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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM AUGUST 04, 2009
A pair of television journalists led the television news. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, correspondents for cable's Current all-news network, had been imprisoned in North Korea since March, accused of infiltrating the border from China. Suddenly they were pardoned, their 12-year hard labor sentence commuted, and they were allowed to return home to the United States. Their release was triggered by a surprise visit to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton. He held talks with the dictator Kim Jong Il who responded by letting the reporters go. Ling and Lee were the Story of the Day and the unanimous choice to lead each newscast.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR AUGUST 04, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CLINTON & KIM PARLEY, FREE LING & LEE A pair of television journalists led the television news. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, correspondents for cable's Current all-news network, had been imprisoned in North Korea since March, accused of infiltrating the border from China. Suddenly they were pardoned, their 12-year hard labor sentence commuted, and they were allowed to return home to the United States. Their release was triggered by a surprise visit to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton. He held talks with the dictator Kim Jong Il who responded by letting the reporters go. Ling and Lee were the Story of the Day and the unanimous choice to lead each newscast.
CBS chose the Asian angle, assigning the North Korean story to Barry Petersen in Tokyo. NBC chose the State Department angle, assigning it to Andrea Mitchell, traveling in Africa in the entourage of Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton. ABC went inside-the-Beltway with its senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz. The former President "seems to have gotten exactly what he wanted," mused Raddatz, but appearances were deceptive. "He had been assured before he got there that is what would happen."
NBC's Mitchell reported that the pardon of Ling and Lee "had been engineered during months of secret negotiations with assurances that the former President would not leave empty-handed." She outlined her understanding that the deal had been negotiated "at the highest levels of the State Department" and then communicated to Al Gore--the boss of Current TV and Clinton's onetime Vice President--who, in turn, made the request to Clinton to make the trip. The Obama Administration, Mitchell noted, insisted that Clinton was on a private mission, traveling in an unmarked plane--"a lot of coordination but there is complete deniability."
For its part, CBS' Petersen pointed out, North Korea asserted that Clinton "courteously conveyed a verbal message" from President Barack Obama, a claim the White House contradicted. ABC's Raddatz also noted Pyongyang's efforts to spin the visit as official diplomacy: "They were making the most of it, pictures of a grinning Kim sitting side by side with President Clinton, meetings with Clinton and a VIP state dinner."
CBS' Petersen reminded us how "tensions have soared" between North Korea and the United States since Ling and Lee were arrested. North Korea has tested nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles; the United Nations has responded with tightened sanctions. NBC's Mitchell reported that the State Department is "trying to keep the release of the women on a separate track from those stalemated, stalled nuclear talks" yet she noted that it was North Korea's "top nuclear negotiator" who greeted Clinton: "State television said that the two men had extensive talks on a wide range of topics." George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week, added that North Korea "has been looking for ways to get around six-party talks" to negotiate with the US directly.
CBS anchor Katie Couric (at the tail of the Petersen videostream) followed up the reporting with an interview with Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico who had diplomatic contacts with North Korea during the Clinton Administration. Richardson pointed to an internal power struggle in North Korea, where an ailing Kim is trying to secure succession for his son. Kim "gets a lot of juice" by securing a meeting with someone of Clinton's stature. As for that so-called forced labor prison camp, the journalists "were in a guest house, allowed access to phone calls to their families. They also allowed the Swedish ambassador to visit."
FROM NOW ZAD TO NAWA The only other overseas coverage on the three newscasts saw Jim Maceda continue his coverage of the Marine Corps in Afghanistan's Helmand Province for NBC. Monday he showed us the hellhole that is Now Zad. Next Nawa, a ghost town that Taliban guerrillas decided not to defend, which is now being slowly repopulated under US military occupation. Rebuilding is taking priority over fighting, as the Marines "must reopen the clinic and school and create jobs or lose the battle for Nawa's people."
TOWN HALLS, CLUNKERS & POST OFFICES A trio of domestic political stories are bubbling along: healthcare reform, the Cash for Clunkers program, and a looming crisis at the United States Postal Service.
ABC's Jake Tapper covered the same "visceral anger" from conservative opponents of healthcare legislation at Congressional town hall meetings that CBS' Wyatt Andrews told us about Monday. Andrews pointed to FreedomWorks.org as one of the organizers of the activists. ABC's Tapper identified FreedomWorks.org as "run by corporate lobbyist and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey." He also pointed to a "widely circulated memo" by Bob MacGuffie of Right Principles urging opponents of "the socialist agenda in Washington" to put their representative "on the defensive with your questions…The goal is to rattle him." Tapper noted that the visible fruits of that organizing: "All those town hall meetings are on YouTube," videostreams that Tapper himself used to illustrate his report.
All three newscasts updated us on the Cash for Clunkers subsidy that pays new car buyers to trade in gas guzzlers for fuel-efficient models. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and CBS' Nancy Cordes filed from Capitol Hill where the Senate is likely to extend the program through Labor Day by adding $2bn. They quoted the Transportation Department's progress report that $664m has been disbursed so far, trading mostly American-made trucks and SUVs for hatchbacks and sedans, half from Detroit and half from foreign-owned plants, models such as the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic. ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi filed a visually spectacular feature on the death of the clunkers--how junkyards tear out guzzling engines and shred their skeletal remains for scrap metal. "If you love cars, turn your head."
The USPS is on track to lose $7bn this year. NBC's Lisa Myers covered the crisis Monday noting the triple threat of "the Internet, competition from private carriers and the recession that have combined to cause a steep decline in the volume of mail." Hundreds of post offices, sorting facilities and collection points, mostly in urban areas, will have to be closed, stated ABC's Steve Osunsami. A crisis looms: "In October the Postal Service is required to make a $5.4bn payment to its employee health insurance plan--and that money is not there."
NBC CATCHES SUMMER ‘FLU During July, NBC decided to take ownership of the influenza story. Its coverage of the H1N1 swine 'flu had not been noticeably more intense than the other two newscasts for the first two months of the outbreak (58 min v ABC 55, CBS 46). Then last month, NBC (24 min v ABC 13, CBS 15) kicked into gear. Robert Bazell continued on Monday with a preview of back-to-school preparations for an outbreak at a San Diego County high school and in-house physician Nancy Snyderman now monitors vaccination preparations. As for those back-to-school worries, ABC's Lisa Stark was reassuring. When the swine 'flu first appeared last spring, federal public health authorities "urged schools to shut down to stop the spread of the virus. Hundreds did. Now the government is expected to advise schools to remain open even as they start seeing cases."
NEWS MAKES VIEWERS DEPRESSED It is admirable when the nightly newscasts bite the hand that feeds them, placing their viewers' interests above those of the advertisers who pay their bills. So kudos to ABC World News for assigning John McKenzie to the puzzling increase in prescriptions of anti-depressant medication. Fully 10% of the adult population is popping pills like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa even though most do not suffer from clinical depression and most are not being treated by a psychiatrist. McKenzie's explanation was that patients are being "bombarded with so much advertising." In 1996, Big Pharma spent $32m on advertising anti-depressants directly to patients; by 2005 that total was $122m. Many of those ads were aired during the network nightly newscasts.
MEET MY DONOR NBC closed with a heartwarming Making a Difference feature from Tom Costello. He introduced us to Keith Melancon, a transplant surgeon at Georgetown Medical Center in Washington DC, who orchestrated a series of 14 surgeries over four days by which seven different kidney patients received an organ from seven living donors. Costello explained that kidneys pose an especial crisis for African-Americans, who make up 32% of the 80,000 waiting for transplants nationwide. "Minorities often build up antibodies that cause organ rejection so Melancon helped pioneer a process to filter the antibodies from blood plasma making a transplant a reality." The payoff came two weeks after the surgery when donor and recipient were introduced for the first time.
JACKASS ON RHINO CBS' Armen Keteyian went online for some Jackass style Internet video to illustrate his exclusive Investigation into the Yamaha Rhino, the "muscle car for the back country," an off-road, two-seater all terrain vehicle whose accidents have killed 59 people since it was put on sale in 2003. Check out a couple of videostreams of the Rhino tipping over, a couple of it somersaulting backwards while driving uphill. Some 15 months before the Rhino went on sale, Yamaha's president Keisuke Yoshida and his vice president Ichiro Miyachi were checking out a prototype. It rolled over and injured Miyachi's foot. Keteyian was turned down for an on-camera interview but Yamaha insisted that the Rhino is "safe, reliable and versatile" and that "virtually all accidents are caused by operator error." The Consumer Product Safety Commission may intervene.
CBS chose the Asian angle, assigning the North Korean story to Barry Petersen in Tokyo. NBC chose the State Department angle, assigning it to Andrea Mitchell, traveling in Africa in the entourage of Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton. ABC went inside-the-Beltway with its senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz. The former President "seems to have gotten exactly what he wanted," mused Raddatz, but appearances were deceptive. "He had been assured before he got there that is what would happen."
NBC's Mitchell reported that the pardon of Ling and Lee "had been engineered during months of secret negotiations with assurances that the former President would not leave empty-handed." She outlined her understanding that the deal had been negotiated "at the highest levels of the State Department" and then communicated to Al Gore--the boss of Current TV and Clinton's onetime Vice President--who, in turn, made the request to Clinton to make the trip. The Obama Administration, Mitchell noted, insisted that Clinton was on a private mission, traveling in an unmarked plane--"a lot of coordination but there is complete deniability."
For its part, CBS' Petersen pointed out, North Korea asserted that Clinton "courteously conveyed a verbal message" from President Barack Obama, a claim the White House contradicted. ABC's Raddatz also noted Pyongyang's efforts to spin the visit as official diplomacy: "They were making the most of it, pictures of a grinning Kim sitting side by side with President Clinton, meetings with Clinton and a VIP state dinner."
CBS' Petersen reminded us how "tensions have soared" between North Korea and the United States since Ling and Lee were arrested. North Korea has tested nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles; the United Nations has responded with tightened sanctions. NBC's Mitchell reported that the State Department is "trying to keep the release of the women on a separate track from those stalemated, stalled nuclear talks" yet she noted that it was North Korea's "top nuclear negotiator" who greeted Clinton: "State television said that the two men had extensive talks on a wide range of topics." George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week, added that North Korea "has been looking for ways to get around six-party talks" to negotiate with the US directly.
CBS anchor Katie Couric (at the tail of the Petersen videostream) followed up the reporting with an interview with Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico who had diplomatic contacts with North Korea during the Clinton Administration. Richardson pointed to an internal power struggle in North Korea, where an ailing Kim is trying to secure succession for his son. Kim "gets a lot of juice" by securing a meeting with someone of Clinton's stature. As for that so-called forced labor prison camp, the journalists "were in a guest house, allowed access to phone calls to their families. They also allowed the Swedish ambassador to visit."
FROM NOW ZAD TO NAWA The only other overseas coverage on the three newscasts saw Jim Maceda continue his coverage of the Marine Corps in Afghanistan's Helmand Province for NBC. Monday he showed us the hellhole that is Now Zad. Next Nawa, a ghost town that Taliban guerrillas decided not to defend, which is now being slowly repopulated under US military occupation. Rebuilding is taking priority over fighting, as the Marines "must reopen the clinic and school and create jobs or lose the battle for Nawa's people."
TOWN HALLS, CLUNKERS & POST OFFICES A trio of domestic political stories are bubbling along: healthcare reform, the Cash for Clunkers program, and a looming crisis at the United States Postal Service.
ABC's Jake Tapper covered the same "visceral anger" from conservative opponents of healthcare legislation at Congressional town hall meetings that CBS' Wyatt Andrews told us about Monday. Andrews pointed to FreedomWorks.org as one of the organizers of the activists. ABC's Tapper identified FreedomWorks.org as "run by corporate lobbyist and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey." He also pointed to a "widely circulated memo" by Bob MacGuffie of Right Principles urging opponents of "the socialist agenda in Washington" to put their representative "on the defensive with your questions…The goal is to rattle him." Tapper noted that the visible fruits of that organizing: "All those town hall meetings are on YouTube," videostreams that Tapper himself used to illustrate his report.
All three newscasts updated us on the Cash for Clunkers subsidy that pays new car buyers to trade in gas guzzlers for fuel-efficient models. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and CBS' Nancy Cordes filed from Capitol Hill where the Senate is likely to extend the program through Labor Day by adding $2bn. They quoted the Transportation Department's progress report that $664m has been disbursed so far, trading mostly American-made trucks and SUVs for hatchbacks and sedans, half from Detroit and half from foreign-owned plants, models such as the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic. ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi filed a visually spectacular feature on the death of the clunkers--how junkyards tear out guzzling engines and shred their skeletal remains for scrap metal. "If you love cars, turn your head."
The USPS is on track to lose $7bn this year. NBC's Lisa Myers covered the crisis Monday noting the triple threat of "the Internet, competition from private carriers and the recession that have combined to cause a steep decline in the volume of mail." Hundreds of post offices, sorting facilities and collection points, mostly in urban areas, will have to be closed, stated ABC's Steve Osunsami. A crisis looms: "In October the Postal Service is required to make a $5.4bn payment to its employee health insurance plan--and that money is not there."
NBC CATCHES SUMMER ‘FLU During July, NBC decided to take ownership of the influenza story. Its coverage of the H1N1 swine 'flu had not been noticeably more intense than the other two newscasts for the first two months of the outbreak (58 min v ABC 55, CBS 46). Then last month, NBC (24 min v ABC 13, CBS 15) kicked into gear. Robert Bazell continued on Monday with a preview of back-to-school preparations for an outbreak at a San Diego County high school and in-house physician Nancy Snyderman now monitors vaccination preparations. As for those back-to-school worries, ABC's Lisa Stark was reassuring. When the swine 'flu first appeared last spring, federal public health authorities "urged schools to shut down to stop the spread of the virus. Hundreds did. Now the government is expected to advise schools to remain open even as they start seeing cases."
NEWS MAKES VIEWERS DEPRESSED It is admirable when the nightly newscasts bite the hand that feeds them, placing their viewers' interests above those of the advertisers who pay their bills. So kudos to ABC World News for assigning John McKenzie to the puzzling increase in prescriptions of anti-depressant medication. Fully 10% of the adult population is popping pills like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa even though most do not suffer from clinical depression and most are not being treated by a psychiatrist. McKenzie's explanation was that patients are being "bombarded with so much advertising." In 1996, Big Pharma spent $32m on advertising anti-depressants directly to patients; by 2005 that total was $122m. Many of those ads were aired during the network nightly newscasts.
MEET MY DONOR NBC closed with a heartwarming Making a Difference feature from Tom Costello. He introduced us to Keith Melancon, a transplant surgeon at Georgetown Medical Center in Washington DC, who orchestrated a series of 14 surgeries over four days by which seven different kidney patients received an organ from seven living donors. Costello explained that kidneys pose an especial crisis for African-Americans, who make up 32% of the 80,000 waiting for transplants nationwide. "Minorities often build up antibodies that cause organ rejection so Melancon helped pioneer a process to filter the antibodies from blood plasma making a transplant a reality." The payoff came two weeks after the surgery when donor and recipient were introduced for the first time.
JACKASS ON RHINO CBS' Armen Keteyian went online for some Jackass style Internet video to illustrate his exclusive Investigation into the Yamaha Rhino, the "muscle car for the back country," an off-road, two-seater all terrain vehicle whose accidents have killed 59 people since it was put on sale in 2003. Check out a couple of videostreams of the Rhino tipping over, a couple of it somersaulting backwards while driving uphill. Some 15 months before the Rhino went on sale, Yamaha's president Keisuke Yoshida and his vice president Ichiro Miyachi were checking out a prototype. It rolled over and injured Miyachi's foot. Keteyian was turned down for an on-camera interview but Yamaha insisted that the Rhino is "safe, reliable and versatile" and that "virtually all accidents are caused by operator error." The Consumer Product Safety Commission may intervene.
