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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 9, 2009
The piracy adventure in the Indian Ocean has now devolved into a hostage siege. The Maersk Line's container ship Alabama is safely out of pirates' hands and is steaming to port in Kenya. The attention of the USNavy and all three network newscasts now turns to the fate of her captain, Richard Phillips. He is now the prisoner of a quartet of pirates, sharing a 28-foot lifeboat with them as their hostage, while the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer, blocks the boat's passage back to land. The standoff was Story of the Day with all three newscasts leading off with their Pentagon correspondent's coverage.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR APRIL 9, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CAPTAIN HELD HOSTAGE UNDER EYE OF DESTROYER The piracy adventure in the Indian Ocean has now devolved into a hostage siege. The Maersk Line's container ship Alabama is safely out of pirates' hands and is steaming to port in Kenya. The attention of the USNavy and all three network newscasts now turns to the fate of her captain, Richard Phillips. He is now the prisoner of a quartet of pirates, sharing a 28-foot lifeboat with them as their hostage, while the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer, blocks the boat's passage back to land. The standoff was Story of the Day with all three newscasts leading off with their Pentagon correspondent's coverage.
NBC's Jim Miklaszewski filled in details about the pirates' original raid: when three of them discovered that the fourth of their squad had been captured "they panicked and at gunpoint started to single out crew members as hostages to take them off the ship. That is when the captain offered himself up as a hostage to protect his crew." ABC's Martha Raddatz reported that FBI hostage negotiators in Quantico have taken charge, communicating with the pirates via the Bainbridge and then to the lifeboat where the captain's radio has been given fresh batteries. "Already they have asked for and gotten food and water," CBS' David Martin narrated. His unidentified sources told him that "their chief demand is safe passage back to Somalia."
ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi made a trip to the Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island to file an interesting sidebar on why the Alabama's crewmembers, knowing they were about to sail through pirate-infested waters, had not armed themselves. Under the law of the sea, she explained, "an unarmed ship is given a right of innocent passage" through international waters. "If the crew is armed, the ship is stopped and inspected at every port, slowing them down."
MAHMOUD WAVES HIS ENRICHED ROD CBS had Elizabeth Palmer on hand in Isfahan as a "delighted" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad toured its nuclear plant. The President "showed off Iran's latest triumph…the first reactor fuel rod made entirely in Iran." Palmer explained that the enriched rod is the intermediate stage between raw uranium ore and fuel that is able to power a reactor. "The Iranian regime hopes its nuclear program is such an established fact now that other countries will just have to live with it but it does appear willing to allow surveillance to reassure the world that it is not building a bomb."
QUICK GETS RUSHED ABC's Jim Sciutto chose Scotland Yard as the location from which to tell us about Bob Quick, the redfaced British bobby. Quick had been the Metropolitan Police's senior counterterrorism officer until he strode into 10 Downing Street with a pile of briefing papers for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. On top was a sheet of paper with eleven names. They were the intended target of a three-city overnight coordinated arrest, designed to foil a suspected bomb conspiracy against nightclubs and other targets. Quick's theory was that they were part of "an al-Qaeda driven plot," Sciutto explained, to launch attacks simultaneously in England and Pakistan.
Photojournalists' telephoto lenses snapped the list. The names were published online. The dragnet surprise was blown. The police were obliged to move in broad daylight. "Quick apologized and resigned in embarrassment."
NO BOTTOM YET Each of the three newscasts had an update on the Obama Administration's efforts to fix housing and finance. ABC's Betsy Stark covered the President's suggestion that homeowners take advantage of cheaper long-term interest rates by refinancing mortgages. She estimated that 3m mortgage holders would not be able to take Barack Obama up on his offer because "their homes have fallen too much in value." CNBC's Jane Wells predicted "bad news on the horizon," on NBC, "a second wave of foreclosures." She cited RealtyTrak statistic that as many as 600,000 homes are currently vacant, repossessed by banks, but not yet on the market. When they go up for sale, home values will be driven down yet further. CBS' Anthony Mason looked skeptically at a rebound in stock prices for banks. "More losses are still ahead," he warned. "The housing market has not yet hit bottom--and on auto loans, home equity loan and credit cards."
TOUGH LOVE--BUT WITHOUT THE LOVE Chris Jansing continued her coverage of the bleak consequences of the housing crisis for NBC's In Depth. For the fourth time in the last month she updated us on the shantytowns for the newly homeless in western states. The tent city in Sacramento, population 200, will have eviction notices posted on Monday, she warned, as Mayor Kevin Johnson has declared it "unsanitary and unsafe." Yet local homeless shelters have only 50 beds available for its displaced residents and affordable housing is being offered to only ten couples. The evictions are "a tough love" approach, Jansing concluded. The tough was obvious. The love part was harder to find.
GEARHEADS AND BACK SEAT DRIVERS How bad are things for General Motors? ABC's Dan Harris offered a negative anecdote; CBS' Barry Petersen provided positive data. Petersen filed from Beijing where, thanks to incentive rebates offered by the People's Republic, China has now become the globe's largest car market--"and the market leaders are American." Even though Ford and GM use Chinese factories to manufacture the cars they sell to Chinese customers, the vehicles are considered "a high-end import." Petersen explained the secret to Buick's success among upscale executives and bureaucrats: most of them have a personal chauffeur so they tend to be back seat passengers rather than front seat drivers. Accordingly the back seat is designed to be "the lap of luxury" with remote controls for air conditioning and stereo sound and plenty of leg room.
Domestically, ABC's Harris noted that GM is sending conflicting signals. It needs to reassure customers that it is staying in business at the same time as reassuring taxpayers that it is being frugal. Which message does it send when it is "auctioning off its past"? GM's Heritage Center has taken 100 classic cars--"vintage ones, rare ones, fast ones, even almost famous ones"--and put them up for sale. The money raised "is really just a drop in the bucket" but the models on display on cable TV's Speed channel are "a gearhead's dream."
DR TIM, HEALTHCARE ADVOCATE ABC normally uses in-house physician Timothy Johnson for a brief q-&-a of expertise on the breaking medical news of the day. So his A Closer Look feature on primary healthcare at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic was a rare example of detailed reporting--although, as usual, Johnson was given more leeway than a regular correspondent to voice opinionated advocacy. "Primary care is going down the tubes in this country," he asserted, citing statistics that only 30% of physicians are in general practice as opposed to specialties. Why is general practice so important? It is the least expensive, highest quality method of delivering preventive care and managing chronic disease.
So what did the Mayo Clinic do? It found that too much routine medical care in its plan was being delivered at the expensive emergency room. "The reason was simple. The ER was convenient." Mayo set up a series of six family medical centers, combining pediatrics, family and internal medicine; it opened an express care walk-in clinic at a shopping mall; nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants worked nights and weekends; it set up a 24-hour care hotline; all medical records were coordinated in an electronic database. Johnson compared the resulting cost with the national average of 5% to 8% annual healthcare inflation. Mayo has seen a 0% increase for the last two years.
STRUCK OUT The day's sad human interest story came from the Anaheim Angels, where rookie righthanded pitcher Nick Adenhart had just completed the best start of his short career: six innings of shutout ball at age 22. "Congratulations, a first good outing and there are many more ahead of you," was how NBC's Lee Cowan quoted the FSN post-game interview with Adenhart. Within hours he was dead, killed when a minivan broadsided the car he was riding in.
LAWN & DISORDER CBS closed with close to blasphemy. The grass lawn of suburban America "happens to be one of the most wasteful, useless spaces." That was the sacrilege uttered by architect Fritz Haeg, whose firm Edible Estates is on a mission to transform the nation's 30m front yards into urban farms. Bill Whitaker showcased a Haeg edible estate in Pasadena: one tenth of an acre, one seventh the size of a football field, producing 6,000 lbs of fruits and vegetables each year.
NBC's Jim Miklaszewski filled in details about the pirates' original raid: when three of them discovered that the fourth of their squad had been captured "they panicked and at gunpoint started to single out crew members as hostages to take them off the ship. That is when the captain offered himself up as a hostage to protect his crew." ABC's Martha Raddatz reported that FBI hostage negotiators in Quantico have taken charge, communicating with the pirates via the Bainbridge and then to the lifeboat where the captain's radio has been given fresh batteries. "Already they have asked for and gotten food and water," CBS' David Martin narrated. His unidentified sources told him that "their chief demand is safe passage back to Somalia."
ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi made a trip to the Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island to file an interesting sidebar on why the Alabama's crewmembers, knowing they were about to sail through pirate-infested waters, had not armed themselves. Under the law of the sea, she explained, "an unarmed ship is given a right of innocent passage" through international waters. "If the crew is armed, the ship is stopped and inspected at every port, slowing them down."
MAHMOUD WAVES HIS ENRICHED ROD CBS had Elizabeth Palmer on hand in Isfahan as a "delighted" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad toured its nuclear plant. The President "showed off Iran's latest triumph…the first reactor fuel rod made entirely in Iran." Palmer explained that the enriched rod is the intermediate stage between raw uranium ore and fuel that is able to power a reactor. "The Iranian regime hopes its nuclear program is such an established fact now that other countries will just have to live with it but it does appear willing to allow surveillance to reassure the world that it is not building a bomb."
QUICK GETS RUSHED ABC's Jim Sciutto chose Scotland Yard as the location from which to tell us about Bob Quick, the redfaced British bobby. Quick had been the Metropolitan Police's senior counterterrorism officer until he strode into 10 Downing Street with a pile of briefing papers for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. On top was a sheet of paper with eleven names. They were the intended target of a three-city overnight coordinated arrest, designed to foil a suspected bomb conspiracy against nightclubs and other targets. Quick's theory was that they were part of "an al-Qaeda driven plot," Sciutto explained, to launch attacks simultaneously in England and Pakistan.
Photojournalists' telephoto lenses snapped the list. The names were published online. The dragnet surprise was blown. The police were obliged to move in broad daylight. "Quick apologized and resigned in embarrassment."
NO BOTTOM YET Each of the three newscasts had an update on the Obama Administration's efforts to fix housing and finance. ABC's Betsy Stark covered the President's suggestion that homeowners take advantage of cheaper long-term interest rates by refinancing mortgages. She estimated that 3m mortgage holders would not be able to take Barack Obama up on his offer because "their homes have fallen too much in value." CNBC's Jane Wells predicted "bad news on the horizon," on NBC, "a second wave of foreclosures." She cited RealtyTrak statistic that as many as 600,000 homes are currently vacant, repossessed by banks, but not yet on the market. When they go up for sale, home values will be driven down yet further. CBS' Anthony Mason looked skeptically at a rebound in stock prices for banks. "More losses are still ahead," he warned. "The housing market has not yet hit bottom--and on auto loans, home equity loan and credit cards."
TOUGH LOVE--BUT WITHOUT THE LOVE Chris Jansing continued her coverage of the bleak consequences of the housing crisis for NBC's In Depth. For the fourth time in the last month she updated us on the shantytowns for the newly homeless in western states. The tent city in Sacramento, population 200, will have eviction notices posted on Monday, she warned, as Mayor Kevin Johnson has declared it "unsanitary and unsafe." Yet local homeless shelters have only 50 beds available for its displaced residents and affordable housing is being offered to only ten couples. The evictions are "a tough love" approach, Jansing concluded. The tough was obvious. The love part was harder to find.
GEARHEADS AND BACK SEAT DRIVERS How bad are things for General Motors? ABC's Dan Harris offered a negative anecdote; CBS' Barry Petersen provided positive data. Petersen filed from Beijing where, thanks to incentive rebates offered by the People's Republic, China has now become the globe's largest car market--"and the market leaders are American." Even though Ford and GM use Chinese factories to manufacture the cars they sell to Chinese customers, the vehicles are considered "a high-end import." Petersen explained the secret to Buick's success among upscale executives and bureaucrats: most of them have a personal chauffeur so they tend to be back seat passengers rather than front seat drivers. Accordingly the back seat is designed to be "the lap of luxury" with remote controls for air conditioning and stereo sound and plenty of leg room.
Domestically, ABC's Harris noted that GM is sending conflicting signals. It needs to reassure customers that it is staying in business at the same time as reassuring taxpayers that it is being frugal. Which message does it send when it is "auctioning off its past"? GM's Heritage Center has taken 100 classic cars--"vintage ones, rare ones, fast ones, even almost famous ones"--and put them up for sale. The money raised "is really just a drop in the bucket" but the models on display on cable TV's Speed channel are "a gearhead's dream."
DR TIM, HEALTHCARE ADVOCATE ABC normally uses in-house physician Timothy Johnson for a brief q-&-a of expertise on the breaking medical news of the day. So his A Closer Look feature on primary healthcare at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic was a rare example of detailed reporting--although, as usual, Johnson was given more leeway than a regular correspondent to voice opinionated advocacy. "Primary care is going down the tubes in this country," he asserted, citing statistics that only 30% of physicians are in general practice as opposed to specialties. Why is general practice so important? It is the least expensive, highest quality method of delivering preventive care and managing chronic disease.
So what did the Mayo Clinic do? It found that too much routine medical care in its plan was being delivered at the expensive emergency room. "The reason was simple. The ER was convenient." Mayo set up a series of six family medical centers, combining pediatrics, family and internal medicine; it opened an express care walk-in clinic at a shopping mall; nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants worked nights and weekends; it set up a 24-hour care hotline; all medical records were coordinated in an electronic database. Johnson compared the resulting cost with the national average of 5% to 8% annual healthcare inflation. Mayo has seen a 0% increase for the last two years.
STRUCK OUT The day's sad human interest story came from the Anaheim Angels, where rookie righthanded pitcher Nick Adenhart had just completed the best start of his short career: six innings of shutout ball at age 22. "Congratulations, a first good outing and there are many more ahead of you," was how NBC's Lee Cowan quoted the FSN post-game interview with Adenhart. Within hours he was dead, killed when a minivan broadsided the car he was riding in.
LAWN & DISORDER CBS closed with close to blasphemy. The grass lawn of suburban America "happens to be one of the most wasteful, useless spaces." That was the sacrilege uttered by architect Fritz Haeg, whose firm Edible Estates is on a mission to transform the nation's 30m front yards into urban farms. Bill Whitaker showcased a Haeg edible estate in Pasadena: one tenth of an acre, one seventh the size of a football field, producing 6,000 lbs of fruits and vegetables each year.
