 |           |
TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 2, 2009
Day Three of coverage of the G20 Financial Summit in London was the most extensive (29 min on the three newscasts combined v Wednesday 25, Tuesday 16) accounting for more than half (52% of 56 min) of the total newshole. All three newscasts led from London with their White House correspondents summarizing the summit's closing communique, including a $1tr investment in the International Monetary Fund to support developing economies during the global downturn. CBS anchor Katie Couric acknowledged her man Chip Reid meaningfully--"thank you very much for your work this week"--in an oblique reference to the death of his father. Our condolences too. NBC anchor Brian Williams also filed from London, while ABC split the anchoring chores, with Charles Gibson in London and Diane Sawyer back home in New York.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR APRIL 2, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
G20 GRABS MAJORITY OF NEWSHOLE Day Three of coverage of the G20 Financial Summit in London was the most extensive (29 min on the three newscasts combined v Wednesday 25, Tuesday 16) accounting for more than half (52% of 56 min) of the total newshole. All three newscasts led from London with their White House correspondents summarizing the summit's closing communique, including a $1tr investment in the International Monetary Fund to support developing economies during the global downturn. CBS anchor Katie Couric acknowledged her man Chip Reid meaningfully--"thank you very much for your work this week"--in an oblique reference to the death of his father. Our condolences too. NBC anchor Brian Williams also filed from London, while ABC split the anchoring chores, with Charles Gibson in London and Diane Sawyer back home in New York.
NBC's Chuck Todd asserted that the IMF investment was "the most substantial G20 action." He noted that the summit's other outcomes "boil down largely to pledges"--a pledge of cooperation on regulation, of faster future response on stimulus, of "name and shame" for tax havens, of avoidance of trade protectionism. CBS' Reid pointed out that Barack Obama "was unable to convince many nations to devote more to stimulus spending."
The President's aides had clearly worked hard behind the scenes to spread a flattering anecdote about Obama's diplomacy between Nicolas Sarkozy and Hu Jintao. All three White House correspondents alluded to it. This is how ABC's Jake Tapper put it: "American leadership was needed at least at one point. There seemed to be a deadlock as there was a heated argument between the President of France, who wanted to list all the countries that have tax havens, and the President of China, trying to halve some of them. President Obama stepped in, helped broker a deal--and the final document included language that satisfied both men."
NBC anchor Brian Williams assembled a roundtable of Todd plus diplomatic correspondent Andrea Mitchell plus CNBC's Maria Bartiromo to assess winners and losers. Bartiromo confirmed that the IMF funding was "effective…real, substantial." Todd reminded us that "all politics is local" so each leader was posturing to state "what the folks back home…needed to hear." Mitchell read "rave reviews" for the new President of the United States: "He is humble. He says he is coming to listen not to lecture. He is blessed by comparison with his predecessor."
POLITICAL CLASS PHOTO Nick Watt has had weeklong fun covering G20 for ABC. Tuesday he teased bankers for their dress code; Wednesday he probed Bakewell tarts with the Naked Chef; now he uses an extended boarding school metaphor for the political leaders assembled in London. Taking the class photo is like herding cats…Queen Elizabeth played head teacher…Lula is most popular…Silvio Berlusconi is class clown…and the new kid Barack Obama leaves "the other kids star struck." CBS anchor Katie Couric, too, looked at the body language of the assembled multitude of powerhouses and concluded that "there was plenty of global warming to go round." She meant bonhomie not hot air, I think.
SEX-ROLE STEREOTYPES FOR MRS OBAMA As she was yesterday by CBS' Sheila MacVicar and NBC's Dawna Friesen, Michelle Obama was followed again, this time by ABC Yunji de Nies and, in a reprise, by Friesen once more. Talk about sex-role stereotyping! Do male reporters ever get assigned to cover a First Lady? Anyway, de Nies dished with Alexandra Schulman of British Vogue about Michelle's threads: "Frankly she could wear a rubbish bag and I would still think she looked great." Friesen improved on Wednesday's gushing tones by, sensibly, largely absenting herself. She covered the First Lady's visit to an inner city girls' school by letting the camera speak for itself, showing Mrs Obama's motivational remarks in four extended soundbites, the girls' authentic reactions of joy and tears--and hugs all round.
POST-SUMMIT THUMB-SUCKERS ABC and CBS both called in talking heads to help us understand what it all means. CBS anchor Katie Couric interviewed Vincent Cable, a member of the British House of Commons, sloppily without identifying which political party he represents. Cable--a Liberal Democrat, a centrist minor party--told Couric that "this is an extraordinary grouping. It has now the two big superpowers of the world, which are the United States and China." ABC anchor Charles Gibson talked to Robert Hormats of Goldman Sachs and Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute. "In a very important sense it does represent a New World Order," Bergsten averred. "G20 includes five countries from the Americas, five from Asia, five from Europe, five from elsewhere. It is the true globalization of economic decisionmaking."
CBS' Couric in her summary feature came to a similar conclusion: "Economists have been talking about globalization for years but few could have predicted the speed with which foreclosures in American cities could result in bank runs in Asia and Europe. This Great Recession proves it is much more than a catchy ad campaign--we are All Connected."
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC, THE NEXT SUPERPOWER In Beijing, CBS' Barry Petersen picked up on China's role, "radiating a new confidence and acting more and more like the superpower it fully intends to be." As the rest of the global economy shrinks, China's is still growing: "What Americans are not buying--made-for-export items from speakers to socks to sewing machines--are being snapped up here." That, Petersen explained, is what gives the People's Republic the clout to lecture the United States about its credit rating "like a First World country nervous about the health of a Third World economy" and to propose that the US dollar be replaced as a global currency by something "more trustworthy."
POST HOC, PROPTER HOC Prices rose on the New York Stock Exchange--the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7978, up 216 points--as the G20 Summit concluded and ABC assigned Betsy Stark to the thankless task of correlating the two events. This is what she came up with: "The prospect of the world's richest countries disbursing more than $1tr in aid to the world's needier nations added to the burgeoning optimism that government leaders are doing what is necessary to revive the global economy."
That was not very convincing, was it?
MEANWHILE, AWAY FROM G20… A couple of foreign stories had nothing to do with G20. CBS' Pentagon correspondent David Martin sat down with David Albright, a onetime weapons inspector, to preview North Korea's launch of its Taep'o-dong rocket. Its purported mission is for communications not a military testfire, with a trajectory over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Albright offered his interpretation: "It is really just something that goes Beep-Beep-Beep. It is not a sophisticated satellite by any means." He pointed out that a minor reconfiguration could turn the rocket into an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile: "You can guarantee there are going to be some customers there at this launch, maybe Iranians, maybe others."
A track-suited jogger was arrested in a park in Mexico City and paraded before cameras. NBC's Miami-based narcotrafficking specialist Mark Potter identified the suspect as Vicente Carrillo Leyva, a reputed leader of the Juarez Cartel, who was living in the nation's capital under an assumed name. He told us that the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels are engaged in a "vicious war" for control of trafficking routes along the Tex-Mex border. Carrillo's father, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Potter reminded us, had run the cartel until he died "during a botched operation to alter his appearance."
CALLING AIDES CRONIES IS UNFAIR "Racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion conspiracy…making false statements," thus ABC's Chris Bury reeled off the highlights of a "sweeping" 19-count federal indictment against Rod Blagojevich, the impeached onetime Governor of Illinois, and six others accused of graft. Bury abandoned the presumption of innocence only once, using the inflammatory term "cronies" to describe the pol's co-defendants. He did quote the "irrepressible Blagojevich known for his dramatic flair and trademark hair" asserting his innocence during a guest gig as a talkradio host. "Now he will have a chance to talk under oath," Bury mused.
TEAGUE TAKEN TO TASK FOR ER TECHNOCRACY CBS and NBC both filed features on hospitals. NBC's Making a Difference took us to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which has a $20m budget shortfall and faces 600 layoffs. Peter Alexander told us that management turned to the workforce for cost-cutting ideas. So far they have found enough to save 450 of the 600 jobs. Don Teague used to work for NBC. Now he turns up on CBS for the first time, in Austin at the University of Texas' Medical Center Brackenridge.
Teague told us the inside story of hospital emergency room cost overruns: "a handful of familiar faces" returning over and over again taking up "massive amounts of time and resources." Over a six year period in Austin just nine patients--addicted, homeless, mentally-ill--racked up $3m in medical bills for almost 2,700 visits to the ER. One might think that the cost-saving solution would be improved mental healthcare and drug rehabilitation. Not so, according to Teague: "The report's authors say the key to solving the problem is technology identifying those who abuse the ER system." However, if you check out the commenters at cbsnews.com (Ann Kitchen and ER Doc 2009 and Starks 12), you will see that Teague gets told off for this focus on the technocratic approach.
DIANE SAWYER OVERREACTS ABC's temp co-anchor Diane Sawyer injected unnecessary frisson into her introduction for John McKenzie's report on anti-smoking PSAs. "A warning, it may be tough to watch," Sawyer declared, as McKenzie introduced an Australian-made clip that has been incorporated into New York City's public health ad campaign. "In this day and age with ads circulating on YouTube and other Internet sites, this is not just a New York ad. It is now being seen around the world," McKenzie noted. As for the supposedly tough-to-watch spot it showed an Aussie toddler losing sight of his mother in a crowd for 17 seconds. If this is how your child feels after losing you for a minute, just imagine if they lost you for life intoned the voiceover.
It is hard to see why Good Morning America's Sawyer was so upset. Her Mountain Dew Mouth (here and here) was way tougher to watch.
NBC's Chuck Todd asserted that the IMF investment was "the most substantial G20 action." He noted that the summit's other outcomes "boil down largely to pledges"--a pledge of cooperation on regulation, of faster future response on stimulus, of "name and shame" for tax havens, of avoidance of trade protectionism. CBS' Reid pointed out that Barack Obama "was unable to convince many nations to devote more to stimulus spending."
The President's aides had clearly worked hard behind the scenes to spread a flattering anecdote about Obama's diplomacy between Nicolas Sarkozy and Hu Jintao. All three White House correspondents alluded to it. This is how ABC's Jake Tapper put it: "American leadership was needed at least at one point. There seemed to be a deadlock as there was a heated argument between the President of France, who wanted to list all the countries that have tax havens, and the President of China, trying to halve some of them. President Obama stepped in, helped broker a deal--and the final document included language that satisfied both men."
NBC anchor Brian Williams assembled a roundtable of Todd plus diplomatic correspondent Andrea Mitchell plus CNBC's Maria Bartiromo to assess winners and losers. Bartiromo confirmed that the IMF funding was "effective…real, substantial." Todd reminded us that "all politics is local" so each leader was posturing to state "what the folks back home…needed to hear." Mitchell read "rave reviews" for the new President of the United States: "He is humble. He says he is coming to listen not to lecture. He is blessed by comparison with his predecessor."
POLITICAL CLASS PHOTO Nick Watt has had weeklong fun covering G20 for ABC. Tuesday he teased bankers for their dress code; Wednesday he probed Bakewell tarts with the Naked Chef; now he uses an extended boarding school metaphor for the political leaders assembled in London. Taking the class photo is like herding cats…Queen Elizabeth played head teacher…Lula is most popular…Silvio Berlusconi is class clown…and the new kid Barack Obama leaves "the other kids star struck." CBS anchor Katie Couric, too, looked at the body language of the assembled multitude of powerhouses and concluded that "there was plenty of global warming to go round." She meant bonhomie not hot air, I think.
SEX-ROLE STEREOTYPES FOR MRS OBAMA As she was yesterday by CBS' Sheila MacVicar and NBC's Dawna Friesen, Michelle Obama was followed again, this time by ABC Yunji de Nies and, in a reprise, by Friesen once more. Talk about sex-role stereotyping! Do male reporters ever get assigned to cover a First Lady? Anyway, de Nies dished with Alexandra Schulman of British Vogue about Michelle's threads: "Frankly she could wear a rubbish bag and I would still think she looked great." Friesen improved on Wednesday's gushing tones by, sensibly, largely absenting herself. She covered the First Lady's visit to an inner city girls' school by letting the camera speak for itself, showing Mrs Obama's motivational remarks in four extended soundbites, the girls' authentic reactions of joy and tears--and hugs all round.
POST-SUMMIT THUMB-SUCKERS ABC and CBS both called in talking heads to help us understand what it all means. CBS anchor Katie Couric interviewed Vincent Cable, a member of the British House of Commons, sloppily without identifying which political party he represents. Cable--a Liberal Democrat, a centrist minor party--told Couric that "this is an extraordinary grouping. It has now the two big superpowers of the world, which are the United States and China." ABC anchor Charles Gibson talked to Robert Hormats of Goldman Sachs and Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute. "In a very important sense it does represent a New World Order," Bergsten averred. "G20 includes five countries from the Americas, five from Asia, five from Europe, five from elsewhere. It is the true globalization of economic decisionmaking."
CBS' Couric in her summary feature came to a similar conclusion: "Economists have been talking about globalization for years but few could have predicted the speed with which foreclosures in American cities could result in bank runs in Asia and Europe. This Great Recession proves it is much more than a catchy ad campaign--we are All Connected."
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC, THE NEXT SUPERPOWER In Beijing, CBS' Barry Petersen picked up on China's role, "radiating a new confidence and acting more and more like the superpower it fully intends to be." As the rest of the global economy shrinks, China's is still growing: "What Americans are not buying--made-for-export items from speakers to socks to sewing machines--are being snapped up here." That, Petersen explained, is what gives the People's Republic the clout to lecture the United States about its credit rating "like a First World country nervous about the health of a Third World economy" and to propose that the US dollar be replaced as a global currency by something "more trustworthy."
POST HOC, PROPTER HOC Prices rose on the New York Stock Exchange--the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7978, up 216 points--as the G20 Summit concluded and ABC assigned Betsy Stark to the thankless task of correlating the two events. This is what she came up with: "The prospect of the world's richest countries disbursing more than $1tr in aid to the world's needier nations added to the burgeoning optimism that government leaders are doing what is necessary to revive the global economy."
That was not very convincing, was it?
MEANWHILE, AWAY FROM G20… A couple of foreign stories had nothing to do with G20. CBS' Pentagon correspondent David Martin sat down with David Albright, a onetime weapons inspector, to preview North Korea's launch of its Taep'o-dong rocket. Its purported mission is for communications not a military testfire, with a trajectory over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Albright offered his interpretation: "It is really just something that goes Beep-Beep-Beep. It is not a sophisticated satellite by any means." He pointed out that a minor reconfiguration could turn the rocket into an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile: "You can guarantee there are going to be some customers there at this launch, maybe Iranians, maybe others."
A track-suited jogger was arrested in a park in Mexico City and paraded before cameras. NBC's Miami-based narcotrafficking specialist Mark Potter identified the suspect as Vicente Carrillo Leyva, a reputed leader of the Juarez Cartel, who was living in the nation's capital under an assumed name. He told us that the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels are engaged in a "vicious war" for control of trafficking routes along the Tex-Mex border. Carrillo's father, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Potter reminded us, had run the cartel until he died "during a botched operation to alter his appearance."
CALLING AIDES CRONIES IS UNFAIR "Racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion conspiracy…making false statements," thus ABC's Chris Bury reeled off the highlights of a "sweeping" 19-count federal indictment against Rod Blagojevich, the impeached onetime Governor of Illinois, and six others accused of graft. Bury abandoned the presumption of innocence only once, using the inflammatory term "cronies" to describe the pol's co-defendants. He did quote the "irrepressible Blagojevich known for his dramatic flair and trademark hair" asserting his innocence during a guest gig as a talkradio host. "Now he will have a chance to talk under oath," Bury mused.
TEAGUE TAKEN TO TASK FOR ER TECHNOCRACY CBS and NBC both filed features on hospitals. NBC's Making a Difference took us to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which has a $20m budget shortfall and faces 600 layoffs. Peter Alexander told us that management turned to the workforce for cost-cutting ideas. So far they have found enough to save 450 of the 600 jobs. Don Teague used to work for NBC. Now he turns up on CBS for the first time, in Austin at the University of Texas' Medical Center Brackenridge.
Teague told us the inside story of hospital emergency room cost overruns: "a handful of familiar faces" returning over and over again taking up "massive amounts of time and resources." Over a six year period in Austin just nine patients--addicted, homeless, mentally-ill--racked up $3m in medical bills for almost 2,700 visits to the ER. One might think that the cost-saving solution would be improved mental healthcare and drug rehabilitation. Not so, according to Teague: "The report's authors say the key to solving the problem is technology identifying those who abuse the ER system." However, if you check out the commenters at cbsnews.com (Ann Kitchen and ER Doc 2009 and Starks 12), you will see that Teague gets told off for this focus on the technocratic approach.
DIANE SAWYER OVERREACTS ABC's temp co-anchor Diane Sawyer injected unnecessary frisson into her introduction for John McKenzie's report on anti-smoking PSAs. "A warning, it may be tough to watch," Sawyer declared, as McKenzie introduced an Australian-made clip that has been incorporated into New York City's public health ad campaign. "In this day and age with ads circulating on YouTube and other Internet sites, this is not just a New York ad. It is now being seen around the world," McKenzie noted. As for the supposedly tough-to-watch spot it showed an Aussie toddler losing sight of his mother in a crowd for 17 seconds. If this is how your child feels after losing you for a minute, just imagine if they lost you for life intoned the voiceover.
It is hard to see why Good Morning America's Sawyer was so upset. Her Mountain Dew Mouth (here and here) was way tougher to watch.
