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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAY 05, 2009
Tuesday's news agenda was much like Monday's. It was a light day of news, resulting in the waning Mexican swine 'flu outbreak qualifying as a lackluster Story of the Day--just eight minutes--by default. The 'flu news, such as it was, was that the Centers for Disease Control rescinded its previous guidelines that entire schools should be closed if even a single student became infected. ABC, which led with signs of economic recovery Monday, was the only newscast to lead with influenza. Conversely, economic prospects happened to be the lead on both CBS and NBC, both of which used substitute anchors, Jeff Glor and Ann Curry respectively.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MAY 05, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
WANING ‘FLU EKES OUT TOP BILLING YET AGAIN Tuesday's news agenda was much like Monday's. It was a light day of news, resulting in the waning Mexican swine 'flu outbreak qualifying as a lackluster Story of the Day--just eight minutes--by default. The 'flu news, such as it was, was that the Centers for Disease Control rescinded its previous guidelines that entire schools should be closed if even a single student became infected. ABC, which led with signs of economic recovery Monday, was the only newscast to lead with influenza. Conversely, economic prospects happened to be the lead on both CBS and NBC, both of which used substitute anchors, Jeff Glor and Ann Curry respectively.
ABC led off with Ryan Owens from Fort Worth, where the districtwide closings caused the most disruption, 140 schools in all. "Never mind," was his paraphrase of the CDC's "stunning reversal…Health officials say the reasoning for the reversal is simple--the swine 'flu just is not as bad as feared." NBC's Robert Bazell noted that the virus causes "mild or moderate illness" and that it spread at the same rate in communities with closed schools as with open schools. The death toll from the 'flu in Texas has now risen to two as a thirtysomething woman with "some chronic health problems," as ABC's Owens put it, succumbed.
ABC's 'flu follow-up was a public relations effort on behalf of hog farmers. Steve Osunsami explained that this should be prime selling season for pork--Easter hams followed by summer barbecues. Yet the swine has put a stigma on the other white meat even as "the government has tried to change the name from swine 'flu to H1N1." Why should ABC News be solicitous about the financial health of hog farms? It was returning a favor. Osunsami reminded us that the farmer whose tractor pulled anchor Charles Gibson's Battleground Bus out of the Iowa mud last October was in the pig business.
CENTRAL BANKER WORKS TO PROTECT BANKS Chairman Benjamin Bernanke of the Federal Reserve Board was the newsmaker who inspired NBC and CBS to lead with the economy. He testified on Capitol Hill that he was hopeful "the we shall see positive growth by the end of the year." Bernanke ticked off a similar list to the one ABC's Betsy Stark covered Monday: an improving housing market, a selloff of business inventory, a revival of consumer spending. CNBC's Trish Regan suggested one potential problem on NBC, "a lack of jobs." On CBS, Chip Reid pointed to Bernanke's warning that "the stakes are so high on stabilizing the banks that failure to do so could stall this economic recovery." CNBC's Regan countered that legislators were criticizing Bernanke for working too hard to protect banks, delaying new consumer-protection rules against abusive credit card lending until July of 2010.
DESERT DEMOLITION Dramatic images from the California desert inspired the second major economy story of the day--the state of the housing market. NBC's Lee Cowan and ABC's Brian Rooney were on the scene in Victorville when the Guaranty Bank of Texas ordered the demolition of 16 freshly built homes, sticker price $300,000 each. "You can still smell fresh timber in the air," sniffed NBC's Cowan. "You can see the insulation here, some copper pipe and brand new roofing tiles," ABC's Rooney demonstrated. "This pile of rubble is all that is left of four model homes fully built and ready to move in." The median price of a home in Victorville has fallen from $325,000 to $115,000, Rooney explained, and the bank that foreclosed on the developer found it cheaper to raze the homes than to complete them and try to sell them.
NBC's Cowan estimated that there are 9,000 uncompleted homes on building sites throughout the state of California. CBS' John Blackstone took us to the "notorious" community of Mountain House, some 60 miles east of San Francisco, where last fall fully 90% of the 3,000 residents were under water, as the saying goes, owing more on their mortgage than the home was worth on the market. Unlike Victorville, the theme in Mountain House is sales instead of demolition: "The wave of foreclosures is attracting new buyers…People coming in now are getting bargains."
HUNKERING DOWN FOR SWAT ATTACK Under diplomatic pressure from the United States on the eve of talks at the White House, President Asif Ali Zardari ordered a military offensive against Taliban guerrillas in Pakistan's Swat Valley. ABC's Martha Raddatz revisited the tourist zone where a three-month truce is collapsing, prompting "thousands of terrified residents" to flee. Raddatz covered the Taliban's original offensive in the fall of 2007 and previewed this counteroffensive last month. NBC's Richard Engel was in New York where he narrated similar Swat videotape: "Bracing today for heavy fighting, Taliban militants took up positions in government buildings in Swat and reportedly mined bridges and roads." He estimated that as many as half a million civilians could be displaced.
"The United States needs Zardari to rein in the militants and guarantee his nation's nuclear weapons are safe from terrorist hands but the US is dealing with a weak president in a country more accustomed to military dictatorships," said CBS' Lara Logan in her preview of Barack Obama's three-way diplomacy with Zardari and Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd characterized Obama's task as convincing the two leaders that they share a common enemy with the US, namely "Islamic extremists." CBS' Logan quoted Karzai's riposte: "Force will not buy you obedience no matter how much it is."
NBC SHOULD NOT HAVE SKIPPED NEW FACE It is not clear why NBC decided that Connie Culp was not newsworthy enough to be covered. Both ABC's John McKenzie and CBS' Michelle Miller narrated her compelling press conference from the Cleveland Clinic. Culp is the disfigured 40-year-old woman who had her face destroyed by her husband's shotgun attack five years ago. "The blast blew away her nose, her upper jaw and left her almost blind," CBS' Miller recounted. She underwent 30 plastic surgeries and a 22-hour transplant operation. "Today Culp was finally ready to show her new face to the world," ABC's McKenzie announced. "Do not judge people that do not look the same as you do because, you never know, one day it might be all taken away," was Culp's life lesson.
ONLINE BROTHEL SELLS SEX LEGALLY Craigslist is getting it in the neck from some state attorneys general. "No question, absolutely none, that Craigslist is operating an online brothel here," was the hyperbole that CBS' Kelly Wallace quoted from Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. In South Carolina the Website is facing prosecution for prostitution and pornography. ABC's Barbara Pinto covered Craigslist's problems in Cook County Ill a couple of months ago. At issue is the site's section offering erotic services. Wallace called it "controversial" even as she pooh-poohed the politicians' posturing: "Current federal law grants immunity to Web operators like Craigslist for content on their site they did not create."
INK STAINED WRETCHES STICK TOGETHER CBS is the only broadcast news division with a San Francisco bureau so it was fitting that John Blackstone should make a second appearance on the day's newscast to cover a story of Bay Area journalism. Yusuf Bey, the leader of a Black Muslim splinter group, is being arraigned for the assassination of the editor of the Oakland Post two years ago. When the police murder case went cold, some two dozen news organizations agreed to collaborate, pooling their investigative resources in the Chauncey Bailey Project. Bailey had suspected that Bey was using a local bakery as a criminal front: "Their reporting revealed links between the lead detective on the case and the Black Muslim group's leader. Last month the detective was suspended."
CBS' Blackstone joked that scoop-minded reporters are reluctant to share tips from secret sources. He gave credit to local television outfits: KTVU, KQED, KCBS, KGO-TV. And local newspapers: San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Post, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Bay Guardian. And non-for-profit foundations: Society of Professional Journalists, Center for Investigative Reporting, Bay Area Black Journalists Association, New American Media. And a local university: San Francisco State.
Bey, needless to say, has been indicted not convicted and is presumed innocent. Blackstone did not offer Bey's side of the story.
THERE MAY NEVER BE ANOTHER POTTER Was there a hint of corporate wistfulness in the tone of John Berman's report on ABC about the enthusiastic child readers of the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan? Riordan's The Olympian series combines magic, fantasy and mythology from a child's point of view. "There may never be another Harry Potter but the Percy Jackson books do have Harry Potterish qualities," was Berman's stretch. That appears to be the limit of their similarities: Riordan's series has sold 5m copies; Potter has sold 400m. The Olympian is "published by a division of our parent company Disney."
ABC led off with Ryan Owens from Fort Worth, where the districtwide closings caused the most disruption, 140 schools in all. "Never mind," was his paraphrase of the CDC's "stunning reversal…Health officials say the reasoning for the reversal is simple--the swine 'flu just is not as bad as feared." NBC's Robert Bazell noted that the virus causes "mild or moderate illness" and that it spread at the same rate in communities with closed schools as with open schools. The death toll from the 'flu in Texas has now risen to two as a thirtysomething woman with "some chronic health problems," as ABC's Owens put it, succumbed.
ABC's 'flu follow-up was a public relations effort on behalf of hog farmers. Steve Osunsami explained that this should be prime selling season for pork--Easter hams followed by summer barbecues. Yet the swine has put a stigma on the other white meat even as "the government has tried to change the name from swine 'flu to H1N1." Why should ABC News be solicitous about the financial health of hog farms? It was returning a favor. Osunsami reminded us that the farmer whose tractor pulled anchor Charles Gibson's Battleground Bus out of the Iowa mud last October was in the pig business.
CENTRAL BANKER WORKS TO PROTECT BANKS Chairman Benjamin Bernanke of the Federal Reserve Board was the newsmaker who inspired NBC and CBS to lead with the economy. He testified on Capitol Hill that he was hopeful "the we shall see positive growth by the end of the year." Bernanke ticked off a similar list to the one ABC's Betsy Stark covered Monday: an improving housing market, a selloff of business inventory, a revival of consumer spending. CNBC's Trish Regan suggested one potential problem on NBC, "a lack of jobs." On CBS, Chip Reid pointed to Bernanke's warning that "the stakes are so high on stabilizing the banks that failure to do so could stall this economic recovery." CNBC's Regan countered that legislators were criticizing Bernanke for working too hard to protect banks, delaying new consumer-protection rules against abusive credit card lending until July of 2010.
DESERT DEMOLITION Dramatic images from the California desert inspired the second major economy story of the day--the state of the housing market. NBC's Lee Cowan and ABC's Brian Rooney were on the scene in Victorville when the Guaranty Bank of Texas ordered the demolition of 16 freshly built homes, sticker price $300,000 each. "You can still smell fresh timber in the air," sniffed NBC's Cowan. "You can see the insulation here, some copper pipe and brand new roofing tiles," ABC's Rooney demonstrated. "This pile of rubble is all that is left of four model homes fully built and ready to move in." The median price of a home in Victorville has fallen from $325,000 to $115,000, Rooney explained, and the bank that foreclosed on the developer found it cheaper to raze the homes than to complete them and try to sell them.
NBC's Cowan estimated that there are 9,000 uncompleted homes on building sites throughout the state of California. CBS' John Blackstone took us to the "notorious" community of Mountain House, some 60 miles east of San Francisco, where last fall fully 90% of the 3,000 residents were under water, as the saying goes, owing more on their mortgage than the home was worth on the market. Unlike Victorville, the theme in Mountain House is sales instead of demolition: "The wave of foreclosures is attracting new buyers…People coming in now are getting bargains."
HUNKERING DOWN FOR SWAT ATTACK Under diplomatic pressure from the United States on the eve of talks at the White House, President Asif Ali Zardari ordered a military offensive against Taliban guerrillas in Pakistan's Swat Valley. ABC's Martha Raddatz revisited the tourist zone where a three-month truce is collapsing, prompting "thousands of terrified residents" to flee. Raddatz covered the Taliban's original offensive in the fall of 2007 and previewed this counteroffensive last month. NBC's Richard Engel was in New York where he narrated similar Swat videotape: "Bracing today for heavy fighting, Taliban militants took up positions in government buildings in Swat and reportedly mined bridges and roads." He estimated that as many as half a million civilians could be displaced.
"The United States needs Zardari to rein in the militants and guarantee his nation's nuclear weapons are safe from terrorist hands but the US is dealing with a weak president in a country more accustomed to military dictatorships," said CBS' Lara Logan in her preview of Barack Obama's three-way diplomacy with Zardari and Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd characterized Obama's task as convincing the two leaders that they share a common enemy with the US, namely "Islamic extremists." CBS' Logan quoted Karzai's riposte: "Force will not buy you obedience no matter how much it is."
NBC SHOULD NOT HAVE SKIPPED NEW FACE It is not clear why NBC decided that Connie Culp was not newsworthy enough to be covered. Both ABC's John McKenzie and CBS' Michelle Miller narrated her compelling press conference from the Cleveland Clinic. Culp is the disfigured 40-year-old woman who had her face destroyed by her husband's shotgun attack five years ago. "The blast blew away her nose, her upper jaw and left her almost blind," CBS' Miller recounted. She underwent 30 plastic surgeries and a 22-hour transplant operation. "Today Culp was finally ready to show her new face to the world," ABC's McKenzie announced. "Do not judge people that do not look the same as you do because, you never know, one day it might be all taken away," was Culp's life lesson.
ONLINE BROTHEL SELLS SEX LEGALLY Craigslist is getting it in the neck from some state attorneys general. "No question, absolutely none, that Craigslist is operating an online brothel here," was the hyperbole that CBS' Kelly Wallace quoted from Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. In South Carolina the Website is facing prosecution for prostitution and pornography. ABC's Barbara Pinto covered Craigslist's problems in Cook County Ill a couple of months ago. At issue is the site's section offering erotic services. Wallace called it "controversial" even as she pooh-poohed the politicians' posturing: "Current federal law grants immunity to Web operators like Craigslist for content on their site they did not create."
INK STAINED WRETCHES STICK TOGETHER CBS is the only broadcast news division with a San Francisco bureau so it was fitting that John Blackstone should make a second appearance on the day's newscast to cover a story of Bay Area journalism. Yusuf Bey, the leader of a Black Muslim splinter group, is being arraigned for the assassination of the editor of the Oakland Post two years ago. When the police murder case went cold, some two dozen news organizations agreed to collaborate, pooling their investigative resources in the Chauncey Bailey Project. Bailey had suspected that Bey was using a local bakery as a criminal front: "Their reporting revealed links between the lead detective on the case and the Black Muslim group's leader. Last month the detective was suspended."
CBS' Blackstone joked that scoop-minded reporters are reluctant to share tips from secret sources. He gave credit to local television outfits: KTVU, KQED, KCBS, KGO-TV. And local newspapers: San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Post, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Bay Guardian. And non-for-profit foundations: Society of Professional Journalists, Center for Investigative Reporting, Bay Area Black Journalists Association, New American Media. And a local university: San Francisco State.
Bey, needless to say, has been indicted not convicted and is presumed innocent. Blackstone did not offer Bey's side of the story.
THERE MAY NEVER BE ANOTHER POTTER Was there a hint of corporate wistfulness in the tone of John Berman's report on ABC about the enthusiastic child readers of the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan? Riordan's The Olympian series combines magic, fantasy and mythology from a child's point of view. "There may never be another Harry Potter but the Percy Jackson books do have Harry Potterish qualities," was Berman's stretch. That appears to be the limit of their similarities: Riordan's series has sold 5m copies; Potter has sold 400m. The Olympian is "published by a division of our parent company Disney."
