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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM NOVEMBER 05, 2009
This was supposed to be the climax of the summer-long debate over healthcare reform. Thousands of protestors descended on Capitol Hill to protest legislation before the House of Representatives as the White House orchestrated endorsements from AARP and AMA. Yet the bill became an afterthought. An afternoon shooting spree at Fort Hood, the massive army base in central Texas, dominated the news agenda. It led all three newscasts and occupied 69% (41 min out of 59) of the three-network newshole. As of the newshour all three newscasts reported a death toll of twelve, including the officer identified as the killer, Major Nadal Hasan.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR NOVEMBER 05, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
WHAT HEALTHCARE? ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE AT FORT HOOD This was supposed to be the climax of the summer-long debate over healthcare reform. Thousands of protestors descended on Capitol Hill to protest legislation before the House of Representatives as the White House orchestrated endorsements from AARP and AMA. Yet the bill became an afterthought. An afternoon shooting spree at Fort Hood, the massive army base in central Texas, dominated the news agenda. It led all three newscasts and occupied 69% (41 min out of 59) of the three-network newshole. As of the newshour all three newscasts reported a death toll of twelve, including the officer identified as the killer, Major Nadal Hasan.
The shooting happened in the early afternoon, too close to the news hour to allow full reports to be filed from the scene. ABC's John Quinones and CBS' Don Teague were there for stand-ups. NBC relied on Jade Mingus of KCEN-TV, its local affiliate. By coincidence, Major Hasan was a graduate of Virginia Tech, the scene of a similar horrifying shooting spree in the spring of 2007. Back then Cho Seung-Hui murdered 32 fellow students before killing himself. He attracted yet heavier coverage (62 min, 54 min and 38 min on the first three days). The Columbine High School massacre at its peak (49 min), received slightly more coverage than Fort Hood's first day, back in 1999.
MILITARY STORY, NOT A TEXAN ONE "As sirens wailed, Fort Hood looked like a combat zone. SWAT teams closed in on the shooter as dozens of wounded covered the ground receiving battlefield emergency medical treatment for their wounds," narrated NBC's Jim Miklaszewski from the Pentagon. "The base went into total lockdown, warning sirens caught on live television." ABC's Martha Raddatz reported that the killing occurred in a processing center where soldiers were getting final medical and dental checks before being deployed to Iraq.
All three newscasts led with their Pentagon correspondents. David Martin at CBS reported that the lockdown separated parents from their children: "Terrified military families turned to Twitter to find out what was happening." He quoted one: "I thought I was living in one of the safest places ever." ABC's Raddatz recounted how the word spread online: "The post is on lockdown. This is not a drill. Please stay inside. It is an emergency situation." The closed buildings included the base's nine schools.
CBS anchor Katie Couric interviewed Carissa Picard, a soldier's wife: "Tornado sirens started going off and telling us that we needed to seek shelter immediately, close and lock our doors and windows, and then they also said we needed to turn off our ventilation system. So that last part had us wondering." All three newscasts reported that besides the dead major, a pair of unidentified suspects was being interrogated as his possible accomplices.
HASAN, THE ARAB HOKIE NBC's Jim Miklaszewski identified Nadal Hasan as a "suspect" in the killings, even though he was reportedly already dead. His medical specialty was "mental health disorders and treating combat stress." CBS reported that Hasan's psychiatric specialty was drug rehabilitation: "Drug-related cases of violence are among the most frequent kinds of violence in the army so there is a very cruel irony to this," CBS' David Martin observed,
NBC's Pete Williams quoted Kay Bailey Hutchison, who represents the residents of Fort Hood in the Senate, as stating that Hasan "had been heard being very vocally critical" of a looming deployment to a middle eastern war zone. Neither NBC or CBS made note of Hasan's religion or his ethnicity. ABC did. Martha Raddatz quoted the reaction of an officer's wife upon learning the name Nadal Hasan: "I wish his name was Smith." ABC's Brian Ross reported that he was not a convert to Islam but born into a Moslem family: "Our information now is that he attended Damascus University in Syria and may be Jordanian--likely not a convert in that case." NBC's Williams, by contrast, listed the psychiatrist's academic background as Virginia Tech followed by the Uniformed Services' University of Health in Maryland.
NOT SAFE ON BASE Clarissa Picard, the Fort Hood soldier's wife interviewed by CBS anchor Katie Couric, commented that she had "always associated living on post with safety. There has been a marked rise in violence, in suicides, in shootings. This summer it was rampant." CBS' Armen Keteyian followed up with examples of "a long bloody history" of unsuspecting violence at military bases. He cheated his list by including the mass killing in 1991 at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen. Strictly speaking that was civilian violence, even though Killeen is Fort Hood's home town. Keteyian also mentioned a spate of murders by soldiers returning from war at Fort Carson and the mental health clinic killings at Camp Liberty in Iraq just six months ago
NBC's in-house military analyst Barry McCaffrey contradicted Picard's firsthand account and Keteyian's generalizations on CBS. "A lot of military families on post and, on the place, there are elements of the post that look like Dallas suburbs," he told anchor Brian Williams. "So this is a vibrant community. It is one of the safest places in America."
NBC's Mike Taibbi told us about Fort Hood. It is named for a Confederate Civil War general, John Bell Hood; it covers 340 square miles of central Texas, the largest active duty armored post in the nation; its population is 218,000; it is home to the 1st Cavalry Division and the 4th Infantry Division; its "arid terrain is ideal as a training and testing ground for men and equipment." ABC's John Berman told us that Fort Hood is home base for the troops that arrested the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and who engaged in urban combat against the Mahdi Army in the SadrBrigade in the City slums of Baghdad, as Iraq teetered on the edge of its own civil war.
ABC's Erin Hayes reminded us of human interest features she had filed on military families separated by deployments to war (a trio of examples is here, here and here). "When Fort Hood soldiers return from battle time and again to the arms of their families, it was to safe ground, to home, a place they believed they had been fighting to protect, home to peace--until today."
TOWN HALLS ON CAPITOL STEPS The countdown to the House of Representatives' vote this weekend on healthcare legislation would have been Story of the Day if not for Fort Hood. ABC's Jonathan Karl quoted speeches about "the greatest threat to freedom" and "disaster" as "the hastily planned protest drew one of the largest crowds in memory for a Congressional event." NBC's Kelly O'Donnell called it "a boisterous crowd," with its worries about federal funds for abortions and healthcare for immigrants. "The town hall fury of August has come to Capitol Hill," ABC's Karl reminded us. At the White House, CBS' Chip Reid was not caught up in the sense of urgency heard in Congressional coverage: "There is still a long way to go before the House and Senate agree on a final bill and that means plenty of other opportunities for opponents of healthcare reform to try to kill it."
PROTECTING PREGNANT BANKERS The current populist backlash against Wall Street inspired ABC's David Muir to survey the frustration at New York City clinics that have not received their shipments of vaccines against the H1N1 swine strain of the influenza virus, even as the in-house medical offices at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and the Federal Reserve received theirs.
ABC's Muir portrayed the story as fat cats receiving shots before pregnant women--which sounds like a great headline. Unfortunately, NBC's Robert Bazell deflated that storyline in an Exclusive interview with Thomas Farley, the Health Commissioner of New York City. "Employers are required to sign an agreement that said they are vaccinating people at high risk," the commissioner explained. So it would be Goldman Sachs' pregnant and asthmatic workers that would get the shots not bankers who happen to be male and healthy.
ONETIME SEXUAL PERVERTS IN SQUALID TENT CITY Major Nadal Hasan, with a dozen deaths to his name, removed Anthony Sowell, with eleven corpses found in his house, from the national news agenda after a single day of prominence. Sowell is a registered sex offender in Ohio's Cuyahoga County. Only CBS found time in its newshole for a follow-up. Bill Whitaker explained why ex-cons on a county's registry tend to live in clusters, concentrated in certain neighborhoods. Many states restrict residency so that those registered cannot live near a park or a school, for fear they might come into frequent close contact with children. Some cities end up with very narrow childfree zones. Whitaker showed us the Dickensian horror of a cluster of onetime offenders forced to live in a tent city encampment under a Miami freeway.
The shooting happened in the early afternoon, too close to the news hour to allow full reports to be filed from the scene. ABC's John Quinones and CBS' Don Teague were there for stand-ups. NBC relied on Jade Mingus of KCEN-TV, its local affiliate. By coincidence, Major Hasan was a graduate of Virginia Tech, the scene of a similar horrifying shooting spree in the spring of 2007. Back then Cho Seung-Hui murdered 32 fellow students before killing himself. He attracted yet heavier coverage (62 min, 54 min and 38 min on the first three days). The Columbine High School massacre at its peak (49 min), received slightly more coverage than Fort Hood's first day, back in 1999.
MILITARY STORY, NOT A TEXAN ONE "As sirens wailed, Fort Hood looked like a combat zone. SWAT teams closed in on the shooter as dozens of wounded covered the ground receiving battlefield emergency medical treatment for their wounds," narrated NBC's Jim Miklaszewski from the Pentagon. "The base went into total lockdown, warning sirens caught on live television." ABC's Martha Raddatz reported that the killing occurred in a processing center where soldiers were getting final medical and dental checks before being deployed to Iraq.
All three newscasts led with their Pentagon correspondents. David Martin at CBS reported that the lockdown separated parents from their children: "Terrified military families turned to Twitter to find out what was happening." He quoted one: "I thought I was living in one of the safest places ever." ABC's Raddatz recounted how the word spread online: "The post is on lockdown. This is not a drill. Please stay inside. It is an emergency situation." The closed buildings included the base's nine schools.
CBS anchor Katie Couric interviewed Carissa Picard, a soldier's wife: "Tornado sirens started going off and telling us that we needed to seek shelter immediately, close and lock our doors and windows, and then they also said we needed to turn off our ventilation system. So that last part had us wondering." All three newscasts reported that besides the dead major, a pair of unidentified suspects was being interrogated as his possible accomplices.
HASAN, THE ARAB HOKIE NBC's Jim Miklaszewski identified Nadal Hasan as a "suspect" in the killings, even though he was reportedly already dead. His medical specialty was "mental health disorders and treating combat stress." CBS reported that Hasan's psychiatric specialty was drug rehabilitation: "Drug-related cases of violence are among the most frequent kinds of violence in the army so there is a very cruel irony to this," CBS' David Martin observed,
NBC's Pete Williams quoted Kay Bailey Hutchison, who represents the residents of Fort Hood in the Senate, as stating that Hasan "had been heard being very vocally critical" of a looming deployment to a middle eastern war zone. Neither NBC or CBS made note of Hasan's religion or his ethnicity. ABC did. Martha Raddatz quoted the reaction of an officer's wife upon learning the name Nadal Hasan: "I wish his name was Smith." ABC's Brian Ross reported that he was not a convert to Islam but born into a Moslem family: "Our information now is that he attended Damascus University in Syria and may be Jordanian--likely not a convert in that case." NBC's Williams, by contrast, listed the psychiatrist's academic background as Virginia Tech followed by the Uniformed Services' University of Health in Maryland.
NOT SAFE ON BASE Clarissa Picard, the Fort Hood soldier's wife interviewed by CBS anchor Katie Couric, commented that she had "always associated living on post with safety. There has been a marked rise in violence, in suicides, in shootings. This summer it was rampant." CBS' Armen Keteyian followed up with examples of "a long bloody history" of unsuspecting violence at military bases. He cheated his list by including the mass killing in 1991 at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen. Strictly speaking that was civilian violence, even though Killeen is Fort Hood's home town. Keteyian also mentioned a spate of murders by soldiers returning from war at Fort Carson and the mental health clinic killings at Camp Liberty in Iraq just six months ago
NBC's in-house military analyst Barry McCaffrey contradicted Picard's firsthand account and Keteyian's generalizations on CBS. "A lot of military families on post and, on the place, there are elements of the post that look like Dallas suburbs," he told anchor Brian Williams. "So this is a vibrant community. It is one of the safest places in America."
NBC's Mike Taibbi told us about Fort Hood. It is named for a Confederate Civil War general, John Bell Hood; it covers 340 square miles of central Texas, the largest active duty armored post in the nation; its population is 218,000; it is home to the 1st Cavalry Division and the 4th Infantry Division; its "arid terrain is ideal as a training and testing ground for men and equipment." ABC's John Berman told us that Fort Hood is home base for the troops that arrested the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and who engaged in urban combat against the Mahdi Army in the Sadr
ABC's Erin Hayes reminded us of human interest features she had filed on military families separated by deployments to war (a trio of examples is here, here and here). "When Fort Hood soldiers return from battle time and again to the arms of their families, it was to safe ground, to home, a place they believed they had been fighting to protect, home to peace--until today."
TOWN HALLS ON CAPITOL STEPS The countdown to the House of Representatives' vote this weekend on healthcare legislation would have been Story of the Day if not for Fort Hood. ABC's Jonathan Karl quoted speeches about "the greatest threat to freedom" and "disaster" as "the hastily planned protest drew one of the largest crowds in memory for a Congressional event." NBC's Kelly O'Donnell called it "a boisterous crowd," with its worries about federal funds for abortions and healthcare for immigrants. "The town hall fury of August has come to Capitol Hill," ABC's Karl reminded us. At the White House, CBS' Chip Reid was not caught up in the sense of urgency heard in Congressional coverage: "There is still a long way to go before the House and Senate agree on a final bill and that means plenty of other opportunities for opponents of healthcare reform to try to kill it."
PROTECTING PREGNANT BANKERS The current populist backlash against Wall Street inspired ABC's David Muir to survey the frustration at New York City clinics that have not received their shipments of vaccines against the H1N1 swine strain of the influenza virus, even as the in-house medical offices at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and the Federal Reserve received theirs.
ABC's Muir portrayed the story as fat cats receiving shots before pregnant women--which sounds like a great headline. Unfortunately, NBC's Robert Bazell deflated that storyline in an Exclusive interview with Thomas Farley, the Health Commissioner of New York City. "Employers are required to sign an agreement that said they are vaccinating people at high risk," the commissioner explained. So it would be Goldman Sachs' pregnant and asthmatic workers that would get the shots not bankers who happen to be male and healthy.
ONETIME SEXUAL PERVERTS IN SQUALID TENT CITY Major Nadal Hasan, with a dozen deaths to his name, removed Anthony Sowell, with eleven corpses found in his house, from the national news agenda after a single day of prominence. Sowell is a registered sex offender in Ohio's Cuyahoga County. Only CBS found time in its newshole for a follow-up. Bill Whitaker explained why ex-cons on a county's registry tend to live in clusters, concentrated in certain neighborhoods. Many states restrict residency so that those registered cannot live near a park or a school, for fear they might come into frequent close contact with children. Some cities end up with very narrow childfree zones. Whitaker showed us the Dickensian horror of a cluster of onetime offenders forced to live in a tent city encampment under a Miami freeway.
