost sales of her memoir Age is Just a Number.
CBS anchor Katie Couric, who had a busy day counting the Eric Holder interview, also dug up archive videotape from NBC News as she promoted the book No Right to Remain Silent by Lucinda Roy. Professor Roy teaches English at Virginia Tech University--or she does not. Couric called her a "former professor" at the start of her report and said she "may have put her career there in jeopardy" at its conclusion. Anyway, in her book Roy recounts the contacts she made to four different campus departments registering concern about Seung-Hui Cho, the suicidal student who killed 32 others in a shooting rampage when he took his own life two years ago. After Roy's intervention, Cho received help from an off-campus mental healthcare facility and voluntarily contacted an on-campus clinic. "Records of any treatment he may have had there are missing," Couric reported. Cho went ahead with his killings anyway. The NBC footage Couric aired was a clip from the video suicide note Cho mailed to that network on the morning of the massacre.
