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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARCH 27, 2009
As the flood waters of the Red River inch ever higher, the fate of Fargo was Story of the Day for the third day in a row. All three newscasts led from North Dakota as it remained in doubt whether the 43-foot high dikes would withstand this weekend's crest of high water.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MARCH 27, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
WET & FRIGID WEEKEND OF NORTH COUNTRY WORRY As the flood waters of the Red River inch ever higher, the fate of Fargo was Story of the Day for the third day in a row. All three newscasts led from North Dakota as it remained in doubt whether the 43-foot high dikes would withstand this weekend's crest of high water.
Television reporters are seldom more imaginative than when they are assigned to cover natural disasters. Tyndall Report was impressed in the bitterest depths of this winter when CBS' Cynthia Bowers proved how cold it was by hammering a nail with a frozen banana. Now her colleague Dave Price, Early Show weathercaster, dons waders to stride waist deep into the ice covered backwaters of the Red River. "It is bitter and it is painful," he confessed, complaining of a 6F wind-chill factor as he waved around sheets of ice. Yet when one thinks about it, being surrounded by freezing water in waders is actually 26F warmer than that wind chill.
Still, Price told us that the ice is "a blessing and a curse" for the people of Fargo. The curse is that it makes sandbags difficult to make. They "become frozen rocks that cannot seal out the water; so baseball bats break up the sand." The blessing is that snow cannot melt "and that is helping slow the river's rise." ABC's Eric Horng gave us a geology lesson to explain Fargo's problem. The Red River valley is "essentially the dry bottom of a prehistoric lake, one of flattest places on Earth." So when water accumulates it just spreads sideways. "In this battle of Man vs Nature, sheer will goes to Fargo; sheer size to the river. The Red River has now swelled"--should that be swollen?--to more than 45 times its normal volume and flow."
CBS' Dean Reynolds showed us the countryside surrounding Fargo where evacuations are accelerating and the US Coast Guard has rescued nearly a hundred people. ABC's Barbara Pinto visited downtown Fargo, where a secondary levee has been built in case the riverside one fails. It would sacrifice the 30-or-so homes that lie between the two structures "but it could save the city." Quoting the National Weather Service, NBC's Kevin Tibbles told us "the next 48 hours are absolutely critical." How are conditions? "It is wet and frigid."
NOT TALIBAN IN AFGHAN BUT AL-QAEDA IN PAKISTAN TOO "We have a clear and focused goal, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan." That was the soundbite all three newscasts used from Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech on his new policy. He deployed 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan to train its army and police and pledged $1.5bn in extra civilian aid for Pakistan over the next five years. ABC's Jake Tapper observed that a "major component lacking in today's announcement is a total price tag--or even an estimate." Another missing component, NBC's Richard Engel pointed out from Kabul, was that the President "never once mentioned nationbuilding, never once mentioned the idea of democracy." NBC's Savannah Guthrie pointed to a further omission: "The President did not outline a clear exit strategy."
CBS' Lara Logan called the "biggest change" in Obama's policy the notion that "Afghanistan and Pakistan will no longer be treated as separate problems. One challenge, one goal." Obama may now treat al-Qaeda as his sole enemy but Logan brought us Exclusive footage from behind guerrilla lines to show that the Taliban have not yet received the memo. They are "preparing a surge of their own." She quoted a Taliban commander: "We do not care if hey send 20,000 or 50,000. The more troops they send the more casualties they suffer." NBC's Engel reminded us of the fate that befell the Soviet Union when it tried to reinforce its presence in Afghanistan: "Russian hardware is everywhere. It is so plentiful here the Afghans use it to build bridges and dams, a very grim reminder of how difficult it is to fight in this country."
SCHOOL FOR GIRLS In Pakistan, the government honored Greg Mortenson for his volunteer school building efforts and ABC anchor Charles Gibson named him his network's Person of the Week. When NBC profiled Mortenson for Making a Difference eighteen months ago, John Larson concentrated on the mountaineering exploits that led Mortenson to the educationally deprived villages of northern Pakistan. Gibson chose his emphasis on teaching girls rather than boys: "If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. If you educate a girl, you educate a community." Mortenson's bestselling book is Three Cups of Tea.
BANKERS ARE NOT BOY SCOUTS The President had a twofer. Besides his Afghanistan speech, he also met with the chief executives of a dozen major banks. NBC's Savannah Guthrie and CBS' Bob Schieffer mentioned the bankers in passing, Schieffer as part of his promotion for his pre-taped Face the Nation interview with Barack Obama on Sunday morning. From New York, ABC's Betsy Stark covered Obama's "olive branch" to the bankers whose bonuses he had castigated. "The administration is aware that it cannot accomplish its ambitious agenda for reviving the economy" without the banks, Stark mused. Specifically the President needs them to agree to modify mortgages and to sell assets deemed toxic. An unidentified banker told Stark that the talks were "candid and straightforward…We were not all sitting around the table singing Kumbaya."
JANSING DEVELOPS HOOVERVILLE BEAT With tent cities growing in Seattle, Sacramento and Los Angeles, ABC's David Muir told us about the new shantytowns on Thursday and now NBC's Chris Jansing updates us from Fresno. Jansing is starting to make her mark on the homelessness beat, with her third report on the topic this month alone. In Fresno, she told us, the "new homeless" try to separate themselves from the "chronically homeless" because they are "worried about drugs and alcohol abuse and violence." Many of the so-called new homeless "have gone from a house or apartment to a friend or neighbor's couch and this is rock bottom." In Fresno, 130 have moved from tents into 8'-x-10' storage sheds, "minimal but safe."
NFL NEWS NOTES As Tyndall Report pointed out when the Raiders' Marquis Cooper and the Lions' Corey Smith drowned in the Gulf of Mexico four weeks ago, ordinary local stories become nationally newsworthy when an NFL player is involved. So an argument over a policeman's inconsiderate traffic stop in Dallas qualified for coverage by NBC's Pete Williams and CBS' Mark Strassmann because the driver happened to be Houston Texans' running back Ryan Moats. Moats ran a red light in the early house of the morning while he was rushing to his mother-in-law's deathbed. When officer Robert Powell detained him for 15 minutes in the hospital parking lot, his demeanor was caught on audiotape: "I can screw you over. You know would rather not do that. Your attitude will dictate everything that happens and right now your attitude sucks."
By the time the traffic ticket was written, the patient was dead with Moats unable to say goodbye. Because Moats happened to be an NFL player, Powell's behavior was publicized and he has been suspended from duty.
THE SHAKING SALTON SEA NBC sent George Lewis to the 16m-year-old Salton Sea in the California desert to investigate "a swarm of more that 300 earthquakes" that has shaken the region since Sunday. The Salton Sea is on the extreme southern end of the San Andreas Fault, which "has not experienced a major earthquake in 300 years." The odds that this so-called swarm is the precursor to the first Big One on the San Andreas since San Francisco in 1906 are "on the order of 5%," Lewis was told
IRVING BLAZED A TRAIL "Now it can be told, the R was for Raskin," thus NBC anchor Brian Williams paid tribute to 45-year NBC Newser Irving "R" Levine, who died in retirement at the age of 86. Apart from his bow tie and middle initial--and that slightly camp accent--"he was best known for blazing a trail covering economics on television…before the letters CNBC existed there was only Irving R Levine," boasted Williams, a claim which is unfair to Ray Brady at CBS. CBS anchor Katie Couric (no link) was a longtime Levine colleague at NBC: "Producers, trying to shorten one of his reports, suggested he drop the R. He suggested dropping the B in N-B-C."
Television reporters are seldom more imaginative than when they are assigned to cover natural disasters. Tyndall Report was impressed in the bitterest depths of this winter when CBS' Cynthia Bowers proved how cold it was by hammering a nail with a frozen banana. Now her colleague Dave Price, Early Show weathercaster, dons waders to stride waist deep into the ice covered backwaters of the Red River. "It is bitter and it is painful," he confessed, complaining of a 6F wind-chill factor as he waved around sheets of ice. Yet when one thinks about it, being surrounded by freezing water in waders is actually 26F warmer than that wind chill.
Still, Price told us that the ice is "a blessing and a curse" for the people of Fargo. The curse is that it makes sandbags difficult to make. They "become frozen rocks that cannot seal out the water; so baseball bats break up the sand." The blessing is that snow cannot melt "and that is helping slow the river's rise." ABC's Eric Horng gave us a geology lesson to explain Fargo's problem. The Red River valley is "essentially the dry bottom of a prehistoric lake, one of flattest places on Earth." So when water accumulates it just spreads sideways. "In this battle of Man vs Nature, sheer will goes to Fargo; sheer size to the river. The Red River has now swelled"--should that be swollen?--to more than 45 times its normal volume and flow."
CBS' Dean Reynolds showed us the countryside surrounding Fargo where evacuations are accelerating and the US Coast Guard has rescued nearly a hundred people. ABC's Barbara Pinto visited downtown Fargo, where a secondary levee has been built in case the riverside one fails. It would sacrifice the 30-or-so homes that lie between the two structures "but it could save the city." Quoting the National Weather Service, NBC's Kevin Tibbles told us "the next 48 hours are absolutely critical." How are conditions? "It is wet and frigid."
NOT TALIBAN IN AFGHAN BUT AL-QAEDA IN PAKISTAN TOO "We have a clear and focused goal, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan." That was the soundbite all three newscasts used from Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech on his new policy. He deployed 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan to train its army and police and pledged $1.5bn in extra civilian aid for Pakistan over the next five years. ABC's Jake Tapper observed that a "major component lacking in today's announcement is a total price tag--or even an estimate." Another missing component, NBC's Richard Engel pointed out from Kabul, was that the President "never once mentioned nationbuilding, never once mentioned the idea of democracy." NBC's Savannah Guthrie pointed to a further omission: "The President did not outline a clear exit strategy."
CBS' Lara Logan called the "biggest change" in Obama's policy the notion that "Afghanistan and Pakistan will no longer be treated as separate problems. One challenge, one goal." Obama may now treat al-Qaeda as his sole enemy but Logan brought us Exclusive footage from behind guerrilla lines to show that the Taliban have not yet received the memo. They are "preparing a surge of their own." She quoted a Taliban commander: "We do not care if hey send 20,000 or 50,000. The more troops they send the more casualties they suffer." NBC's Engel reminded us of the fate that befell the Soviet Union when it tried to reinforce its presence in Afghanistan: "Russian hardware is everywhere. It is so plentiful here the Afghans use it to build bridges and dams, a very grim reminder of how difficult it is to fight in this country."
SCHOOL FOR GIRLS In Pakistan, the government honored Greg Mortenson for his volunteer school building efforts and ABC anchor Charles Gibson named him his network's Person of the Week. When NBC profiled Mortenson for Making a Difference eighteen months ago, John Larson concentrated on the mountaineering exploits that led Mortenson to the educationally deprived villages of northern Pakistan. Gibson chose his emphasis on teaching girls rather than boys: "If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. If you educate a girl, you educate a community." Mortenson's bestselling book is Three Cups of Tea.
BANKERS ARE NOT BOY SCOUTS The President had a twofer. Besides his Afghanistan speech, he also met with the chief executives of a dozen major banks. NBC's Savannah Guthrie and CBS' Bob Schieffer mentioned the bankers in passing, Schieffer as part of his promotion for his pre-taped Face the Nation interview with Barack Obama on Sunday morning. From New York, ABC's Betsy Stark covered Obama's "olive branch" to the bankers whose bonuses he had castigated. "The administration is aware that it cannot accomplish its ambitious agenda for reviving the economy" without the banks, Stark mused. Specifically the President needs them to agree to modify mortgages and to sell assets deemed toxic. An unidentified banker told Stark that the talks were "candid and straightforward…We were not all sitting around the table singing Kumbaya."
JANSING DEVELOPS HOOVERVILLE BEAT With tent cities growing in Seattle, Sacramento and Los Angeles, ABC's David Muir told us about the new shantytowns on Thursday and now NBC's Chris Jansing updates us from Fresno. Jansing is starting to make her mark on the homelessness beat, with her third report on the topic this month alone. In Fresno, she told us, the "new homeless" try to separate themselves from the "chronically homeless" because they are "worried about drugs and alcohol abuse and violence." Many of the so-called new homeless "have gone from a house or apartment to a friend or neighbor's couch and this is rock bottom." In Fresno, 130 have moved from tents into 8'-x-10' storage sheds, "minimal but safe."
NFL NEWS NOTES As Tyndall Report pointed out when the Raiders' Marquis Cooper and the Lions' Corey Smith drowned in the Gulf of Mexico four weeks ago, ordinary local stories become nationally newsworthy when an NFL player is involved. So an argument over a policeman's inconsiderate traffic stop in Dallas qualified for coverage by NBC's Pete Williams and CBS' Mark Strassmann because the driver happened to be Houston Texans' running back Ryan Moats. Moats ran a red light in the early house of the morning while he was rushing to his mother-in-law's deathbed. When officer Robert Powell detained him for 15 minutes in the hospital parking lot, his demeanor was caught on audiotape: "I can screw you over. You know would rather not do that. Your attitude will dictate everything that happens and right now your attitude sucks."
By the time the traffic ticket was written, the patient was dead with Moats unable to say goodbye. Because Moats happened to be an NFL player, Powell's behavior was publicized and he has been suspended from duty.
THE SHAKING SALTON SEA NBC sent George Lewis to the 16m-year-old Salton Sea in the California desert to investigate "a swarm of more that 300 earthquakes" that has shaken the region since Sunday. The Salton Sea is on the extreme southern end of the San Andreas Fault, which "has not experienced a major earthquake in 300 years." The odds that this so-called swarm is the precursor to the first Big One on the San Andreas since San Francisco in 1906 are "on the order of 5%," Lewis was told
IRVING BLAZED A TRAIL "Now it can be told, the R was for Raskin," thus NBC anchor Brian Williams paid tribute to 45-year NBC Newser Irving "R" Levine, who died in retirement at the age of 86. Apart from his bow tie and middle initial--and that slightly camp accent--"he was best known for blazing a trail covering economics on television…before the letters CNBC existed there was only Irving R Levine," boasted Williams, a claim which is unfair to Ray Brady at CBS. CBS anchor Katie Couric (no link) was a longtime Levine colleague at NBC: "Producers, trying to shorten one of his reports, suggested he drop the R. He suggested dropping the B in N-B-C."
