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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 31, 2009
After a long spring of negative publicity about layoffs, closures and bankruptcies, the automobile dealerships of America received a jolt of free, and positive, promotion to end the week. The Story of the Day and the lead item on both ABC and NBC was the success of their Cash for Clunkers program, the federal subsidy for new car purchasers who trade in gas guzzlers in order to upgrade fuel efficiency. After a blockbuster first week of trading, the House of Representatives voted to triple its funding to $3bn. Both networks had summer substitute anchors: David Gregory at NBC and Elizabeth Vargas at ABC. CBS led with the latest economic statistics for the second quarter's Gross Domestic Product.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JULY 31, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CLUNKER PUBLICITY BONANZA After a long spring of negative publicity about layoffs, closures and bankruptcies, the automobile dealerships of America received a jolt of free, and positive, promotion to end the week. The Story of the Day and the lead item on both ABC and NBC was the success of their Cash for Clunkers program, the federal subsidy for new car purchasers who trade in gas guzzlers in order to upgrade fuel efficiency. After a blockbuster first week of trading, the House of Representatives voted to triple its funding to $3bn. Both networks had summer substitute anchors: David Gregory at NBC and Elizabeth Vargas at ABC. CBS led with the latest economic statistics for the second quarter's Gross Domestic Product.
"Car dealerships around the country are gearing up for what they expect will be a very busy weekend," announced NBC's Chris Jansing, in what amounted to free advertising. "With a nickname so catchy it is not hard to see why Cash for Clunkers captured so much attention," chimed in CBS' Jeff Glor. "There is no question it has driven up foot traffic and sales inside dealerships." ABC's David Muir explained that the program requires that the old gas guzzlers be removed from the highways permanently. "The bulk of the cars will be crushed and disposed of at junkyards." An additive dubbed the Clunker Bomb is poured into engines to immobilize them.
NBC's Kelly O'Donnell covered the vote from Capitol Hill. Congress had "an unusual problem," she quipped. "They actually had a government spending program that was popular." To extend the car subsidy, the House diverted already-approved funds from research into renewable energy. Getting Senate approval next week, she warned "will be a harder sell." The reason for the extension is that dealerships run the risk of failing to be reimbursed after cutting deals that include the rebate, CBS' Glor explained. The federal Website where applications are supposed to be registered keeps crashing under unexpected volume.
THE GOOD NEWS OF CONTINUING RECESSION GDP statistics may prove that the economy is still shrinking but ABC's Betsy Stark was determined to be encouraged nonetheless: "The worst recession since the Great Depression may soon be over," she smiled. GDP declined at a 1% annual rate in the second quarter of the year, the fifth quarter of contraction out of the last six. Stark ticked off the dismal sectors: exports down at a 7.0% rate, business spending 8.9%, consumer spending 1.2%. "The only bright spot is government spending, up 10.9% thanks to the giant stimulus package." On CBS, in-house political analyst John Dickerson told anchor Katie Couric that Barack Obama's White House is "very happy to be able to crow a little bit" about the success of their fiscal plan. On ABC, George Stephanopoulos cited economists' estimates that GDP would have declined at a 4% rate sans stimulus.
CNBC's Trish Regan on NBC and Anthony Mason on CBS took the anecdotal approach to the prospect that the economy may start to grow. An office furniture supplier told Regan that his customers are planning to expand in six months. A New York City harbor party planner told Mason that her corporate clients have started to call again; however, a firm that makes shipping pallets "is seeing only hints of a turnaround." ABC's Stark warned that growth alone is not enough for employers to resume hiring. For that, the economy needs to expand at a 2.5% annual rate. CNBC's in-house economist Steve Liesman was optimistic that the unemployment rate will climb no higher than 10%--if you can call that optimism.
UNIDENTIFIED DEMOCRATS CBS' Sharyl Attkisson and ABC's Bianna Golodryga both filed updates on the financial meltdown that exacerbated the recession. ABC's Golodryga picked up on a probe entitled No Rhyme or Reason by Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General of New York State, into bonuses paid to executives at the eight biggest banks to receive federal bailouts from the Treasury Department's TARP. CBS' Attkisson gave us a Follow the Money expose into sweetheart loans made by Countrywide Financial to inside-the-Beltway powerbrokers.
The Countrywide program was a VIP rewards system for preferred customers dubbed Friends of Angelo, for the mortgage broker's boss Angelo Mozilo. Friends of Angelo wrote mortgages "knocking a full point, or 1%, off a loan," CBS' Attkisson told us. "For now it is unclear whether there was anything illegal and whether Countrywide was able to fend off regulations by winning favor with the right people." Who were those "right people"? Attkisson named names, courtesy of Bob Feinberg, a onetime Countrywide executive: Sen Kent Conrad; Sen Christopher Dodd; former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros; Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson; FannieMae CEO Franklin Raines; former FannieMae CEO James Johnson; and Clinton Jones, the chief counsel for the House Financial Services Committee. Attkisson did tell us that "Democrats are blocking a Republican effort to subpoena Countrywide documents" but she gets criticized by our fellow news monitor Brad Wilmouth at the conservative newsbusters.org for her failure to identify Dodd and Conrad as Democrats.
ABC's Golodryga listed nine firms from Cuomo's report--they are now eight since Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch--that paid out a total of $33bn in year-end bonuses in 2008 while collectively posting $82bn in losses. Besides BofA, the banks were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, State Street and Bank of New York along with the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Their response to the "bonus backlash" is not to pay executives less, she noted, but "simply shifting the bulk of compensation from annual bonuses to base salaries." By the way, Golodryga did not identify Cuomo as a Democrat.
DREAM ON NBC invited Lori Montenegro from its Spanish language sibling network Telemundo to contribute to We the People, its occasional series on multicultural America. Montenegro's report focused on the so-called Dream Act, legislation that has been proposed and defeated four times in the past eight years to grant immigration amnesty to some 360,000 teenagers. The Dream Act would allow high school graduates without residency papers to stay in this country if they either attend college or enlist in the military and "most importantly it could provide a path to legal residency." Montenegro illustrated her story with the example of Noe Guzman, a 17-year-old who believed he was a citizen until he graduated from high school. It was only when he tried to enlist that he discovered his Social Security number was bogus and that his mother had smuggled him into the United States when he was a toddler. "I was raised here. I do not know anything of Mexico," confessed the potential deportee.
NOSE NOT NEEDLE This week's guidelines for the influenza vaccine could be a bonanza for Medimmune, the pharmaceutical firm that makes 'Flu Mist. NBC's Robert Bazell explained. In most years, the 'flu vaccine benefits the elderly population whereas the 'Flu Mist inhaled form has been approved for use only by children, teenagers and young adults, "a commercial failure," as Bazell put it. The H1N1 strain of the swine 'flu turns those demographics on their head. This fall's vaccine is targeted at 'Flu Mist's sweet spot. "Companies making shots against swine 'flu have had big production problems but the 'Flu Mist production is going so well that the company has run out of the sprayers that deliver it."
DIGITAL EMBEDS Both CBS and ABC had digital reporters embedded with USArmy troops in the countryside of Afghanistan. ABC's Nick Schifrin was in Zabul Province, a zone 90% controled by Taliban guerrillas who infiltrate from Pakistan using back mountain trails. CBS' Mandy Clark was in the villages around Khost where Operation Champion Sword is trying to persuade locals that it will be safe to participate in national elections in three weeks, despite the Taliban's threats of retaliation against voters.
HONORABLE HARTMAN Did Steve Hartman discover a ruse to persuade CBS News to help defray the cost of his family's summer vacation along Lake Erie? He converted his return to his childhood haunts in the village of Lakeside into an Assignment America feature. It would certainly be ironic if he filed an expense report to compensate him for a jaunt he would have taken anyway. The topic of his weekending feature was that Lakeside is a place where "people still actually trust one another." The resort observes the honor system--there are no locks on its bicycles and stores leave their wares outside over night. Even in a candy store, children are trusted to make their own change. Hartman's own hidden camera investigation proves it.
"Car dealerships around the country are gearing up for what they expect will be a very busy weekend," announced NBC's Chris Jansing, in what amounted to free advertising. "With a nickname so catchy it is not hard to see why Cash for Clunkers captured so much attention," chimed in CBS' Jeff Glor. "There is no question it has driven up foot traffic and sales inside dealerships." ABC's David Muir explained that the program requires that the old gas guzzlers be removed from the highways permanently. "The bulk of the cars will be crushed and disposed of at junkyards." An additive dubbed the Clunker Bomb is poured into engines to immobilize them.
NBC's Kelly O'Donnell covered the vote from Capitol Hill. Congress had "an unusual problem," she quipped. "They actually had a government spending program that was popular." To extend the car subsidy, the House diverted already-approved funds from research into renewable energy. Getting Senate approval next week, she warned "will be a harder sell." The reason for the extension is that dealerships run the risk of failing to be reimbursed after cutting deals that include the rebate, CBS' Glor explained. The federal Website where applications are supposed to be registered keeps crashing under unexpected volume.
THE GOOD NEWS OF CONTINUING RECESSION GDP statistics may prove that the economy is still shrinking but ABC's Betsy Stark was determined to be encouraged nonetheless: "The worst recession since the Great Depression may soon be over," she smiled. GDP declined at a 1% annual rate in the second quarter of the year, the fifth quarter of contraction out of the last six. Stark ticked off the dismal sectors: exports down at a 7.0% rate, business spending 8.9%, consumer spending 1.2%. "The only bright spot is government spending, up 10.9% thanks to the giant stimulus package." On CBS, in-house political analyst John Dickerson told anchor Katie Couric that Barack Obama's White House is "very happy to be able to crow a little bit" about the success of their fiscal plan. On ABC, George Stephanopoulos cited economists' estimates that GDP would have declined at a 4% rate sans stimulus.
CNBC's Trish Regan on NBC and Anthony Mason on CBS took the anecdotal approach to the prospect that the economy may start to grow. An office furniture supplier told Regan that his customers are planning to expand in six months. A New York City harbor party planner told Mason that her corporate clients have started to call again; however, a firm that makes shipping pallets "is seeing only hints of a turnaround." ABC's Stark warned that growth alone is not enough for employers to resume hiring. For that, the economy needs to expand at a 2.5% annual rate. CNBC's in-house economist Steve Liesman was optimistic that the unemployment rate will climb no higher than 10%--if you can call that optimism.
UNIDENTIFIED DEMOCRATS CBS' Sharyl Attkisson and ABC's Bianna Golodryga both filed updates on the financial meltdown that exacerbated the recession. ABC's Golodryga picked up on a probe entitled No Rhyme or Reason by Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General of New York State, into bonuses paid to executives at the eight biggest banks to receive federal bailouts from the Treasury Department's TARP. CBS' Attkisson gave us a Follow the Money expose into sweetheart loans made by Countrywide Financial to inside-the-Beltway powerbrokers.
The Countrywide program was a VIP rewards system for preferred customers dubbed Friends of Angelo, for the mortgage broker's boss Angelo Mozilo. Friends of Angelo wrote mortgages "knocking a full point, or 1%, off a loan," CBS' Attkisson told us. "For now it is unclear whether there was anything illegal and whether Countrywide was able to fend off regulations by winning favor with the right people." Who were those "right people"? Attkisson named names, courtesy of Bob Feinberg, a onetime Countrywide executive: Sen Kent Conrad; Sen Christopher Dodd; former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros; Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson; FannieMae CEO Franklin Raines; former FannieMae CEO James Johnson; and Clinton Jones, the chief counsel for the House Financial Services Committee. Attkisson did tell us that "Democrats are blocking a Republican effort to subpoena Countrywide documents" but she gets criticized by our fellow news monitor Brad Wilmouth at the conservative newsbusters.org for her failure to identify Dodd and Conrad as Democrats.
ABC's Golodryga listed nine firms from Cuomo's report--they are now eight since Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch--that paid out a total of $33bn in year-end bonuses in 2008 while collectively posting $82bn in losses. Besides BofA, the banks were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, State Street and Bank of New York along with the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Their response to the "bonus backlash" is not to pay executives less, she noted, but "simply shifting the bulk of compensation from annual bonuses to base salaries." By the way, Golodryga did not identify Cuomo as a Democrat.
DREAM ON NBC invited Lori Montenegro from its Spanish language sibling network Telemundo to contribute to We the People, its occasional series on multicultural America. Montenegro's report focused on the so-called Dream Act, legislation that has been proposed and defeated four times in the past eight years to grant immigration amnesty to some 360,000 teenagers. The Dream Act would allow high school graduates without residency papers to stay in this country if they either attend college or enlist in the military and "most importantly it could provide a path to legal residency." Montenegro illustrated her story with the example of Noe Guzman, a 17-year-old who believed he was a citizen until he graduated from high school. It was only when he tried to enlist that he discovered his Social Security number was bogus and that his mother had smuggled him into the United States when he was a toddler. "I was raised here. I do not know anything of Mexico," confessed the potential deportee.
NOSE NOT NEEDLE This week's guidelines for the influenza vaccine could be a bonanza for Medimmune, the pharmaceutical firm that makes 'Flu Mist. NBC's Robert Bazell explained. In most years, the 'flu vaccine benefits the elderly population whereas the 'Flu Mist inhaled form has been approved for use only by children, teenagers and young adults, "a commercial failure," as Bazell put it. The H1N1 strain of the swine 'flu turns those demographics on their head. This fall's vaccine is targeted at 'Flu Mist's sweet spot. "Companies making shots against swine 'flu have had big production problems but the 'Flu Mist production is going so well that the company has run out of the sprayers that deliver it."
DIGITAL EMBEDS Both CBS and ABC had digital reporters embedded with USArmy troops in the countryside of Afghanistan. ABC's Nick Schifrin was in Zabul Province, a zone 90% controled by Taliban guerrillas who infiltrate from Pakistan using back mountain trails. CBS' Mandy Clark was in the villages around Khost where Operation Champion Sword is trying to persuade locals that it will be safe to participate in national elections in three weeks, despite the Taliban's threats of retaliation against voters.
HONORABLE HARTMAN Did Steve Hartman discover a ruse to persuade CBS News to help defray the cost of his family's summer vacation along Lake Erie? He converted his return to his childhood haunts in the village of Lakeside into an Assignment America feature. It would certainly be ironic if he filed an expense report to compensate him for a jaunt he would have taken anyway. The topic of his weekending feature was that Lakeside is a place where "people still actually trust one another." The resort observes the honor system--there are no locks on its bicycles and stores leave their wares outside over night. Even in a candy store, children are trusted to make their own change. Hartman's own hidden camera investigation proves it.
