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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 06, 2009
A very heavy day of news saw a mixture of superpower diplomacy, domestic politics and an historic obituary. President Barack Obama was in Moscow, negotiating reductions in nuclear weaponry. Sarah Palin was in Alaska, facing fallout from her surprise resignation. Robert McNamara was dead, the architect of the United States' defeat in Vietnam. Yet, thanks to the warped news judgment of CBS, the Story of the Day turned out to be continuing coverage of the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death. Anchor Katie Couric jetted to Los Angeles ahead of Tuesday's memorial for the pop singer. She decided to devote fully two-thirds of her newscast (13 min v ABC 3, NBC 3) to celebrity trivia. NBC and ABC kept their heads, deciding properly, that Russia-US diplomacy should lead their newscasts.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JULY 06, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CBS’ JUDGMENT GOES AWRY--WACKO FOR JACKO A very heavy day of news saw a mixture of superpower diplomacy, domestic politics and an historic obituary. President Barack Obama was in Moscow, negotiating reductions in nuclear weaponry. Sarah Palin was in Alaska, facing fallout from her surprise resignation. Robert McNamara was dead, the architect of the United States' defeat in Vietnam. Yet, thanks to the warped news judgment of CBS, the Story of the Day turned out to be continuing coverage of the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death. Anchor Katie Couric jetted to Los Angeles ahead of Tuesday's memorial for the pop singer. She decided to devote fully two-thirds of her newscast (13 min v ABC 3, NBC 3) to celebrity trivia. NBC and ABC kept their heads, deciding properly, that Russia-US diplomacy should lead their newscasts.
White House correspondents Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper, respectively, led off the newscasts for NBC and ABC from Moscow, where Obama and his counterpart Dmitri Medvedev signed an agreement to renew and extend the START agreement. NBC's Todd predicted mutual cuts in nuclear warheads from 2,200 to around 1,600 and elimination of up to one third of the long range missiles designed to carry them. ABC's Tapper noted that these actions were intended to act as an example, aimed at "curbing nuclear proliferation around the globe," specifically in Iran and North Korea.
Medvedev and Obama agreed to increase their cooperation over logistics for the war in Afghanistan but failed to agree over the role of Russian troops in Georgia and a NATO missile defense in eastern Europe. For NBC's In Depth, Jim Maceda contrasted Medvedev, who "can hobnob with influential leaders" with Vladimir Putin, his predecessor and current prime minister. Putin has "morphed into more roles than a Hollywood star, from President Boris Yeltsin's shy obedient Yes Man, to the imperious leader, the action man, bomber pilot, artist." It is the populist Putin, Maceda suggested, who "pulls all of the levers behind the scenes."
Clarissa Ward landed a trip for ABC to a Kremlin-sponsored summer camp in the countryside near Seliger where "thousands of young people from across the country enjoy outdoor activities and are schooled in Russian nationalism." The youth calisthenics looked a little Aryan, to say the least. Let's just say the Ward's blond looks helped her fit in. This is how she covered anti-Asiatic skinhead gangs from Moscow in February.
URUMQI IS NO TEHERAN The day's other major overseas story concerned the ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang Province. NBC's Beijing-based Ian Williams narrated videotape of deadly clashes between Uighurs, a Moslem minority in western China, and Han Chinese. State TV news showed security forces battling protestors in the streets of Urumqi, the provincial capital. More than 150, mostly Han, have been killed. "Officials blamed Moslem separatists…Exile groups blame a police crackdown against the peaceful protests of Uighurs." Chinese authorities have cut communications, including Internet and mobile phone services. Yet the Moslems of Urumqi found little journalistic enthusiasm for circumventing censorship, unlike the Moslems of Teheran two weeks ago.
PALIN’S GONE FISHIN’ The bombshell story that kicked off the holiday weekend was Sarah Palin's resignation as Governor of Alaska. None of the three newscasts could resist a follow-up so all three sent a correspondent to Wasilla, Palin's hometown, where she was once mayor. CBS' Terry McCarthy, in his first story for that network since switching from ABC, could not find her: "Palin has essentially vanished." His former colleague Kate Snow, taking A Closer Look for ABC, solved the riddle: "Gone fishing." The governor did leave an electronic trail…her "only comments since Friday have been on social networking sites," said Snow…"Palin has communicated with brief Internet messages on Twitter and Facebook," McCarthy pointed out…"Palin is fighting back through friends and advisors and tweets," noted NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
All three correspondents quoted one piece of damage control. The FBI formally announced that Palin is not the target of a criminal investigation. NBC's Mitchell pointed to a series of political defeats for Palin in "battle after battle with the state legislature." CBS' McCarthy mentioned the 15 ethics complaints filed against the governor, "which friends say wore her down" even though she was exonerated in 13 of them. McCarthy repeated Palin's claim that the complaints cost the state of Alaska $2m to investigate. ABC's Snow mentioned the $2m figure as a fact not a claim.
ABC's Snow reported that the Palins are $500,000 in debt and that they have received offers of income from television, radio and the speaking circuit. As NBC's Mitchell put it: "Taking her fight elsewhere could make Palin a very rich woman indeed with her book deal, with speeches, possibly a talkshow. It is a long way from Wasilla."
NOT A WAR CRIMINAL McNamara's War was the nickname for the Vietnam conflict that NBC anchor Brian Williams and ABC anchor Charles Gibson quoted in their obituary for that era's Secretary of Defense. "He became the architect of the Vietnam War," was the way CBS' David Martin put it in his for Robert McNamara, aged 93. NBC's Williams used John Kennedy's quote that McNamara was "the smartest man he ever met" and CBS' Martin called him "the best and the brightest of John Kennedy's New Frontier." ABC's Gibson acknowledged the "extraordinary accomplishments" of running the World Bank and modernizing Ford Motors. Yet he returned to that epitaph: "Everything is overshadowed by Vietnam."
Both ABC and NBC included a plug for Errol Morris' documentary on the dead man. In Fog of War, McNamara admitted he would have been tried as a war criminal for his fire bombing of civilians during World War II--would have, that is, if Japan had been victorious.
GAFFNEY SC, MASS MURDER CAPITAL A ten-day-long local crime story in South Carolina achieved enough notoriety to attract a pair of network correspondents. Over the past ten days, five residents of Gaffney SC have been murdered, all apparently by the same man. ABC's Jeffrey Kofman took the Paradise Disturbed angle: "There was a time in smalltown America when doors were never locked and strangers were welcome." The flaw in Kofman's premise soon emerged as he contradicted it in his own report. Gaffney was not immune from murder--back in 1968 there had been a similar killing spree. Either CBS' Mark Strassmann filed later than Kofman or he had better sources. While Kofman was telling us about a town gripped by fear, Strassmann told us that the likely suspect had already been killed by police in North Carolina.
CBS’ “AVALANCHE OF COVERAGE” Bill Whitaker at CBS tried manfully to vindicate his network's decision to treat the Michael Jackson as major news. He covered the routine decision by a probate court to grant control of the pop star's estate to the executors of his will. "Another battle," hyped Whitaker, "attorneys duking it out over who controls Jackson's fame and fortune." That is not how the other two newscasts saw the court hearing. ABC's Jim Avila called it a "skirmish" while on NBC it was nothing more than a "debate" as far as Lee Cowan was concerned.
Ben Tracy was the second arrow in CBS' quiver to keep the Jackson story in the bullseye. He covered the police beat, repeating reports that investigators are "focusing on five doctors who may have been prescribing drugs for the singer. Some of the drugs found reportedly did not have labels or used an alias."
Third was Jeff Glor, taking the municipal angle. He asked how the City of Los Angeles could afford to police the environs of the Staples Center where the memorial concert would be held. "It is an awful time for the city," Glor stated, referring to its fiscal state rather than its bereavement. "The city right now is $500m in debt if you can believe it." The cost of police, sanitation and crowd control might add $2m more in red ink, he estimated.
Fourth, Jeff Greenfield (no link) was diverted from his normal political beat to file a thumbsucker. "Why?" he mused. "Why the lines a half mile long, the spontaneous memorials, the explosion of online tributes?" He checked off explanations about Jackson's talent and the emotional attachment of fans and fascination with his dysfunctional personal life. Then he turned to navel gazing: "Finally there is us. The avalanche of coverage has a message beyond the story. It tells the world that this is a matter of enormous weight." The easy remedy for that, of course, would be for CBS to cover Jackson with the lack of attention he deserves, just like ABC and NBC are doing.
All three newscasts did agree that the preparations for the Staples Center memorial were newsworthy. An online lottery gave away 11,000 free tickets to fans. CBS' Katie Couric, anchoring from outside the Staples Center, called the plastic golden bracelet given to ticketholders "the most envied piece of jewelry in Los Angeles." ABC's Avila ticked off headline performers scheduled to appear: Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, Lionel Richie, Usher, Stevie Wonder. NBC's Cowan promised a "star-studded goodbye."
White House correspondents Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper, respectively, led off the newscasts for NBC and ABC from Moscow, where Obama and his counterpart Dmitri Medvedev signed an agreement to renew and extend the START agreement. NBC's Todd predicted mutual cuts in nuclear warheads from 2,200 to around 1,600 and elimination of up to one third of the long range missiles designed to carry them. ABC's Tapper noted that these actions were intended to act as an example, aimed at "curbing nuclear proliferation around the globe," specifically in Iran and North Korea.
Medvedev and Obama agreed to increase their cooperation over logistics for the war in Afghanistan but failed to agree over the role of Russian troops in Georgia and a NATO missile defense in eastern Europe. For NBC's In Depth, Jim Maceda contrasted Medvedev, who "can hobnob with influential leaders" with Vladimir Putin, his predecessor and current prime minister. Putin has "morphed into more roles than a Hollywood star, from President Boris Yeltsin's shy obedient Yes Man, to the imperious leader, the action man, bomber pilot, artist." It is the populist Putin, Maceda suggested, who "pulls all of the levers behind the scenes."
Clarissa Ward landed a trip for ABC to a Kremlin-sponsored summer camp in the countryside near Seliger where "thousands of young people from across the country enjoy outdoor activities and are schooled in Russian nationalism." The youth calisthenics looked a little Aryan, to say the least. Let's just say the Ward's blond looks helped her fit in. This is how she covered anti-Asiatic skinhead gangs from Moscow in February.
URUMQI IS NO TEHERAN The day's other major overseas story concerned the ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang Province. NBC's Beijing-based Ian Williams narrated videotape of deadly clashes between Uighurs, a Moslem minority in western China, and Han Chinese. State TV news showed security forces battling protestors in the streets of Urumqi, the provincial capital. More than 150, mostly Han, have been killed. "Officials blamed Moslem separatists…Exile groups blame a police crackdown against the peaceful protests of Uighurs." Chinese authorities have cut communications, including Internet and mobile phone services. Yet the Moslems of Urumqi found little journalistic enthusiasm for circumventing censorship, unlike the Moslems of Teheran two weeks ago.
PALIN’S GONE FISHIN’ The bombshell story that kicked off the holiday weekend was Sarah Palin's resignation as Governor of Alaska. None of the three newscasts could resist a follow-up so all three sent a correspondent to Wasilla, Palin's hometown, where she was once mayor. CBS' Terry McCarthy, in his first story for that network since switching from ABC, could not find her: "Palin has essentially vanished." His former colleague Kate Snow, taking A Closer Look for ABC, solved the riddle: "Gone fishing." The governor did leave an electronic trail…her "only comments since Friday have been on social networking sites," said Snow…"Palin has communicated with brief Internet messages on Twitter and Facebook," McCarthy pointed out…"Palin is fighting back through friends and advisors and tweets," noted NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
All three correspondents quoted one piece of damage control. The FBI formally announced that Palin is not the target of a criminal investigation. NBC's Mitchell pointed to a series of political defeats for Palin in "battle after battle with the state legislature." CBS' McCarthy mentioned the 15 ethics complaints filed against the governor, "which friends say wore her down" even though she was exonerated in 13 of them. McCarthy repeated Palin's claim that the complaints cost the state of Alaska $2m to investigate. ABC's Snow mentioned the $2m figure as a fact not a claim.
ABC's Snow reported that the Palins are $500,000 in debt and that they have received offers of income from television, radio and the speaking circuit. As NBC's Mitchell put it: "Taking her fight elsewhere could make Palin a very rich woman indeed with her book deal, with speeches, possibly a talkshow. It is a long way from Wasilla."
NOT A WAR CRIMINAL McNamara's War was the nickname for the Vietnam conflict that NBC anchor Brian Williams and ABC anchor Charles Gibson quoted in their obituary for that era's Secretary of Defense. "He became the architect of the Vietnam War," was the way CBS' David Martin put it in his for Robert McNamara, aged 93. NBC's Williams used John Kennedy's quote that McNamara was "the smartest man he ever met" and CBS' Martin called him "the best and the brightest of John Kennedy's New Frontier." ABC's Gibson acknowledged the "extraordinary accomplishments" of running the World Bank and modernizing Ford Motors. Yet he returned to that epitaph: "Everything is overshadowed by Vietnam."
Both ABC and NBC included a plug for Errol Morris' documentary on the dead man. In Fog of War, McNamara admitted he would have been tried as a war criminal for his fire bombing of civilians during World War II--would have, that is, if Japan had been victorious.
GAFFNEY SC, MASS MURDER CAPITAL A ten-day-long local crime story in South Carolina achieved enough notoriety to attract a pair of network correspondents. Over the past ten days, five residents of Gaffney SC have been murdered, all apparently by the same man. ABC's Jeffrey Kofman took the Paradise Disturbed angle: "There was a time in smalltown America when doors were never locked and strangers were welcome." The flaw in Kofman's premise soon emerged as he contradicted it in his own report. Gaffney was not immune from murder--back in 1968 there had been a similar killing spree. Either CBS' Mark Strassmann filed later than Kofman or he had better sources. While Kofman was telling us about a town gripped by fear, Strassmann told us that the likely suspect had already been killed by police in North Carolina.
CBS’ “AVALANCHE OF COVERAGE” Bill Whitaker at CBS tried manfully to vindicate his network's decision to treat the Michael Jackson as major news. He covered the routine decision by a probate court to grant control of the pop star's estate to the executors of his will. "Another battle," hyped Whitaker, "attorneys duking it out over who controls Jackson's fame and fortune." That is not how the other two newscasts saw the court hearing. ABC's Jim Avila called it a "skirmish" while on NBC it was nothing more than a "debate" as far as Lee Cowan was concerned.
Ben Tracy was the second arrow in CBS' quiver to keep the Jackson story in the bullseye. He covered the police beat, repeating reports that investigators are "focusing on five doctors who may have been prescribing drugs for the singer. Some of the drugs found reportedly did not have labels or used an alias."
Third was Jeff Glor, taking the municipal angle. He asked how the City of Los Angeles could afford to police the environs of the Staples Center where the memorial concert would be held. "It is an awful time for the city," Glor stated, referring to its fiscal state rather than its bereavement. "The city right now is $500m in debt if you can believe it." The cost of police, sanitation and crowd control might add $2m more in red ink, he estimated.
Fourth, Jeff Greenfield (no link) was diverted from his normal political beat to file a thumbsucker. "Why?" he mused. "Why the lines a half mile long, the spontaneous memorials, the explosion of online tributes?" He checked off explanations about Jackson's talent and the emotional attachment of fans and fascination with his dysfunctional personal life. Then he turned to navel gazing: "Finally there is us. The avalanche of coverage has a message beyond the story. It tells the world that this is a matter of enormous weight." The easy remedy for that, of course, would be for CBS to cover Jackson with the lack of attention he deserves, just like ABC and NBC are doing.
All three newscasts did agree that the preparations for the Staples Center memorial were newsworthy. An online lottery gave away 11,000 free tickets to fans. CBS' Katie Couric, anchoring from outside the Staples Center, called the plastic golden bracelet given to ticketholders "the most envied piece of jewelry in Los Angeles." ABC's Avila ticked off headline performers scheduled to appear: Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, Lionel Richie, Usher, Stevie Wonder. NBC's Cowan promised a "star-studded goodbye."
