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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 23, 2009
The best laid plans of even Barack Obama sometimes go astray. He called a press conference in primetime on Wednesday to try to keep his drive for healthcare reform in the headlines. A final questioner changed the subject to the arrest of his friend, the Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates. The President's answer--"Cambridge police acted stupidly"--was the newsmaking soundbite of the news conference. All three newscasts led with the continuing controversy, which was the Story of the Day.
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PROFESSOR WAS OBAMA’S UNINTENTIONAL LEAD The best laid plans of even Barack Obama sometimes go astray. He called a press conference in primetime on Wednesday to try to keep his drive for healthcare reform in the headlines. A final questioner changed the subject to the arrest of his friend, the Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates. The President's answer--"Cambridge police acted stupidly"--was the newsmaking soundbite of the news conference. All three newscasts led with the continuing controversy, which was the Story of the Day.
Interestingly, President Obama's criticism of the police did not refer to suspicions of racial bias, namely that African-American men routinely receive unfair treatment at the hands of the police. The President was careful to say "separate and apart from this incident" that there is a long history of "African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately." The reason Obama gave for calling the arrest a stupid act was that "there was already proof" that Gates was in his own home, not his skin color at all.
No matter. "Was his arrest justified or was it racial profiling?' inquired Ron Allen on NBC. "The arresting officer Sgt James Crowley told a local FOX television station he is not a racist." On ABC, Dan Harris characterized the dispute as a "white career cop who arrested the eminent black scholar." Harris added that Crowley had been "hand-picked by a black police official to teach a class on racial profiling." CBS' Bill Whitaker called the incident "a national Rorschach Test…many African-Americans see racial profiling; others a cop performing his duties."
Sgt Crowley stood up for himself. "There was a lot of yelling. There were references to my mother. Mr Gates was given plenty of opportunity to stop what he was doing. He did not. He acted very irrational," was how ABC's Harris quoted him. CBS' Jim Axelrod offered this Crowley soundbite: "The apology will not come from me. I have done nothing wrong." He observed that Gates should have been "grateful that you are there investigating the report of a crime in progress." As for that reference to Crowley's mother, it had nothing to do with four-syllabled Oedipal incest. Gates merely responded when asked to step outside his own home: "I will speak with your mama outside."
NBC's Chuck Todd checked in with unidentified Presidential aides to ask whether their boss' comment about the Cambridge police was wise: "They do wish the word stupidly could be taken back." CBS' Axelrod noted the White House distinction: Obama was not labeling Crowley himself stupid, merely the decision to make the arrest. Obama told ABC's Terry Moran: "From what I can tell the sergeant who was involved is an outstanding police officer." NBC's Todd picked up on a mood of frustration at the White House because this story "is stepping on their push for healthcare. Today was supposed to be the eleventh straight day that the President used a public forum."
MAYORS & RABBIS Allegations of municipal corruption in New Jersey were so outlandish that they warranted coverage by correspondents on all three newscasts. "There were so many suspects, FBI agents needed a bus," joked CBS' Kelly Wallace. A trio of mayors--from Secaucus, Hoboken and Ridgefield--were among the 44 arrested, who also included a collection of rabbis. The politicians were accused of taking bribes; the rabbis of moneylaundering ill-gotten gains. All the cash, CBS' Wallace told us was distributed by Solomon Dwek, "who became an informant two years ago after being accused of a $50m bank fraud." ABC and NBC both covered the sting operation from the Justice Department. NBC's Pete Williams, courtesy of WNBC-TV's Jonathan Dienst, threw in an allegation of $160,000 organs sold to Israeli kidney transplant patients. ABC's Pierre Thomas picked up the detail that the alleged bribes were paid "in parking lots, diners, basement boiler rooms, even bathrooms."
And, yes, neither ABC's Thomas nor CBS' Wallace could resist likening the alleged corruption to HBO's The Sopranos.
THE LAW’S DELAY So healthcare reform did indeed take a back seat. Barack Obama tried to keep it in the spotlight by inviting yet another network anchor to keep him company. This time it was Terry Moran of ABC's Nightline, traveling with the President to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Yet there was little of substance about healthcare itself to report. The news was procedural, as the Senate decided not to vote on its bill before the fall. "Obama acknowledged that things were slowing down," Moran noted. CBS' Chip Reid called missing the August deadline "a rare defeat" for the President: "Some Democrats worry that a month-long delay will give the President's critics time to mount a campaign and turn public opinion."
FEATURE HEAVY Most of the remainder of the day's news was taken up with features:
ABC's A Closer Look saw Bob Woodruff at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan where Taskforce Paladin has the job of training GIs to spot improvised explosive devices. "Fake rocks, bullet casings, car trunks weighed down, detonators hidden behind license plates…" in all the taskforce has discovered 3,200 unexploded IEDs scattered around the countryside.
ABC's Brian Ross Investigates picked up on the expose by the network's affiliate in San Diego into Nations Housing Modification Center, a telemarketing boilerroom. NHMC uses a Capitol Hill mailing address on Pennsylvania Avenue to give the impression that it is a federal government program offering foreclosure relief to homeowners. Ross profiled two of the firm's owners: Bryan Rosenberg, imprisoned in 2003 for mortgage fraud in Baltimore; and Michael Trapp, convicted of lying to a grand jury investigating a Ponzi Scheme. Ross' choicest image was of the giant truck that pulled up outside NHMC offices. The logo on its side--Shred California.
Top States for Business is the annual ranking performed by CNBC measuring all 50 states on ten different criteria, including workforce skills, infrastructure, quality of life, business regulation, operating costs. Scott Cohn ran down the top five on NBC. And the 2009 winner is Virginia.
CBS filed the second part of its Katie Couric Reports on teenage prostitution. Wednesday she took a sensationalized look at the FBI's ineffectual--my description, not hers--Innocence Lost sting operation. Now Couric follows up from Las Vegas. "Underage prostitution in Sin City is on the rise," she asserted. Yet fewer than 400 of the sex workers arrested in the last two years have been younger than 18, out of an estimated 35,000 plying their trade citywide. Couric profiled Judge William Voy, who has a plan to incarcerate arrested teenage sex workers, in a "specialized safe house staffed by probation officers and social workers." The judge cannot get state funding to build the facility so he is "looking to the private sector to help fund his idea."
MOUSE MULTIPLICATION "It is a brave new world of bioethics," declared NBC's Tom Costello as he told us of the latest unnatural mouse experiment written up in the journal Nature. "His name is Tiny," Costello introduced us, a mouse created by cloning in a Chinese laboratory. The cloning innovation was to use mouse skin rather than a mouse embryo. Costello explained the implication for possible human biotechnology: "That could mean using a patient's own cells to grow new human organ tissue."
WALTER CRONKITE RIP CBS closed its newscast with a montage of highlights from the funeral service for its late anchor Walter Cronkite. I joined my friends Danny Schechter and Rory O'Connor for a radio podcast about Uncle Walter on the Progressive Radio Network. It included Cronkite's affection for their mediachannel.org and a discussion of Climbing Down From Olympus, my 1998 essay about his newscast for Media Studies Journal.
Interestingly, President Obama's criticism of the police did not refer to suspicions of racial bias, namely that African-American men routinely receive unfair treatment at the hands of the police. The President was careful to say "separate and apart from this incident" that there is a long history of "African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately." The reason Obama gave for calling the arrest a stupid act was that "there was already proof" that Gates was in his own home, not his skin color at all.
No matter. "Was his arrest justified or was it racial profiling?' inquired Ron Allen on NBC. "The arresting officer Sgt James Crowley told a local FOX television station he is not a racist." On ABC, Dan Harris characterized the dispute as a "white career cop who arrested the eminent black scholar." Harris added that Crowley had been "hand-picked by a black police official to teach a class on racial profiling." CBS' Bill Whitaker called the incident "a national Rorschach Test…many African-Americans see racial profiling; others a cop performing his duties."
Sgt Crowley stood up for himself. "There was a lot of yelling. There were references to my mother. Mr Gates was given plenty of opportunity to stop what he was doing. He did not. He acted very irrational," was how ABC's Harris quoted him. CBS' Jim Axelrod offered this Crowley soundbite: "The apology will not come from me. I have done nothing wrong." He observed that Gates should have been "grateful that you are there investigating the report of a crime in progress." As for that reference to Crowley's mother, it had nothing to do with four-syllabled Oedipal incest. Gates merely responded when asked to step outside his own home: "I will speak with your mama outside."
NBC's Chuck Todd checked in with unidentified Presidential aides to ask whether their boss' comment about the Cambridge police was wise: "They do wish the word stupidly could be taken back." CBS' Axelrod noted the White House distinction: Obama was not labeling Crowley himself stupid, merely the decision to make the arrest. Obama told ABC's Terry Moran: "From what I can tell the sergeant who was involved is an outstanding police officer." NBC's Todd picked up on a mood of frustration at the White House because this story "is stepping on their push for healthcare. Today was supposed to be the eleventh straight day that the President used a public forum."
MAYORS & RABBIS Allegations of municipal corruption in New Jersey were so outlandish that they warranted coverage by correspondents on all three newscasts. "There were so many suspects, FBI agents needed a bus," joked CBS' Kelly Wallace. A trio of mayors--from Secaucus, Hoboken and Ridgefield--were among the 44 arrested, who also included a collection of rabbis. The politicians were accused of taking bribes; the rabbis of moneylaundering ill-gotten gains. All the cash, CBS' Wallace told us was distributed by Solomon Dwek, "who became an informant two years ago after being accused of a $50m bank fraud." ABC and NBC both covered the sting operation from the Justice Department. NBC's Pete Williams, courtesy of WNBC-TV's Jonathan Dienst, threw in an allegation of $160,000 organs sold to Israeli kidney transplant patients. ABC's Pierre Thomas picked up the detail that the alleged bribes were paid "in parking lots, diners, basement boiler rooms, even bathrooms."
And, yes, neither ABC's Thomas nor CBS' Wallace could resist likening the alleged corruption to HBO's The Sopranos.
THE LAW’S DELAY So healthcare reform did indeed take a back seat. Barack Obama tried to keep it in the spotlight by inviting yet another network anchor to keep him company. This time it was Terry Moran of ABC's Nightline, traveling with the President to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Yet there was little of substance about healthcare itself to report. The news was procedural, as the Senate decided not to vote on its bill before the fall. "Obama acknowledged that things were slowing down," Moran noted. CBS' Chip Reid called missing the August deadline "a rare defeat" for the President: "Some Democrats worry that a month-long delay will give the President's critics time to mount a campaign and turn public opinion."
FEATURE HEAVY Most of the remainder of the day's news was taken up with features:
ABC's A Closer Look saw Bob Woodruff at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan where Taskforce Paladin has the job of training GIs to spot improvised explosive devices. "Fake rocks, bullet casings, car trunks weighed down, detonators hidden behind license plates…" in all the taskforce has discovered 3,200 unexploded IEDs scattered around the countryside.
ABC's Brian Ross Investigates picked up on the expose by the network's affiliate in San Diego into Nations Housing Modification Center, a telemarketing boilerroom. NHMC uses a Capitol Hill mailing address on Pennsylvania Avenue to give the impression that it is a federal government program offering foreclosure relief to homeowners. Ross profiled two of the firm's owners: Bryan Rosenberg, imprisoned in 2003 for mortgage fraud in Baltimore; and Michael Trapp, convicted of lying to a grand jury investigating a Ponzi Scheme. Ross' choicest image was of the giant truck that pulled up outside NHMC offices. The logo on its side--Shred California.
Top States for Business is the annual ranking performed by CNBC measuring all 50 states on ten different criteria, including workforce skills, infrastructure, quality of life, business regulation, operating costs. Scott Cohn ran down the top five on NBC. And the 2009 winner is Virginia.
CBS filed the second part of its Katie Couric Reports on teenage prostitution. Wednesday she took a sensationalized look at the FBI's ineffectual--my description, not hers--Innocence Lost sting operation. Now Couric follows up from Las Vegas. "Underage prostitution in Sin City is on the rise," she asserted. Yet fewer than 400 of the sex workers arrested in the last two years have been younger than 18, out of an estimated 35,000 plying their trade citywide. Couric profiled Judge William Voy, who has a plan to incarcerate arrested teenage sex workers, in a "specialized safe house staffed by probation officers and social workers." The judge cannot get state funding to build the facility so he is "looking to the private sector to help fund his idea."
MOUSE MULTIPLICATION "It is a brave new world of bioethics," declared NBC's Tom Costello as he told us of the latest unnatural mouse experiment written up in the journal Nature. "His name is Tiny," Costello introduced us, a mouse created by cloning in a Chinese laboratory. The cloning innovation was to use mouse skin rather than a mouse embryo. Costello explained the implication for possible human biotechnology: "That could mean using a patient's own cells to grow new human organ tissue."
WALTER CRONKITE RIP CBS closed its newscast with a montage of highlights from the funeral service for its late anchor Walter Cronkite. I joined my friends Danny Schechter and Rory O'Connor for a radio podcast about Uncle Walter on the Progressive Radio Network. It included Cronkite's affection for their mediachannel.org and a discussion of Climbing Down From Olympus, my 1998 essay about his newscast for Media Studies Journal.
