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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAY 15, 2009
Automobile dealerships were the Story of the Day for the second day in a row. NBC led with the termination of hundreds of dealership contracts--789 by Chrysler Thursday, 1,100 by General Motors Friday--on both days. ABC and CBS came up with a split decision, CBS led with GM but not Chrysler; ABC the other way round. On Friday, instead, ABC chose the feud between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the CIA about torture. ABC and NBC both used substitute anchors--George Stephanopoulos for ABC and Lester Holt for NBC.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MAY 15, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
GENERAL MOTORS FOLLOWS DEALER-CUTTING CHRYSLER Automobile dealerships were the Story of the Day for the second day in a row. NBC led with the termination of hundreds of dealership contracts--789 by Chrysler Thursday, 1,100 by General Motors Friday--on both days. ABC and CBS came up with a split decision, CBS led with GM but not Chrysler; ABC the other way round. On Friday, instead, ABC chose the feud between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the CIA about torture. ABC and NBC both used substitute anchors--George Stephanopoulos for ABC and Lester Holt for NBC.
General Motors discontinued its contracts with 18% of its 6,200 dealerships. CBS' Dean Reynolds pointed out that they were the small fry: "The affected dealers accounted for only 7% of GM's sales last year. Indeed 500 of them averaged just 35 sales a year." ABC's Chris Bury expects GM to shed a further 1,200 dealerships when it cuts its four smallest brands: Saturn, Saab, Pontiac and Hummer. "GM wants a dealer network more like Toyota's: for example, Chevrolet and Toyota sell about the same number of cars in this country but Chevrolet has three times as many dealerships. Only the biggest, most profitable ones will survive."
The ax fell at the still-viable General Motors more gently than at the already-bankrupt Chrysler. "Unlike those cut at Chrysler, the GM dealers have 30 days to appeal," ABC's Bury told us. "Unlike Chrysler, GM says it will buy the unsold cars back," noted NBC's Lee Cowan. "Unlike Chrysler," CBS' Reynolds reported, "GM will give its jettisoned dealers a wind-down period to stay open, until the fall of next year."
Even though the 1,100 dealerships may be small, they still employ 63,000 workers, NBC's Cowan told us. CBS had Nancy Cordes catalogue the further ripple effect, from the local vendors--cleaning, towing, tire suppliers and so on--who will no longer have customers…to the community activities that will lose their sponsors…to the municipalities that will lose real estate and sales tax revenues. Maryland dealer Tammy Darvish told Cordes that "nobody wins--not the automaker, not her workers and certainly not the neighborhood."
RULES FOR TRYING THOSE WHO CANNOT BE CONVICTED ABC may have led with the back-and-forth about torture between Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Capitol Hill and Director Leon Panetta at CIA headquarters, but the news about the Bush Administration's War on Terrorism that attracted attention on all three newscasts was President Barack Obama's decision not to abolish the military tribunals at the internment camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.
NBC's Savannah Guthrie observed that the President was clearly not proud of his decision, "leaving the news that he will restart controversial commissions to try terror suspects to a written statement." CBS' Wyatt Andrews reminded us that Candidate Obama had "promised to overhaul what he called the unfair trials" and ABC's Jake Tapper reconstructed his votes in the Senate, in which he approved of the creation of the commissions yet opposed George Bush's rules of evidence. According to NBC's Guthrie, the White House claims the revamped rules amounted to reform so sweeping that "they will not resemble the commission system under President Bush." Evidence obtained by illegal interrogation will be inadmissible; hearsay evidence will be limited; the right to remain silent will be honored.
Tribunal defendants will be the detainees with the weakest prosecution case against them, ABC's Tapper explained, those against whom the administration "does not think that the evidence would withstand the scrutiny of a United States criminal court or, for that matter, a court martial." CBS' Andrews estimated that "at least 20" of the remaining detainees, ones deemed "too dangerous to release" will be tried that way.
As for that inadmissible evidence, NBC's Guthrie used the broad term "coercive" to describe the interrogations that would disqualify it; ABC's Tapper, unusually for his network, conceded that war crimes had likely been committed, referring to "any harsh interrogations or torture;" CBS' Andrews used the T-word too: "Evidence obtained through torture or even cruel or degrading interrogation methods would not be allowed." Thus Andrews implicitly claims that cruel questioning does not qualify as torture.
ABC’S KARL CALLS IT HARSH; KARL ROVE CALLS IT TORTURE Only ABC decided that Thursday's assertion by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the CIA lied to her about torture in a briefing in 2002 was worthy of a follow-up. Jonathan Karl characterized Director Leon Panetta--a former colleague of Pelosi's in the California Democratic Congressional delegation--as "pushing back hard" against the Speaker. Panetta relied on his agency's "contemporaneous records" to claim that his spies told her the truth about the CIA's use of the waterboard torture--Karl could call it no worse than a "harsh interrogation tactic." Pledged Panetta: "It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values."
Pelosi responded by claiming that her condemnation for lying was directed at the Bush Administration not against the CIA's spooks. ABC's Karl contradicted her point: Pelosi's briefers "were career intelligence officers; these were not political operatives from the Bush Administration." Yet that administration's chief operative, Karl Rove, appeared to admit to war crimes. ABC's Karl quoted Rove's seeming confession in The Wall Street Journal that "the crime of torture" had been committed and that Pelosi herself was "an accessory."
THE SECRETARY OF WAR HAS NO FUN CBS' anchor Katie Couric started the week filing from Afghanistan, where she profiled Gen David McKiernan, unaware of the fact that he had just lost his job. She rounded out the week with a Katie Couric Reports feature on Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who, unknown to Couric, had gone to Kabul in order to fire McKiernan. This feature served as a promotion for Couric's longer piece on Gates for 60 Minutes. Couric traveled to Helmand Province to check on the new counterinsurgency tactic of moving troops into rural villages. "Some tactics, like rooting terrorists out of safe havens, are a double-edged sword," she mused, reflecting on a US airstrike that may have killed 140 civilians last week. "Missile strikes by unmanned drones along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan have infuriated the local population." Gates refused to comment about "any specific military operations or activities."
Clearly, the Secretary of Defense has the horrors of war on his mind. His Pentagon office uses furniture from the carnage-ridden conflicts of the Civil War and World War I. In his show-and-tell, Gates name-dropped Ulysses Grant, Robert Lee and Jack Pershing. He referred to himself by an anachronistic title: "The truth of the matter is, being Secretary of War in a time of war is a very painful thing…So, no, I do not enjoy my job."
TORTURED FOR HER FAITH IN JESUS NBC updated us on the Iraq conflict. Tom Aspell in Amman had a horrifying profile of Rita Aziz, a 24-year-old refugee from Baghdad, who was driven to Jordan by religious persecution. Aziz related how she was kidnapped for five days and gang raped by four men: "Without souls or morals or anything they treated me brutally. They did acts. They showed no mercy. They told me: 'You are a Christian. We are going to do things to you.' They told me to become a Moslem. When they tortured me I used to pray to God: 'Just let me die a Christian.'"
Note the word the woman used--"tortured" not "subjected to harsh treatment."
Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, some 800,000 Christians, worshipping in the ancient Aramaic language of Jesus Christ himself, lived in Iraq. Gradually they are being cleansed, "only about half remain;" Aspell related, "their churches have been bombed; scores, including their archbishop, have been murdered." CBS' Byron Pitts has already reported on Iraqi Christian refugees in Chicago; ABC's Terry McCarthy and NBC's Richard Engel followed them to Kurdistan; ABC's John Hendren and NBC's Stephanie Gosk covered tentative attempts to return home to Baghdad; now Aspell shows us the exiled church in Jordan.
FARRAH JOINS BOLD-FACED NAMES Celebrity coverage made a rare appearance on the network nightly newscasts. So far this year the only bold-faced names to have been considered worthy of coverage by a correspondent during this hard news timeslot have been six athletes (Armstrong, Phelps, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Torres, Woods), six actors (Clooney, Howard, Pitt, Richardson, Streep, Travolta), five media figures (Harvey, Limbaugh, Madden, Oliver, Stewart), three megarich (Buffett, Jobs, Trump), two entertainers (Bruni, Horn) and one musician (Ma).
Now Farrah Fawcett joins them. Why? Because NBC's Dateline is airing a two-hour documentary, produced by her friend Alana Stewart, on the onetime poster actress' terminal affliction with liver cancer. George Lewis performed the cross-promotion for Farrah's Story.
FOUR-LEGGED HORSE FAVORED TO WIN STAKES NBC News also offered cross-promotion for Saturday's programming on NBC Sports. Both Anne Thompson and CBS' Michelle Miller (no link) selected the girls-vs-boys angle to preview the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown as a "four-legged filly with a sweet disposition who loves peppermints," as NBC's Thompson put it, has been installed as favorite in the Preakness Stakes. The last time a female won the stakes was 85 years ago.
It is a good job that Rachel Alexandra has four legs: three would be a hindrance and five a disqualification.
PROMOTE ECOTOURISM TO HELP PYGMIES To the pygmies of the jungles of the Central African Republic, the silverback gorilla is no endangered species. "Local people here kill gorillas for food," ABC's Dan Harris told us. He profiled Person of the Week Angelique Todd, a primate researcher for the World Wildlife Fund, who is working with the pygmies to persuade them that keeping their apes alive provides a better livelihood than eating them. Her answer is ecotourism. High on Todd's list of coverts was Harris who brought back "this rare view. You really get a sense of what a majestic beast the silverback is." Check out the video.
MAKE NO MISTAKE WITH THIS LAKE As for CBS' closer for Assignment America, there is just one word to describe Steve Hartman's feature on the home of the Nimpuc Indians: chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg!
General Motors discontinued its contracts with 18% of its 6,200 dealerships. CBS' Dean Reynolds pointed out that they were the small fry: "The affected dealers accounted for only 7% of GM's sales last year. Indeed 500 of them averaged just 35 sales a year." ABC's Chris Bury expects GM to shed a further 1,200 dealerships when it cuts its four smallest brands: Saturn, Saab, Pontiac and Hummer. "GM wants a dealer network more like Toyota's: for example, Chevrolet and Toyota sell about the same number of cars in this country but Chevrolet has three times as many dealerships. Only the biggest, most profitable ones will survive."
The ax fell at the still-viable General Motors more gently than at the already-bankrupt Chrysler. "Unlike those cut at Chrysler, the GM dealers have 30 days to appeal," ABC's Bury told us. "Unlike Chrysler, GM says it will buy the unsold cars back," noted NBC's Lee Cowan. "Unlike Chrysler," CBS' Reynolds reported, "GM will give its jettisoned dealers a wind-down period to stay open, until the fall of next year."
Even though the 1,100 dealerships may be small, they still employ 63,000 workers, NBC's Cowan told us. CBS had Nancy Cordes catalogue the further ripple effect, from the local vendors--cleaning, towing, tire suppliers and so on--who will no longer have customers…to the community activities that will lose their sponsors…to the municipalities that will lose real estate and sales tax revenues. Maryland dealer Tammy Darvish told Cordes that "nobody wins--not the automaker, not her workers and certainly not the neighborhood."
RULES FOR TRYING THOSE WHO CANNOT BE CONVICTED ABC may have led with the back-and-forth about torture between Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Capitol Hill and Director Leon Panetta at CIA headquarters, but the news about the Bush Administration's War on Terrorism that attracted attention on all three newscasts was President Barack Obama's decision not to abolish the military tribunals at the internment camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.
NBC's Savannah Guthrie observed that the President was clearly not proud of his decision, "leaving the news that he will restart controversial commissions to try terror suspects to a written statement." CBS' Wyatt Andrews reminded us that Candidate Obama had "promised to overhaul what he called the unfair trials" and ABC's Jake Tapper reconstructed his votes in the Senate, in which he approved of the creation of the commissions yet opposed George Bush's rules of evidence. According to NBC's Guthrie, the White House claims the revamped rules amounted to reform so sweeping that "they will not resemble the commission system under President Bush." Evidence obtained by illegal interrogation will be inadmissible; hearsay evidence will be limited; the right to remain silent will be honored.
Tribunal defendants will be the detainees with the weakest prosecution case against them, ABC's Tapper explained, those against whom the administration "does not think that the evidence would withstand the scrutiny of a United States criminal court or, for that matter, a court martial." CBS' Andrews estimated that "at least 20" of the remaining detainees, ones deemed "too dangerous to release" will be tried that way.
As for that inadmissible evidence, NBC's Guthrie used the broad term "coercive" to describe the interrogations that would disqualify it; ABC's Tapper, unusually for his network, conceded that war crimes had likely been committed, referring to "any harsh interrogations or torture;" CBS' Andrews used the T-word too: "Evidence obtained through torture or even cruel or degrading interrogation methods would not be allowed." Thus Andrews implicitly claims that cruel questioning does not qualify as torture.
ABC’S KARL CALLS IT HARSH; KARL ROVE CALLS IT TORTURE Only ABC decided that Thursday's assertion by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the CIA lied to her about torture in a briefing in 2002 was worthy of a follow-up. Jonathan Karl characterized Director Leon Panetta--a former colleague of Pelosi's in the California Democratic Congressional delegation--as "pushing back hard" against the Speaker. Panetta relied on his agency's "contemporaneous records" to claim that his spies told her the truth about the CIA's use of the waterboard torture--Karl could call it no worse than a "harsh interrogation tactic." Pledged Panetta: "It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values."
Pelosi responded by claiming that her condemnation for lying was directed at the Bush Administration not against the CIA's spooks. ABC's Karl contradicted her point: Pelosi's briefers "were career intelligence officers; these were not political operatives from the Bush Administration." Yet that administration's chief operative, Karl Rove, appeared to admit to war crimes. ABC's Karl quoted Rove's seeming confession in The Wall Street Journal that "the crime of torture" had been committed and that Pelosi herself was "an accessory."
THE SECRETARY OF WAR HAS NO FUN CBS' anchor Katie Couric started the week filing from Afghanistan, where she profiled Gen David McKiernan, unaware of the fact that he had just lost his job. She rounded out the week with a Katie Couric Reports feature on Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who, unknown to Couric, had gone to Kabul in order to fire McKiernan. This feature served as a promotion for Couric's longer piece on Gates for 60 Minutes. Couric traveled to Helmand Province to check on the new counterinsurgency tactic of moving troops into rural villages. "Some tactics, like rooting terrorists out of safe havens, are a double-edged sword," she mused, reflecting on a US airstrike that may have killed 140 civilians last week. "Missile strikes by unmanned drones along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan have infuriated the local population." Gates refused to comment about "any specific military operations or activities."
Clearly, the Secretary of Defense has the horrors of war on his mind. His Pentagon office uses furniture from the carnage-ridden conflicts of the Civil War and World War I. In his show-and-tell, Gates name-dropped Ulysses Grant, Robert Lee and Jack Pershing. He referred to himself by an anachronistic title: "The truth of the matter is, being Secretary of War in a time of war is a very painful thing…So, no, I do not enjoy my job."
TORTURED FOR HER FAITH IN JESUS NBC updated us on the Iraq conflict. Tom Aspell in Amman had a horrifying profile of Rita Aziz, a 24-year-old refugee from Baghdad, who was driven to Jordan by religious persecution. Aziz related how she was kidnapped for five days and gang raped by four men: "Without souls or morals or anything they treated me brutally. They did acts. They showed no mercy. They told me: 'You are a Christian. We are going to do things to you.' They told me to become a Moslem. When they tortured me I used to pray to God: 'Just let me die a Christian.'"
Note the word the woman used--"tortured" not "subjected to harsh treatment."
Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, some 800,000 Christians, worshipping in the ancient Aramaic language of Jesus Christ himself, lived in Iraq. Gradually they are being cleansed, "only about half remain;" Aspell related, "their churches have been bombed; scores, including their archbishop, have been murdered." CBS' Byron Pitts has already reported on Iraqi Christian refugees in Chicago; ABC's Terry McCarthy and NBC's Richard Engel followed them to Kurdistan; ABC's John Hendren and NBC's Stephanie Gosk covered tentative attempts to return home to Baghdad; now Aspell shows us the exiled church in Jordan.
FARRAH JOINS BOLD-FACED NAMES Celebrity coverage made a rare appearance on the network nightly newscasts. So far this year the only bold-faced names to have been considered worthy of coverage by a correspondent during this hard news timeslot have been six athletes (Armstrong, Phelps, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Torres, Woods), six actors (Clooney, Howard, Pitt, Richardson, Streep, Travolta), five media figures (Harvey, Limbaugh, Madden, Oliver, Stewart), three megarich (Buffett, Jobs, Trump), two entertainers (Bruni, Horn) and one musician (Ma).
Now Farrah Fawcett joins them. Why? Because NBC's Dateline is airing a two-hour documentary, produced by her friend Alana Stewart, on the onetime poster actress' terminal affliction with liver cancer. George Lewis performed the cross-promotion for Farrah's Story.
FOUR-LEGGED HORSE FAVORED TO WIN STAKES NBC News also offered cross-promotion for Saturday's programming on NBC Sports. Both Anne Thompson and CBS' Michelle Miller (no link) selected the girls-vs-boys angle to preview the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown as a "four-legged filly with a sweet disposition who loves peppermints," as NBC's Thompson put it, has been installed as favorite in the Preakness Stakes. The last time a female won the stakes was 85 years ago.
It is a good job that Rachel Alexandra has four legs: three would be a hindrance and five a disqualification.
PROMOTE ECOTOURISM TO HELP PYGMIES To the pygmies of the jungles of the Central African Republic, the silverback gorilla is no endangered species. "Local people here kill gorillas for food," ABC's Dan Harris told us. He profiled Person of the Week Angelique Todd, a primate researcher for the World Wildlife Fund, who is working with the pygmies to persuade them that keeping their apes alive provides a better livelihood than eating them. Her answer is ecotourism. High on Todd's list of coverts was Harris who brought back "this rare view. You really get a sense of what a majestic beast the silverback is." Check out the video.
MAKE NO MISTAKE WITH THIS LAKE As for CBS' closer for Assignment America, there is just one word to describe Steve Hartman's feature on the home of the Nimpuc Indians: chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg!
