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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 27, 2009
A light summer's day of news saw no unanimity about the agenda to start the week. Each newscast chose a different lead. CBS continued with the hot story that ended last week: the circumstances of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor, at his own home. ABC chose the latest set of statistics from the housing market. The Centers for Disease Control attracted the attention of NBC as they published statistics on the public health costs of obesity. Only Gates and obesity were deemed newsworthy enough to attract coverage from a reporter on all three newscasts. Obesity, with a slight edge, qualified as Story of the Day.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JULY 27, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
HEAVY HEADLINE LEADS LIGHT NEWS DAY A light summer's day of news saw no unanimity about the agenda to start the week. Each newscast chose a different lead. CBS continued with the hot story that ended last week: the circumstances of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor, at his own home. ABC chose the latest set of statistics from the housing market. The Centers for Disease Control attracted the attention of NBC as they published statistics on the public health costs of obesity. Only Gates and obesity were deemed newsworthy enough to attract coverage from a reporter on all three newscasts. Obesity, with a slight edge, qualified as Story of the Day.
The CDC produced several startling statistics. Healthcare for an obese person costs on average $4,900 each year compared with $3,400 for the remainder of the population. Treating the consequences of obesity accounts for 9% of all national healthcare spending, $147bn annually. More than 100m Americans are obese, accounting for 34% of the adult population. Only one state, Colorado, has an obesity rate lower than 20%. "Forget vanity," ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi suggested. "Put aside the health risks. Obesity is expensive." CBS' Mark Strassmann gave us a definition: you are obese if you weigh 203 lbs and your height is 5'9". NBC's Robert Bazell noted that of all the diseases that obesity triggers, type two diabetes is "by far the most costly."
CBS' Nancy Cordes surveyed the 30-year trend to put on weight. Our average daily diet includes 250 more calories than it did in the 1970s. Cordes reported that half of those calories are derived from an increase in the consumption of soda. A soda tax to cover the consequential costs would have to be enormous. Cordes calculated that a 10c per can tax would yield just $14bn annually yet even such a small contribution "has gotten little traction here on Capitol Hill."
BETTER DRUNK THAN TEXTING A different dangerous behavior attracted the attention of ABC's Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill and NBC's Michelle Kosinski in Miami. They both covered a transportation study from Virginia Tech that measured the risks run by motorists who send text messages while driving, a technique that is illegal in 14 states. ABC's Karl used this statistic: if drunk driving or cellphone driving increase the risk of a collision fourfold compared with attentive drivers, then texting-&-driving elevates the risk by 23 times. Nevertheless NBC's Kosinski reported on a AAA survey that found that one driver in five sends text messages from behind the wheel.
STILL A BUYER’S MARKET FOR NEW HOMES The finding that the number of new homes sold in June was 11% higher than the month before seemed to be positive news that the economy is rebounding--until it was compared with June 2008, revealing a deterioration of 21%. "Those June numbers are bouncing off the basement floor," was how ABC's Chris Bury put it. In that year the median price of a new home has fallen to $206K from $234K, enticing some buyers, along with a federal subsidy if $8,000 for those buying their first home. CBS' Ben Tracy added that sales are still not improving in southern states and "now it takes nearly a year to sell a new house, an all time record."
ABC LABELS WEST BANK TOWN AS ANNEX OF ISRAEL A housing story of a different kind was filed by Simon McGregor-Wood. ABC sent him to the Jewish settlement of Har-Homa on the West Bank, provocatively labeling it as being inside Israel to cover "Israel's answer to the Obama Administration's demands to freeze settlement construction." Har-Homa will have 200 new apartments this year. "They want to build 900 next year." George Mitchell, Barack Obama's envoy to the region, was told in Damascus and Cairo and Ramallah that there would be no Arab diplomacy with Israel until construction halts.
LARA LOGAN CHANNELS JOHN WAYNE The Green Berets certainly seem to have turned Lara Logan's head at CBS. A couple of weeks ago she followed them on night training exercises in the Utah Desert. Now she joins up with the commandos in the jungles of Colombia. The war with the FARC guerrillas has not been covered on the nightly news for an entire year since the headline-grabbing commando raid that rescued Ingrid Betancourt and her fellow hostages. Logan's Exclusive is an effusive profile of those jungle commandos and the USArmy Green Berets who trained them.
Listen to Logan's lavish praise: "The economy is thriving. Order has been restored. Kidnappings are down dramatically." The commandos "have used the skills they have learned with devastating effects against their enemy in the jungle, breaking the back of a 45-year-old insurgency…They have cut the area FARC can operate from almost half the country ten years ago to just 5% today…Colombia's army enjoys soaring popularity among the people." Diplomats see Colombia as the poster country for nation building: "The more Afghanistan can look like Colombia the better," Logan's unidentified official US source told her.
Oh, by the way, "critics point out that the military has been implicated in the killing and disappearance of civilians."
IT WAS A FREEBIE ABC's Nick Watt had fun with Silvio Berlusconi's sexcapades earlier this month when Barack Obama visited Italy. Now Elizabeth Palmer dishes about the "indiscreet but ultimately lovable old rogue" on CBS. Patrizia d'Addario, a Roman prostitute, has published audiotapes that she claims to be her pillow talk with the 72-year-old prime minister. In his own defense, "Berlusconi swears he did not pay for the alleged sex."
NBC displayed odd news judgment in failing to find a single newsworthy overseas story all day yet airing a couple of reports on children's summer camps: George Lewis on campers struck down with H1N1 influenza; and Miguel Almaguer on Operation Purple Making a Difference, a Santa Barbara camp for children from military families whose parents have been sent off to war.
WE EAT THEREFORE WE HUNT NBC Nightly News did not cross-promote its network's comedy coverage of Sarah Palin's farewell speech on Tonight. A hat tip instead to Steve Krakauer at Mediaite TV for his link to William Shatner's poetic Palin tribute. Norah O'Donnell's coverage on NBC's newscast had to content itself with Palin's own words out of her own mouth. So, for example, we heard these soundbites:
On patriotism: "We are facing tough challenges in America with some seeming to just be hell bent maybe on tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism and suggesting American apologetics."
On the news media: "Democracy depends on you and that is why--that is why--our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier you quit making things up?"
On the movie industry: "You are going to see anti-hunting, anti-Second-Amendment circuses from Hollywood and here is how they do it. They use these delicate, tiny, very talented, celebrity starlets. By the way Hollywood needs to know we eat therefore we hunt."
GENTLEMAN BURGLARS The Cambridge Police Department published the initial 911 telephone call about a possible burglary at Henry Louis Gates' house that led to police attendance, the professor's arrest for disorderly conduct and his subsequent release, charges dropped. All three newscasts walked us through the call: Yunji de Nies on ABC; Ron Allen on NBC; and Jim Axelrod on CBS. ABC's de Nies noted that the call put the lie to the police report that they had been called to respond to a pair of suspicious black men. Lucia Whalen, the 911 caller, never mentioned the men's race until asked by the dispatcher. Her response was that one man seemed Hispanic; the other was not visible. She called the two "gentlemen" and speculated that they lived in the house whose screen door they were breaking. When Sgt James Crowley, the arresting officer, confirmed that Gates was indeed in his own house, he asked the dispatcher to "keep the cars coming" anyway.
A ROCKY, HORROR OF A PICTURE To close, ABC offered free publicity to the oeuvre of Tommy Wiseau, actor, writer, producer of the overnight $6m cult hit: "The Room has been called the worst movie ever made," Alex Stone claimed. The story of a brokenhearted cuckold has fans "show up to screenings across the country…to pretty much make fun of this movie. They reenact scenes, mock the dialogue and throw things at the screen."
The CDC produced several startling statistics. Healthcare for an obese person costs on average $4,900 each year compared with $3,400 for the remainder of the population. Treating the consequences of obesity accounts for 9% of all national healthcare spending, $147bn annually. More than 100m Americans are obese, accounting for 34% of the adult population. Only one state, Colorado, has an obesity rate lower than 20%. "Forget vanity," ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi suggested. "Put aside the health risks. Obesity is expensive." CBS' Mark Strassmann gave us a definition: you are obese if you weigh 203 lbs and your height is 5'9". NBC's Robert Bazell noted that of all the diseases that obesity triggers, type two diabetes is "by far the most costly."
CBS' Nancy Cordes surveyed the 30-year trend to put on weight. Our average daily diet includes 250 more calories than it did in the 1970s. Cordes reported that half of those calories are derived from an increase in the consumption of soda. A soda tax to cover the consequential costs would have to be enormous. Cordes calculated that a 10c per can tax would yield just $14bn annually yet even such a small contribution "has gotten little traction here on Capitol Hill."
BETTER DRUNK THAN TEXTING A different dangerous behavior attracted the attention of ABC's Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill and NBC's Michelle Kosinski in Miami. They both covered a transportation study from Virginia Tech that measured the risks run by motorists who send text messages while driving, a technique that is illegal in 14 states. ABC's Karl used this statistic: if drunk driving or cellphone driving increase the risk of a collision fourfold compared with attentive drivers, then texting-&-driving elevates the risk by 23 times. Nevertheless NBC's Kosinski reported on a AAA survey that found that one driver in five sends text messages from behind the wheel.
STILL A BUYER’S MARKET FOR NEW HOMES The finding that the number of new homes sold in June was 11% higher than the month before seemed to be positive news that the economy is rebounding--until it was compared with June 2008, revealing a deterioration of 21%. "Those June numbers are bouncing off the basement floor," was how ABC's Chris Bury put it. In that year the median price of a new home has fallen to $206K from $234K, enticing some buyers, along with a federal subsidy if $8,000 for those buying their first home. CBS' Ben Tracy added that sales are still not improving in southern states and "now it takes nearly a year to sell a new house, an all time record."
ABC LABELS WEST BANK TOWN AS ANNEX OF ISRAEL A housing story of a different kind was filed by Simon McGregor-Wood. ABC sent him to the Jewish settlement of Har-Homa on the West Bank, provocatively labeling it as being inside Israel to cover "Israel's answer to the Obama Administration's demands to freeze settlement construction." Har-Homa will have 200 new apartments this year. "They want to build 900 next year." George Mitchell, Barack Obama's envoy to the region, was told in Damascus and Cairo and Ramallah that there would be no Arab diplomacy with Israel until construction halts.
LARA LOGAN CHANNELS JOHN WAYNE The Green Berets certainly seem to have turned Lara Logan's head at CBS. A couple of weeks ago she followed them on night training exercises in the Utah Desert. Now she joins up with the commandos in the jungles of Colombia. The war with the FARC guerrillas has not been covered on the nightly news for an entire year since the headline-grabbing commando raid that rescued Ingrid Betancourt and her fellow hostages. Logan's Exclusive is an effusive profile of those jungle commandos and the USArmy Green Berets who trained them.
Listen to Logan's lavish praise: "The economy is thriving. Order has been restored. Kidnappings are down dramatically." The commandos "have used the skills they have learned with devastating effects against their enemy in the jungle, breaking the back of a 45-year-old insurgency…They have cut the area FARC can operate from almost half the country ten years ago to just 5% today…Colombia's army enjoys soaring popularity among the people." Diplomats see Colombia as the poster country for nation building: "The more Afghanistan can look like Colombia the better," Logan's unidentified official US source told her.
Oh, by the way, "critics point out that the military has been implicated in the killing and disappearance of civilians."
IT WAS A FREEBIE ABC's Nick Watt had fun with Silvio Berlusconi's sexcapades earlier this month when Barack Obama visited Italy. Now Elizabeth Palmer dishes about the "indiscreet but ultimately lovable old rogue" on CBS. Patrizia d'Addario, a Roman prostitute, has published audiotapes that she claims to be her pillow talk with the 72-year-old prime minister. In his own defense, "Berlusconi swears he did not pay for the alleged sex."
NBC displayed odd news judgment in failing to find a single newsworthy overseas story all day yet airing a couple of reports on children's summer camps: George Lewis on campers struck down with H1N1 influenza; and Miguel Almaguer on Operation Purple Making a Difference, a Santa Barbara camp for children from military families whose parents have been sent off to war.
WE EAT THEREFORE WE HUNT NBC Nightly News did not cross-promote its network's comedy coverage of Sarah Palin's farewell speech on Tonight. A hat tip instead to Steve Krakauer at Mediaite TV for his link to William Shatner's poetic Palin tribute. Norah O'Donnell's coverage on NBC's newscast had to content itself with Palin's own words out of her own mouth. So, for example, we heard these soundbites:
On patriotism: "We are facing tough challenges in America with some seeming to just be hell bent maybe on tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism and suggesting American apologetics."
On the news media: "Democracy depends on you and that is why--that is why--our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier you quit making things up?"
On the movie industry: "You are going to see anti-hunting, anti-Second-Amendment circuses from Hollywood and here is how they do it. They use these delicate, tiny, very talented, celebrity starlets. By the way Hollywood needs to know we eat therefore we hunt."
GENTLEMAN BURGLARS The Cambridge Police Department published the initial 911 telephone call about a possible burglary at Henry Louis Gates' house that led to police attendance, the professor's arrest for disorderly conduct and his subsequent release, charges dropped. All three newscasts walked us through the call: Yunji de Nies on ABC; Ron Allen on NBC; and Jim Axelrod on CBS. ABC's de Nies noted that the call put the lie to the police report that they had been called to respond to a pair of suspicious black men. Lucia Whalen, the 911 caller, never mentioned the men's race until asked by the dispatcher. Her response was that one man seemed Hispanic; the other was not visible. She called the two "gentlemen" and speculated that they lived in the house whose screen door they were breaking. When Sgt James Crowley, the arresting officer, confirmed that Gates was indeed in his own house, he asked the dispatcher to "keep the cars coming" anyway.
A ROCKY, HORROR OF A PICTURE To close, ABC offered free publicity to the oeuvre of Tommy Wiseau, actor, writer, producer of the overnight $6m cult hit: "The Room has been called the worst movie ever made," Alex Stone claimed. The story of a brokenhearted cuckold has fans "show up to screenings across the country…to pretty much make fun of this movie. They reenact scenes, mock the dialogue and throw things at the screen."
