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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JUNE 08, 2009
There was no unanimity about the day's news agenda. The three newscasts each led with a different story. ABC chose breaking news, as the Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of Chrysler's bankruptcy plan to merge with Italy's Fiat. CBS took the White House's lead, starting with Barack Obama's quest to accelerate federal stimulus spending. NBC followed up on last week's news, with worries about the safety of hundreds of Airbus jetliners in the wake of the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean. The Air France story qualified as Story of the Day. ABC anchored its newscast from Boston as Charles Gibson landed a field trip to Fenway Park.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JUNE 08, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
AIRBUS WORRIES EDGE OUT CHRYSLER’S FIAT FATE There was no unanimity about the day's news agenda. The three newscasts each led with a different story. ABC chose breaking news, as the Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of Chrysler's bankruptcy plan to merge with Italy's Fiat. CBS took the White House's lead, starting with Barack Obama's quest to accelerate federal stimulus spending. NBC followed up on last week's news, with worries about the safety of hundreds of Airbus jetliners in the wake of the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean. The Air France story qualified as Story of the Day. ABC anchored its newscast from Boston as Charles Gibson landed a field trip to Fenway Park.
NBC's Tom Costello chose Airbus safety for his Air France 447 angle. CBS' Armen Keteyian selected the recovery of 24 corpses from the ocean. ABC's Lisa Stark focused on the underwater search for the flight data recorders. Stark told us that a "wind and wave model" has been developed to work backwards from the current location of the debris to pinpoint where the jetliner entered the water one week ago. CBS' Keteyian walked us through the forensic procedures: each recovered body will be located according to the plane's seating chart and checked section-by-section for "burns, broken bones or concussions. Autopsies will reveal whether the victims died instantly in the air or drowned in the ocean, helping investigators determine whether the plane blew up, broke apart in the sky or on impact."
NBC's Costello told us that almost 1,000 Airbus jetliners worldwide are equipped with the same Pitot tube airspeed instruments that may have failed in Air France's fatal flight. He cited "one early theory" that the tubes iced over, sending inaccurate speed data to the plane's computers that confused the pilots. "Airbus urged that they be replaced nearly two years ago" yet "Air France only started in April." The pilots' union has now told its members not to fly Airbus 330s or 340s until the replacement has been made.
FIAT-CHRYSLER BLOCK IS BIG DEAL--OR NOT It was not clear whether the delay to the Fiat-Chrysler merger plan was newsworthy or not. ABC treated it as big news, assigning its lead item to Chris Bury to cover the lawsuit by three Indiana pension funds against Chrysler's bankruptcy reorganization. The lawsuit has "enormous consequences," Bury claimed, because "what happens in this case is important not only to Chrysler but also to General Motors." On CBS, Anthony Mason (no link) warned that "if this deal is not closed by June 15th--which is only one week from today--Fiat does have the right to back out and Chrysler maintains if it loses Fiat then the only alternative for the company would be liquidation."
On the other hand, the Supreme Court's decision to halt the merger may be no big deal. NBC's Pete Williams called it "a temporary hold," which "probably just means the Justices want more time to think it over." Williams' fellow Courtwatcher, Jan Crawford Greenburg at ABC, had the same take: "The key word is temporary," she emphasized. "This is really the safest course of action…There are hundreds of pages of briefs for the Justices to read."
NEW HIRES OVERWHELMED BY OLD LAYOFFS The President's habitual success at setting each day's news agenda misfired this time. Only CBS picked up on Barack Obama's announcement of a 100-day jobs program. The White House claimed that such accelerated federal spending would lead to 600,000 new hires--jobs in highway and airport infrastructure, law enforcement, the national parks and summer work for teenagers. CBS' Chip Reid explained the skepticism in the face of such fanfare. During the first 100 days of stimulus, the White House claims to have created 150,000 new jobs--yet in that period the ranks of the unemployed swelled by 1.5m.
AFTER DEFEAT, JOIN THE VICTOR’S COALITION Only ABC sent a correspondent to Beirut to cover the results of Lebanon's parliamentary vote. "An American ally" prevailed, Simon McGregor-Wood announced, calling it a "surprise election victory." The coalition led by Rafiq Hariri, the son of an assassinated prime minister, defeated a rival "Iranian and Syrian backed" slate led by Nassan Hasrallah of Hezbollah. Yet even after that defeat, the new government may include Hezbollah anyway.
TAPPER TELLS TALE OF TORTURE While White House correspondent Jake Tapper was in Paris covering Barack Obama's trip to commemorate D-Day, he landed a dynamite interview with Lakhdar Boumediene. Boumediene, a native Algerian, was a worker at the Red Crescent charity in Sarajevo in 2001. At the time, Bosnian authorities were investigating a suspected bomb conspiracy targeting the city's Embassy Row. They detained Boumediene for questioning and released him for lack of evidence.
Then Boumediene's tale of woe began. He was seized by the US military, shackled and hooded, flown to Cuba and imprisoned in the Guantanamo Bay internment camp. Boumediene told Tapper that he was interrogated--but never about the alleged Sarajevo conspiracy: "Instead they demanded information he did not have about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda." Asked Tapper: "Do you think that you were tortured?" "I do not think. I am sure."
He was imprisoned without trial for seven years. He recounted abuses including being forced to stay awake for 16 straight days. He was ordered released by a federal judge last November. He arrived in Paris last month "in very poor health" having lost 40 lbs in weight. ABC asked the Pentagon for its side of the story and was given this opaque statement: "All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated." We were not told whether or not Boumediene's story falls into that "credible" category or, if so, what the results of that thorough investigation might have been.
GORE MAY BE SENT TO HELP LING & LEE Only two stories had been filed on a nightly newscast--by NBC's Pete Williams and ABC's Bob Woodruff--about the plight of Current TV's pair of jailed journalists before they were convicted and sentenced. Now a correspondent from all three networks tells us about the twelve years of hard labor facing Lisa Ling and Euna Lee. They were found guilty of violating North Korean territory along its border with the People's Republic of China. ABC's David Wright told us that North Korea is known to operate six different prison camps. Their conditions are "downright appalling--but some camps are said to give special treatment for high-ranking prisoners."
CBS' David Martin called the sentence "harsher than expected…in the past three months the North Koreans have seemed bent on confrontation with the new Obama Administration." NBC's Andrea Mitchell had a different explanation: "Pyongyang is focused on border security and keeping foreign journalists out as it deals with an internal power struggle." She reported that "the ailing dictator" Kim Jong Il has designated his youngest son Kim Jong Un as his successor.
CBS' Martin reminded us that North Korea has released past American prisoners in response to the dispatch of a special envoy. Current TV was co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore. "He has a personal interest here," ABC's Wright pointed out. "He stands ready," stated NBC's Mitchell.
MOBILE DOPPLERS CHASE WEATHERPORN A bonus for NBC News arising from its parent company's purchase of cable TV's Weather Channel is a ready supply of weatherporn. NBC showcased some early examples from Weather Channel's Vortex2. The $12m stormchasing project has deployed 100 meteorologists and ten mobile Doppler radar systems for five weeks across nine states of the great plains, trying to get up close and personal with tornadoes. The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes filed a progress report from Saline County in Kansas.
GIBSON’S LAME EXCUSE ABC anchor Charles Gibson has already wangled a guided tour of the old Yankee Stadium when it closed last fall and the new Yankee Stadium when it opened this spring. His trip to Boston to show us the nooks and crannies of Fenway Park--including a peek behind the Green Monster scoreboard--provides some balance. Yet Gibson's pretext for taking an afternoon off at the ballpark was just laughable: it was "another trip looking at how the economy affects various parts of the country." Way to cover the recession, Charlie!
On his World Newser blog, even Gibson could not keep a straight face. He called the junket "the biggest perk of the job."
DISNEY IMPOSES ROYALTY ON THE REPUBLIC CBS closed with free publicity for a corporate sibling of its rivals at ABC. The Princess and the Frog will be the next animated movie from Disney to feature a royal girl, Michelle Miller told us, slated for release before Christmas. Princess Tiana paraphernalia goes on sale this fall. Since the original Snow White--who happened to be Caucasian--Miller reminded us that Disney's princesses have been a multicultural bunch. Pocahontas was Native-American…Jasmine was Arab…Mulan was Chinese. Tiana's amphibian love interest turns out to be a Brazilian prince and Tiana herself has dark skin. Miller predicted that "the fairest of them all will be African-American" yet did not explain how royalty belongs in this country. She concentrated on Tiana's negritude instead: "Disney's past productions have drawn criticism for racial stereotypes."
NBC's Tom Costello chose Airbus safety for his Air France 447 angle. CBS' Armen Keteyian selected the recovery of 24 corpses from the ocean. ABC's Lisa Stark focused on the underwater search for the flight data recorders. Stark told us that a "wind and wave model" has been developed to work backwards from the current location of the debris to pinpoint where the jetliner entered the water one week ago. CBS' Keteyian walked us through the forensic procedures: each recovered body will be located according to the plane's seating chart and checked section-by-section for "burns, broken bones or concussions. Autopsies will reveal whether the victims died instantly in the air or drowned in the ocean, helping investigators determine whether the plane blew up, broke apart in the sky or on impact."
NBC's Costello told us that almost 1,000 Airbus jetliners worldwide are equipped with the same Pitot tube airspeed instruments that may have failed in Air France's fatal flight. He cited "one early theory" that the tubes iced over, sending inaccurate speed data to the plane's computers that confused the pilots. "Airbus urged that they be replaced nearly two years ago" yet "Air France only started in April." The pilots' union has now told its members not to fly Airbus 330s or 340s until the replacement has been made.
FIAT-CHRYSLER BLOCK IS BIG DEAL--OR NOT It was not clear whether the delay to the Fiat-Chrysler merger plan was newsworthy or not. ABC treated it as big news, assigning its lead item to Chris Bury to cover the lawsuit by three Indiana pension funds against Chrysler's bankruptcy reorganization. The lawsuit has "enormous consequences," Bury claimed, because "what happens in this case is important not only to Chrysler but also to General Motors." On CBS, Anthony Mason (no link) warned that "if this deal is not closed by June 15th--which is only one week from today--Fiat does have the right to back out and Chrysler maintains if it loses Fiat then the only alternative for the company would be liquidation."
On the other hand, the Supreme Court's decision to halt the merger may be no big deal. NBC's Pete Williams called it "a temporary hold," which "probably just means the Justices want more time to think it over." Williams' fellow Courtwatcher, Jan Crawford Greenburg at ABC, had the same take: "The key word is temporary," she emphasized. "This is really the safest course of action…There are hundreds of pages of briefs for the Justices to read."
NEW HIRES OVERWHELMED BY OLD LAYOFFS The President's habitual success at setting each day's news agenda misfired this time. Only CBS picked up on Barack Obama's announcement of a 100-day jobs program. The White House claimed that such accelerated federal spending would lead to 600,000 new hires--jobs in highway and airport infrastructure, law enforcement, the national parks and summer work for teenagers. CBS' Chip Reid explained the skepticism in the face of such fanfare. During the first 100 days of stimulus, the White House claims to have created 150,000 new jobs--yet in that period the ranks of the unemployed swelled by 1.5m.
AFTER DEFEAT, JOIN THE VICTOR’S COALITION Only ABC sent a correspondent to Beirut to cover the results of Lebanon's parliamentary vote. "An American ally" prevailed, Simon McGregor-Wood announced, calling it a "surprise election victory." The coalition led by Rafiq Hariri, the son of an assassinated prime minister, defeated a rival "Iranian and Syrian backed" slate led by Nassan Hasrallah of Hezbollah. Yet even after that defeat, the new government may include Hezbollah anyway.
TAPPER TELLS TALE OF TORTURE While White House correspondent Jake Tapper was in Paris covering Barack Obama's trip to commemorate D-Day, he landed a dynamite interview with Lakhdar Boumediene. Boumediene, a native Algerian, was a worker at the Red Crescent charity in Sarajevo in 2001. At the time, Bosnian authorities were investigating a suspected bomb conspiracy targeting the city's Embassy Row. They detained Boumediene for questioning and released him for lack of evidence.
Then Boumediene's tale of woe began. He was seized by the US military, shackled and hooded, flown to Cuba and imprisoned in the Guantanamo Bay internment camp. Boumediene told Tapper that he was interrogated--but never about the alleged Sarajevo conspiracy: "Instead they demanded information he did not have about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda." Asked Tapper: "Do you think that you were tortured?" "I do not think. I am sure."
He was imprisoned without trial for seven years. He recounted abuses including being forced to stay awake for 16 straight days. He was ordered released by a federal judge last November. He arrived in Paris last month "in very poor health" having lost 40 lbs in weight. ABC asked the Pentagon for its side of the story and was given this opaque statement: "All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated." We were not told whether or not Boumediene's story falls into that "credible" category or, if so, what the results of that thorough investigation might have been.
GORE MAY BE SENT TO HELP LING & LEE Only two stories had been filed on a nightly newscast--by NBC's Pete Williams and ABC's Bob Woodruff--about the plight of Current TV's pair of jailed journalists before they were convicted and sentenced. Now a correspondent from all three networks tells us about the twelve years of hard labor facing Lisa Ling and Euna Lee. They were found guilty of violating North Korean territory along its border with the People's Republic of China. ABC's David Wright told us that North Korea is known to operate six different prison camps. Their conditions are "downright appalling--but some camps are said to give special treatment for high-ranking prisoners."
CBS' David Martin called the sentence "harsher than expected…in the past three months the North Koreans have seemed bent on confrontation with the new Obama Administration." NBC's Andrea Mitchell had a different explanation: "Pyongyang is focused on border security and keeping foreign journalists out as it deals with an internal power struggle." She reported that "the ailing dictator" Kim Jong Il has designated his youngest son Kim Jong Un as his successor.
CBS' Martin reminded us that North Korea has released past American prisoners in response to the dispatch of a special envoy. Current TV was co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore. "He has a personal interest here," ABC's Wright pointed out. "He stands ready," stated NBC's Mitchell.
MOBILE DOPPLERS CHASE WEATHERPORN A bonus for NBC News arising from its parent company's purchase of cable TV's Weather Channel is a ready supply of weatherporn. NBC showcased some early examples from Weather Channel's Vortex2. The $12m stormchasing project has deployed 100 meteorologists and ten mobile Doppler radar systems for five weeks across nine states of the great plains, trying to get up close and personal with tornadoes. The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes filed a progress report from Saline County in Kansas.
GIBSON’S LAME EXCUSE ABC anchor Charles Gibson has already wangled a guided tour of the old Yankee Stadium when it closed last fall and the new Yankee Stadium when it opened this spring. His trip to Boston to show us the nooks and crannies of Fenway Park--including a peek behind the Green Monster scoreboard--provides some balance. Yet Gibson's pretext for taking an afternoon off at the ballpark was just laughable: it was "another trip looking at how the economy affects various parts of the country." Way to cover the recession, Charlie!
On his World Newser blog, even Gibson could not keep a straight face. He called the junket "the biggest perk of the job."
DISNEY IMPOSES ROYALTY ON THE REPUBLIC CBS closed with free publicity for a corporate sibling of its rivals at ABC. The Princess and the Frog will be the next animated movie from Disney to feature a royal girl, Michelle Miller told us, slated for release before Christmas. Princess Tiana paraphernalia goes on sale this fall. Since the original Snow White--who happened to be Caucasian--Miller reminded us that Disney's princesses have been a multicultural bunch. Pocahontas was Native-American…Jasmine was Arab…Mulan was Chinese. Tiana's amphibian love interest turns out to be a Brazilian prince and Tiana herself has dark skin. Miller predicted that "the fairest of them all will be African-American" yet did not explain how royalty belongs in this country. She concentrated on Tiana's negritude instead: "Disney's past productions have drawn criticism for racial stereotypes."
