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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 8, 2009
Danger at sea 350 miles off the coast of Somalia was the unanimous choice to lead the nightly newscasts. All three anchors styled Bluebeard to introduce the Story of the Day, a battle over Alabama, a container ship operated by the Maersk Line. "It is a story worthy of a Hollywood movie, high drama on the high seas," was Charles Gibson's lead on ABC. The "modern day version" of pirates are "tough and violent and brazen," NBC anchor Brian Williams told us, as if the pirates of yore were not. "What happened today has not happened in any of our lifetimes," declared CBS anchor Katie Couric, which was technically true. Although piracy of container ships is a fact of life around the Horn of Africa, the Alabama was the first target of the Jolly Roger in 200 years to be flying the American flag.
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PIRATES OF THE INDIAN OCEAN Danger at sea 350 miles off the coast of Somalia was the unanimous choice to lead the nightly newscasts. All three anchors styled Bluebeard to introduce the Story of the Day, a battle over Alabama, a container ship operated by the Maersk Line. "It is a story worthy of a Hollywood movie, high drama on the high seas," was Charles Gibson's lead on ABC. The "modern day version" of pirates are "tough and violent and brazen," NBC anchor Brian Williams told us, as if the pirates of yore were not. "What happened today has not happened in any of our lifetimes," declared CBS anchor Katie Couric, which was technically true. Although piracy of container ships is a fact of life around the Horn of Africa, the Alabama was the first target of the Jolly Roger in 200 years to be flying the American flag.
CBS kicked off with a radioed eyewitness account from Ken Quinn, the Alabama's second mate. He recounted being boarded by four Somali pirates toting AK-47s and their escape in a lifeboat with the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, held hostage. "Wait! I have got to go. I am piloting the ship."
All three newscasts assigned the story to their Pentagon correspondents. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski told us that the Maersk Line's crews are instructed not to resist "but after ten hours the American crew reportedly overpowered one of the pirates." CBS' David Martin reported that "the captain actually gave himself up in order to protect the rest of the crew." ABC's Martha Raddatz added that the crew offered to exchange that fourth overpowered pirate for the captain "but the pirates did not uphold their end of the bargain. The hostage pirate was released. The captain was not."
For follow-up, CBS' Richard Roth ran down the current Somali piracy statistics. According to the International Maritime Bureau, this was the 50th attack so far in 2009. At present 14 ships are being held ransom in Somali coastal waters with 300 of their sailors. ABC aired a 1st Person feature that NHK-TV happened to obtain from the Alabama's first mate Shane Murphy a month ago, contemplating the dangers ahead: "The stem of the problem is the collapse of the government in Somalia. Anyone with a weapon and means can go out and when these people come back they are heroes in their town. They are treated like stars. They are millionaires. They have money and they can spread the money around."
Mate Murphy happens to be the son of Joseph Murphy, an instructor in anti-piracy self-defense techniques at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi filed a feature on the changes in its midshipmen's curriculum now that piracy has become a fact of life.
NBC GOES SQUISHY NBC aired an uncharacteristically soft newscast. It covered the pirate story in less detail (3 min v ABC 7, CBS 5) than its rivals. It closed with a piece of fluff from Norah O'Donnell on the expected arrival of the First Dog at the White House. Science correspondent Robert Bazell was assigned to explain research into different types of fat molecules in the human body, a topic that was more suitable for the lifestyle-leaning Today than the Nightly News. And Martin Fletcher, who earned high marks with his human touch on Tuesday from the earthquake zone in Abruzzo, now loses all sense of proportion. Fletcher chased around the Italian countryside trying to make sure that 18 cousins of a family of NBC viewers in Long Beach were still alive. They were. He even supplied the cell phone to deliver transAtlantic reassurance. Anchor Brian Williams misleadingly called it "a rare happy ending in a story with very few of them." The earthquake killed 275 while leaving 17,000 homeless--so finding the cousins alive was the rule not the exception.
CBS cut back on its earthquake coverage, filing merely a brief voiceover. ABC used Miguel Marquez for a conventional survey of the damage, skipping Fletcher's exaggerated, sentimental solicitude.
DID WSJ HYPE CYBERTHREAT? CBS' Bob Orr told us that The Wall Street Journal was his lead for a report that "sophisticated hackers have planted software programs that could disrupt electric service." He followed up with his network's in-house cyberanalyst Paul Kurtz and Kevin Poulsen of wired.com. They were skeptical. Kurtz reckoned that the hackers are only at the stage of seeking to "understand" how the infrastructure of the electricity grid operates. Poulsen stated: "There is just no evidence right now that there is anybody who has invested that kind of effort in order to be able to cause disruptions." On NBC, Pete Williams was similarly cautious. He quoted a "warning" from unnamed administration officials, that cyberspies in China and Russia are--I italicize his hedges--"secretly trying to plant computer software that could be used to disable the power system. The United States has detected a spurt in efforts to search the power grid for weaknesses."
COURIC FINDS HOLDER FASCINATING The main set piece of CBS' newscast was a Katie Couric Reports feature on Eric Holder, the newly arrived Attorney General. Couric claimed an Exclusive for her sitdown, a portion of which, concerning the botched prosecution of Ted Stevens, was aired Tuesday. This seven-minute-long second part covered narcoviolence in Mexico, gun control legislation, the trials awaiting the inmates at Guantanamo Bay and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Holder called official corruption in Mexican law enforcement "clearly a problem." On gun control, Holder respects the Second Amendment and looks forward "to working with the National Rifle Association to come up with ways in which we can use common sense approaches to reduce the level of violence." Concerning the 14 of the 250 inmates at Guantanamo Bay who are classified as "high value," he called torture--it was not the Attorney General who actually used the T-word but the anchor--"one of the issues that we have to deal with" in deciding whether there are "triable cases."
"Way off the mark," was his characterization of Cheney's criticism of Barack Obama for "making choices that will raise the risk of another terrorist attack."
BORDER PATROL BRIBERY CLAIM CBS anchor Katie Couric raised the question of narcotics corruption in Mexican law enforcement with Attorney General Eric Holder. If only she had received a heads up from Terry Moran's report for ABC's A Closer Look on the Juarez Cartel, she could have expanded her probe to the northern side of the border. In a preview of his report for Nightline, Moran sat down with an anonymous "hitman and smuggler" who claimed to have personally bribed a "United States law enforcement officer" with six suitcases full of marijuana. "The drug cartels, he claimed, have many US officials on the payroll."
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL SETS AGENDA The New England Journal of Medicine's coverage of obesity inspired coverage on all three newscasts. ABC did the best job, focusing on the public policy angle. An editorial recommended a soda tax levied at the rate of 1c/ounce on drinks sweetened by sugar. It is a shame that John Berman missed the opportunity to tie the tax plan into Naked Chef Jamie Oliver's similar proposal last week to his ABC colleague Nick Watt.
The other two newscasts focused on the discovery that adults do not lose all their baby fat as they age. Scientists used PET scans to find residual areas of so-called brown fat around our necks. The difference, NBC's Robert Bazell explained, is that brown fat "looks more like muscle cells and actually burns calories" as opposed to white fat, which absorbs calories and produces weight gain. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook picked up on the Journal's speculation in his Eye on Your Health feature that maximizing one's brown fat might burn off nine pounds of extra weight in a year.
BANG THOSE THREADS CBS closed with fun-filled free publicity for Corinne Leigh and Bob Czar, video hosts of threadbanger.com, a site with a million viewers each month, who offer do-it-yourself sewing how-tos for viewers who want to make their own clothing. It was part of CBS' Bright Spots series which searches for the silver lining in an economic recession: "Stitch and save is definitely the new hands-on chic," Kelly Wallace suggested.
CBS kicked off with a radioed eyewitness account from Ken Quinn, the Alabama's second mate. He recounted being boarded by four Somali pirates toting AK-47s and their escape in a lifeboat with the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, held hostage. "Wait! I have got to go. I am piloting the ship."
All three newscasts assigned the story to their Pentagon correspondents. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski told us that the Maersk Line's crews are instructed not to resist "but after ten hours the American crew reportedly overpowered one of the pirates." CBS' David Martin reported that "the captain actually gave himself up in order to protect the rest of the crew." ABC's Martha Raddatz added that the crew offered to exchange that fourth overpowered pirate for the captain "but the pirates did not uphold their end of the bargain. The hostage pirate was released. The captain was not."
For follow-up, CBS' Richard Roth ran down the current Somali piracy statistics. According to the International Maritime Bureau, this was the 50th attack so far in 2009. At present 14 ships are being held ransom in Somali coastal waters with 300 of their sailors. ABC aired a 1st Person feature that NHK-TV happened to obtain from the Alabama's first mate Shane Murphy a month ago, contemplating the dangers ahead: "The stem of the problem is the collapse of the government in Somalia. Anyone with a weapon and means can go out and when these people come back they are heroes in their town. They are treated like stars. They are millionaires. They have money and they can spread the money around."
Mate Murphy happens to be the son of Joseph Murphy, an instructor in anti-piracy self-defense techniques at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi filed a feature on the changes in its midshipmen's curriculum now that piracy has become a fact of life.
NBC GOES SQUISHY NBC aired an uncharacteristically soft newscast. It covered the pirate story in less detail (3 min v ABC 7, CBS 5) than its rivals. It closed with a piece of fluff from Norah O'Donnell on the expected arrival of the First Dog at the White House. Science correspondent Robert Bazell was assigned to explain research into different types of fat molecules in the human body, a topic that was more suitable for the lifestyle-leaning Today than the Nightly News. And Martin Fletcher, who earned high marks with his human touch on Tuesday from the earthquake zone in Abruzzo, now loses all sense of proportion. Fletcher chased around the Italian countryside trying to make sure that 18 cousins of a family of NBC viewers in Long Beach were still alive. They were. He even supplied the cell phone to deliver transAtlantic reassurance. Anchor Brian Williams misleadingly called it "a rare happy ending in a story with very few of them." The earthquake killed 275 while leaving 17,000 homeless--so finding the cousins alive was the rule not the exception.
CBS cut back on its earthquake coverage, filing merely a brief voiceover. ABC used Miguel Marquez for a conventional survey of the damage, skipping Fletcher's exaggerated, sentimental solicitude.
DID WSJ HYPE CYBERTHREAT? CBS' Bob Orr told us that The Wall Street Journal was his lead for a report that "sophisticated hackers have planted software programs that could disrupt electric service." He followed up with his network's in-house cyberanalyst Paul Kurtz and Kevin Poulsen of wired.com. They were skeptical. Kurtz reckoned that the hackers are only at the stage of seeking to "understand" how the infrastructure of the electricity grid operates. Poulsen stated: "There is just no evidence right now that there is anybody who has invested that kind of effort in order to be able to cause disruptions." On NBC, Pete Williams was similarly cautious. He quoted a "warning" from unnamed administration officials, that cyberspies in China and Russia are--I italicize his hedges--"secretly trying to plant computer software that could be used to disable the power system. The United States has detected a spurt in efforts to search the power grid for weaknesses."
COURIC FINDS HOLDER FASCINATING The main set piece of CBS' newscast was a Katie Couric Reports feature on Eric Holder, the newly arrived Attorney General. Couric claimed an Exclusive for her sitdown, a portion of which, concerning the botched prosecution of Ted Stevens, was aired Tuesday. This seven-minute-long second part covered narcoviolence in Mexico, gun control legislation, the trials awaiting the inmates at Guantanamo Bay and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Holder called official corruption in Mexican law enforcement "clearly a problem." On gun control, Holder respects the Second Amendment and looks forward "to working with the National Rifle Association to come up with ways in which we can use common sense approaches to reduce the level of violence." Concerning the 14 of the 250 inmates at Guantanamo Bay who are classified as "high value," he called torture--it was not the Attorney General who actually used the T-word but the anchor--"one of the issues that we have to deal with" in deciding whether there are "triable cases."
"Way off the mark," was his characterization of Cheney's criticism of Barack Obama for "making choices that will raise the risk of another terrorist attack."
BORDER PATROL BRIBERY CLAIM CBS anchor Katie Couric raised the question of narcotics corruption in Mexican law enforcement with Attorney General Eric Holder. If only she had received a heads up from Terry Moran's report for ABC's A Closer Look on the Juarez Cartel, she could have expanded her probe to the northern side of the border. In a preview of his report for Nightline, Moran sat down with an anonymous "hitman and smuggler" who claimed to have personally bribed a "United States law enforcement officer" with six suitcases full of marijuana. "The drug cartels, he claimed, have many US officials on the payroll."
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL SETS AGENDA The New England Journal of Medicine's coverage of obesity inspired coverage on all three newscasts. ABC did the best job, focusing on the public policy angle. An editorial recommended a soda tax levied at the rate of 1c/ounce on drinks sweetened by sugar. It is a shame that John Berman missed the opportunity to tie the tax plan into Naked Chef Jamie Oliver's similar proposal last week to his ABC colleague Nick Watt.
The other two newscasts focused on the discovery that adults do not lose all their baby fat as they age. Scientists used PET scans to find residual areas of so-called brown fat around our necks. The difference, NBC's Robert Bazell explained, is that brown fat "looks more like muscle cells and actually burns calories" as opposed to white fat, which absorbs calories and produces weight gain. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook picked up on the Journal's speculation in his Eye on Your Health feature that maximizing one's brown fat might burn off nine pounds of extra weight in a year.
BANG THOSE THREADS CBS closed with fun-filled free publicity for Corinne Leigh and Bob Czar, video hosts of threadbanger.com, a site with a million viewers each month, who offer do-it-yourself sewing how-tos for viewers who want to make their own clothing. It was part of CBS' Bright Spots series which searches for the silver lining in an economic recession: "Stitch and save is definitely the new hands-on chic," Kelly Wallace suggested.
