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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM OCTOBER 20, 2009
The latest update from the Centers for Disease Control about the H1N1 strain of the swine 'flu was the Story of the Day. All three newscasts led with the statistic that the majority of hospitalized patients are under the age of 25. A typical seasonal influenza outbreak kills the elderly--90% of fatalities are at least 65 years of age; this strain leaves old folks alone--89% of fatalities are younger than 65. NBC has made the 'flu its specialty since the beginning of August (98 min v ABC 75, CBS 72) yet unusually it was CBS that found it most newsworthy, kicking off with a trio of reports.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR OCTOBER 20, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CDC DATA INSPIRE H1N1 HYPE The latest update from the Centers for Disease Control about the H1N1 strain of the swine 'flu was the Story of the Day. All three newscasts led with the statistic that the majority of hospitalized patients are under the age of 25. A typical seasonal influenza outbreak kills the elderly--90% of fatalities are at least 65 years of age; this strain leaves old folks alone--89% of fatalities are younger than 65. NBC has made the 'flu its specialty since the beginning of August (98 min v ABC 75, CBS 72) yet unusually it was CBS that found it most newsworthy, kicking off with a trio of reports.
NBC's Robert Bazell tried to reassure us--"severe cases continue to be a small minority of all those who are infected"--but the extensive coverage of those few who do end up in hospital with H1N1 left a contradictory impression. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook told us that the infections continue "to confound health officials" and warned that the outbreak might follow the pattern of the Asian 'flu in 1957--a tapering off in December followed by a second springtime wave. LaPook's worrying tone belied his statistic that only 292 people have been killed by H1N1 nationwide in the past six weeks. CBS' Don Teague inquired whether there is a vaccine shortage and concluded that the problem is uneven distribution instead--unmet demand in Dallas and the Pacific NW; unused supply in Las Vegas and Miami.
ABC's John McKenzie advised us to be on the lookout for an infection in children who "seem to be getting better only to get suddenly worse." That might be a sign of bacteria infecting lungs already weakened by the virus. CBS' Jeff Glor looked into how the virus is transmitted. Despite bans on touching in schools and churches and an emphasis on hygiene, Glor was told that the influenza virus mostly travels through the air, not skin to skin. He teased the handshakophobic billionaire Donald Trump: "While this wave of worry likely will not end a tradition that began in the C2nd BC, it is doing wonders for the hand sanitizing business--sales up 41% in the last six months."
SHOULD DEMOCRATS TAKE MONEY FROM WALL STREET? These things are true…Wall Street firms, including those bailed out by federal TARP funds, are unpopular for paying their executives lavishly...The Obama Administration seeks some regulation of Wall Street, including some limits on bonus payments...President Barack Obama's Manhattan fundraiser included lavishly-paid Wall Street donors.
All of the networks' White House correspondents tried to weave a story out of the combination of these three facts. Monday, NBC's Savannah Guthrie found White House aides seeing "no conflict of interest with the President turning to Wall Street to collect cash." Now her colleague Chuck Todd finds his appearance before Big Apple fat cats "somewhat awkward."
For ABC, Jake Tapper noted that the White House "has expressed frustration with the news of tens of billions of dollars in bonuses that executives are setting aside…but some of that bonus money may be headed for Democratic wallets" before conceding that the "giants of the financial sector…are holding back just a bit to see how it all plays out."
"What about the administration's Pay Czar? Wasn't he appointed to put a lid on Wall Street pay?" asked CBS' Chip Reid. Special Master Kenneth Feinberg answered: his authority is limited only to seven bailed-out institutions--just two banks, Citigroup and Bank of America; one insurance company, AIG; two automobile manufacturers, General Motors and Chrysler; and their financing arms, GMAC and Chrysler Financial.
HAT TIP TO PROPUBLICA "The pharmaceuticals industry is putting its army of lobbyists into overdrive," announced Sharyl Attkisson in CBS' Follow the Money feature. Attkisson relied on reporting by ProPublica, the not-for-profit investigative journalism team, to count 27 former Capitol Hill legislators and staffers who now work on the industry's $18m effort to shape healthcare reform legislation: already they have succeeded in preserving a ban on discount prescription drug imports from Canada and in preventing lower prescription prices for Medicare patients. This is how K Street hires, an unidentified ex-staffer explained: "Every time a major bill passes there is an exodus of Hill staffers. People are willing to pay a premium for their knowledge."
By people the staffer meant Big Pharma.
ABC’S SCHIFRIN REPORTS; RADDATZ DECIDES OTHERWISE President Hamid Karzai had rejected a runoff vote in Afghanistan's election only hours before he agreed to it, Nick Schifrin reported from Kabul for ABC. He changed his mind "only after he and Sen John Kerry took a walk and visited a mosque," Schifrin stated obliquely. The vote, pitting Karzai against former colleague Abdullah Abdullah, will be held at the end of the first week of November yet Schifrin found few locals impressed: "Most Afghans will tell you they think Karzai will remain in power no matter what the United States does and most people are resigned to the fact that their government will remain corrupt." Also filing from Kabul, CBS' Mandy Clark warned about insecure polling precincts, continued fraud and early snows: "Elections here require massive logistics. Even the donkeys that carried voting materials to remote places in August will not be able to reach the same places, some of which are already being cut off by winter weather."
Back in New York City, ABC anchor Charles Gibson asked correspondent Martha Raddatz whether the mere fact that a runoff is scheduled will allow Barack Obama to assert that "we have a legitimate government that we are backing now." See how minimal Raddatz' definition of legitimate is, despite what her colleague Schifrin had just reported: "That is exactly what he can say."
CLOSED SCHOOLS & OPENED WELLS NBC did not assign a reporter to cover the Afghan political developments. Stephanie Gosk was in next-door Pakistan where a pair of bombs killed six on the campus of Islamabad's Islamic University. She calculated the bomb death toll in the past two weeks at 150 nationwide. As a result of this university attack the government ordered that every school in the entire country be closed.
NBC's Afghan-related coverage was a Making a Difference closer by Mike Taibbi. His was a tribute to Benjamin Sklaver, an army civil affairs captain from Connecticut, ambushed and killed. Before he was deployed to Afghanistan, he had served in Uganda where his work on pumps and wells for civil war refugees led him to found ClearWater Initiative, a global potable water charity. To date, Taibbi reported, CWI has provided fresh water to 7,000 people worldwide. "ClearWater Initiative will continue so that others might live, courtesy of a soldier whose spirit and mission live on."
WHAT? NO SLOPPY JOES? It has been 14 years, NBC's Tom Costello reported, since the federal government has updated its nutritional guidelines for school meals programs. He covered the Institute of Medicine's proposal that the USDA subsidize more fruits and vegetables and whole grains instead of "pizza, chicken nuggets and meatballs." ABC sent Dr Richard Besser to Baltimore to profile Tony Geraci, who is already trying to improve the diet of that city's children. The school system runs a 33-acre farm and three greenhouses where students can grow their own. Geraci is trying to switch from processed foods shipped from afar--"horrible stuff"--to locavore fresh produce and has ordered Meatless Mondays.
Have some vegetarian pasta made with whole wheat pasta.
NBC's Robert Bazell tried to reassure us--"severe cases continue to be a small minority of all those who are infected"--but the extensive coverage of those few who do end up in hospital with H1N1 left a contradictory impression. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook told us that the infections continue "to confound health officials" and warned that the outbreak might follow the pattern of the Asian 'flu in 1957--a tapering off in December followed by a second springtime wave. LaPook's worrying tone belied his statistic that only 292 people have been killed by H1N1 nationwide in the past six weeks. CBS' Don Teague inquired whether there is a vaccine shortage and concluded that the problem is uneven distribution instead--unmet demand in Dallas and the Pacific NW; unused supply in Las Vegas and Miami.
ABC's John McKenzie advised us to be on the lookout for an infection in children who "seem to be getting better only to get suddenly worse." That might be a sign of bacteria infecting lungs already weakened by the virus. CBS' Jeff Glor looked into how the virus is transmitted. Despite bans on touching in schools and churches and an emphasis on hygiene, Glor was told that the influenza virus mostly travels through the air, not skin to skin. He teased the handshakophobic billionaire Donald Trump: "While this wave of worry likely will not end a tradition that began in the C2nd BC, it is doing wonders for the hand sanitizing business--sales up 41% in the last six months."
SHOULD DEMOCRATS TAKE MONEY FROM WALL STREET? These things are true…Wall Street firms, including those bailed out by federal TARP funds, are unpopular for paying their executives lavishly...The Obama Administration seeks some regulation of Wall Street, including some limits on bonus payments...President Barack Obama's Manhattan fundraiser included lavishly-paid Wall Street donors.
All of the networks' White House correspondents tried to weave a story out of the combination of these three facts. Monday, NBC's Savannah Guthrie found White House aides seeing "no conflict of interest with the President turning to Wall Street to collect cash." Now her colleague Chuck Todd finds his appearance before Big Apple fat cats "somewhat awkward."
For ABC, Jake Tapper noted that the White House "has expressed frustration with the news of tens of billions of dollars in bonuses that executives are setting aside…but some of that bonus money may be headed for Democratic wallets" before conceding that the "giants of the financial sector…are holding back just a bit to see how it all plays out."
"What about the administration's Pay Czar? Wasn't he appointed to put a lid on Wall Street pay?" asked CBS' Chip Reid. Special Master Kenneth Feinberg answered: his authority is limited only to seven bailed-out institutions--just two banks, Citigroup and Bank of America; one insurance company, AIG; two automobile manufacturers, General Motors and Chrysler; and their financing arms, GMAC and Chrysler Financial.
HAT TIP TO PROPUBLICA "The pharmaceuticals industry is putting its army of lobbyists into overdrive," announced Sharyl Attkisson in CBS' Follow the Money feature. Attkisson relied on reporting by ProPublica, the not-for-profit investigative journalism team, to count 27 former Capitol Hill legislators and staffers who now work on the industry's $18m effort to shape healthcare reform legislation: already they have succeeded in preserving a ban on discount prescription drug imports from Canada and in preventing lower prescription prices for Medicare patients. This is how K Street hires, an unidentified ex-staffer explained: "Every time a major bill passes there is an exodus of Hill staffers. People are willing to pay a premium for their knowledge."
By people the staffer meant Big Pharma.
ABC’S SCHIFRIN REPORTS; RADDATZ DECIDES OTHERWISE President Hamid Karzai had rejected a runoff vote in Afghanistan's election only hours before he agreed to it, Nick Schifrin reported from Kabul for ABC. He changed his mind "only after he and Sen John Kerry took a walk and visited a mosque," Schifrin stated obliquely. The vote, pitting Karzai against former colleague Abdullah Abdullah, will be held at the end of the first week of November yet Schifrin found few locals impressed: "Most Afghans will tell you they think Karzai will remain in power no matter what the United States does and most people are resigned to the fact that their government will remain corrupt." Also filing from Kabul, CBS' Mandy Clark warned about insecure polling precincts, continued fraud and early snows: "Elections here require massive logistics. Even the donkeys that carried voting materials to remote places in August will not be able to reach the same places, some of which are already being cut off by winter weather."
Back in New York City, ABC anchor Charles Gibson asked correspondent Martha Raddatz whether the mere fact that a runoff is scheduled will allow Barack Obama to assert that "we have a legitimate government that we are backing now." See how minimal Raddatz' definition of legitimate is, despite what her colleague Schifrin had just reported: "That is exactly what he can say."
CLOSED SCHOOLS & OPENED WELLS NBC did not assign a reporter to cover the Afghan political developments. Stephanie Gosk was in next-door Pakistan where a pair of bombs killed six on the campus of Islamabad's Islamic University. She calculated the bomb death toll in the past two weeks at 150 nationwide. As a result of this university attack the government ordered that every school in the entire country be closed.
NBC's Afghan-related coverage was a Making a Difference closer by Mike Taibbi. His was a tribute to Benjamin Sklaver, an army civil affairs captain from Connecticut, ambushed and killed. Before he was deployed to Afghanistan, he had served in Uganda where his work on pumps and wells for civil war refugees led him to found ClearWater Initiative, a global potable water charity. To date, Taibbi reported, CWI has provided fresh water to 7,000 people worldwide. "ClearWater Initiative will continue so that others might live, courtesy of a soldier whose spirit and mission live on."
WHAT? NO SLOPPY JOES? It has been 14 years, NBC's Tom Costello reported, since the federal government has updated its nutritional guidelines for school meals programs. He covered the Institute of Medicine's proposal that the USDA subsidize more fruits and vegetables and whole grains instead of "pizza, chicken nuggets and meatballs." ABC sent Dr Richard Besser to Baltimore to profile Tony Geraci, who is already trying to improve the diet of that city's children. The school system runs a 33-acre farm and three greenhouses where students can grow their own. Geraci is trying to switch from processed foods shipped from afar--"horrible stuff"--to locavore fresh produce and has ordered Meatless Mondays.
Have some vegetarian pasta made with whole wheat pasta.
