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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JUNE 25, 2009
Michael Jackson, the self-styled King of Pop, is dead. The network nightly newscasts had been all geared up to run obituary tributes to one icon of '70s mass culture. Actress Farrah Fawcett, the body on the best-selling poster of all time, as expected succumbed to cancer at the age of 62. Then mid-afternoon, a second icon of '70s mass culture, pop singer Jackson, the voice on the best-selling music CD of all time, unexpectedly succumbed to cardiac arrest at the age of 50. Of the two, Jackson was obviously Story of the Day--the bigger star, the more sensational demise. Even though his death was officially declared only 15 minutes before airtime, Jackson coverage accounted for 41% (24 min out of 58) of the three-network newshole.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JUNE 25, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
MICHAEL JACKSON, MUSIC ICON Michael Jackson, the self-styled King of Pop, is dead. The network nightly newscasts had been all geared up to run obituary tributes to one icon of '70s mass culture. Actress Farrah Fawcett, the body on the best-selling poster of all time, as expected succumbed to cancer at the age of 62. Then mid-afternoon, a second icon of '70s mass culture, pop singer Jackson, the voice on the best-selling music CD of all time, unexpectedly succumbed to cardiac arrest at the age of 50. Of the two, Jackson was obviously Story of the Day--the bigger star, the more sensational demise. Even though his death was officially declared only 15 minutes before airtime, Jackson coverage accounted for 41% (24 min out of 58) of the three-network newshole.
All three newscasts had a correspondent outside the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles where Jackson was rushed by ambulance after collapsing in his rented Bel Air mansion. ABC's Mike von Fremd (no link) relayed the "startled, absolutely shocked" mood of the fans who were gathering outside the hospital. NBC's Michael Okwu, too, picked up on "a collective sense of shock." CBS' Ben Tracy heard a fraternity house across the street pumping out Jackson tunes in tribute.
PETER PAN, RIP So much for not speaking ill of the dead.
More than half of Bill Whitaker's obituary on CBS covered the "increasingly reclusive and odd figure" that Michael Jackson cut in his later years. Whitaker insinuated that Jackson was uncapable of fathering his three children…he reminded us of balcony infant-dangling…the $20m settlement of a child sex abuse lawsuit…his assertion that having young boys in his bed was "very right, very loving"…his prosecution on molestation charges. NBC's Peter Alexander asserted that Jackson became "the biggest star with truly international status ever brought to trial on a serious felony charge" and, outrageously, did not even bother to add that it ended in acquittal.
On the other hand…
ABC's Brian Rooney dropped the "self-styled" qualifier and came straight out and dubbed Jackson King of Pop. That must certainly chagrin fans of Elvis Presley--the King himself--and Lennon & McCartney. Rooney pinpointed the making of this superstar as the moment when he made "his famous moon walk for the first time on Motown's 25th anniversary special." NBC' Alexander reminded us that Jackson started off when he was just a child: "The rest of the Jackson Five sang and moved but Michael, the youngest and clearly the prodigy, was the one who moved you." NBC's Lester Holt gave Jackson the credit for inventing the music video--"he really jump started the genre"--and ABC anchor Charles Gibson closed his newscast with an extended clip from a Thriller dance sequence.
CBS' Whitaker mused that the onetime child star identified with Peter Pan "the boy who never grew up." He told a sad tale: "Somewhere along the way Jackson went from the King of Pop to Wacko Jacko. Some say it started with an accident during the filming of a TV commercial that burned his scalp severely and led to a dependence on prescription painkillers." He called him "a curious figure, who leaves behind a legacy of staggering musical genius--and stunningly bad judgment."
DEATH OF A PIN-UP Poor Farrah Fawcett. She had devoted her final years to "perhaps her greatest role," as CBS anchor Katie Couric put it, "a model of bravery as she stood up to cancer." Fawcett allowed herself to be profiled as she was dying of anal cancer in an NBC documentary Farrah's Story produced by her friend Alana Stewart. NBC's Lee Cowan reminded us of "her signature hair gone, her wincing in pain, pictures she wanted the world to see, determined to fight the cancer that eventually killed her." Yet when death finally came, her curtain call was overshadowed by Michael Jackson.
Nevertheless, CBS' Couric reminded us of Fawcett's image "in a one-piece red swimsuit that sold an estimated 12m copies and became as emblematic of the '70s as disco." ABC's David Muir called her "a television icon, a blonde bombshell in the truest sense whose glamour and smile first captivated the American audience in the '70s." NBC's Cowan stated that "every teenage boy" had the poster in his room. "There was also her golden halo, the looks that made her the perfect Angel for Charlie."
TESTOSTERONE THINKING Tabloid topics occupied the top three spots of the day's agenda as Mark Sanford rounded out Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Gov Sanford, Wednesday's Story of the Day, was in seclusion at his beach house on the South Carolina shore with his estranged wife Jenny after publicly declaring his love for another woman at a lachrymose statehouse press conference. CBS' Kelly Cobiella identified his amour as a 43-year-old divorced mother of two from Buenos Aires. Sanford traveled to South America last summer on a Commerce Department trade mission, NBC's Mark Potter reported, and would now reimburse the state for the cost of the Argentine part of the trip. CBS' Cobiella told us that reporters had asked if he is planning to resign: "No."
"Bicoastal, bipartisan and bisexual," John Berman summarized for ABC's A Closer Look as he surveyed sexual peccadillos by prominent politicians. The thing everyone on his list does have in common is that "they are all men." Berman consulted his colleague Cokie Roberts for her opinion. Roberts does not have a relaxed reputation in matters marital: "Testosterone is a powerful hormone and it seems to drive some men to do things that they would not rationally do if they were thinking with another part of their body."
WHEN IS A THREAT NOT A THREAT? Katie Couric, anchoring from Washington for CBS, seemed to have a miscommunication with David Martin, her Pentagon correspondent, over the introduction to his report on the enforcement of United Nations sanctions against North Korea. "The communist government put out a threat to the United States," Couric asserted in her lead-in. Martin merely mentioned that Pyongyang was worried that the United States would restart the Korean War and had promised to use nuclear weapons in retaliation if attacked.
The meat of Martin's report was more quirky than terrifying--and concerned US threats not North Korean ones. The freighter Kang Nam, a "rustbucket," is plying a route through the South China Seas from North Korea to Myanmar, "hugging the coast all the way." The Pentagon expects the Kang Nam to dock in Singapore to refuel and, per the Security Council, port authorities will be allowed to inspect its cargo if it has already been challenged on the high seas. If the Pentagon wants the ship inspected, a warship will have to confront it formally first. "It is a small ship but a big deal and the decision to intercept it is going to go all the way to the President."
TURNING INTO TRAINERS Terrorist bombings in Iraq continue. ABC counted 160 civilian deaths since the weekend. The bombs themselves were not the topic of Mike Boettcher's report from west Baghdad. Instead he filed a feature on the First Infantry Division as it prepares to discontinue its urban patrols at the end of the month. What will the troops do then? "There is going to be more training"--how to drive a truck, how to repair a HumVee, how to bandage a combat wound.
SEARCHING TEENAGE GIRLS’ PANTIES FOR HIDDEN ADVIL On this tabloid day, the only development inside-the-Beltway to warrant a reporter's attention contained good news for youth. All three newscasts had their Supreme Court correspondents cover the 8-1 vote that stopped public schools from strip-searching teenagers without "specific suspicions of real danger," as ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg put it. The lawsuit arose from the outrageous search of a 13-year-old Arizona girl's bra and panties in an eighth grade nurse's office. What was the suspected contraband? A pair of prescription-strength ibuprofen pills, NBC's Pete Williams told us, "each pill no stronger than two common Advil tablets." The girl's private parts turned out to be drugfree. CBS' Wyatt Andrews hailed "a major victory for student privacy."
All three newscasts had a correspondent outside the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles where Jackson was rushed by ambulance after collapsing in his rented Bel Air mansion. ABC's Mike von Fremd (no link) relayed the "startled, absolutely shocked" mood of the fans who were gathering outside the hospital. NBC's Michael Okwu, too, picked up on "a collective sense of shock." CBS' Ben Tracy heard a fraternity house across the street pumping out Jackson tunes in tribute.
PETER PAN, RIP So much for not speaking ill of the dead.
More than half of Bill Whitaker's obituary on CBS covered the "increasingly reclusive and odd figure" that Michael Jackson cut in his later years. Whitaker insinuated that Jackson was uncapable of fathering his three children…he reminded us of balcony infant-dangling…the $20m settlement of a child sex abuse lawsuit…his assertion that having young boys in his bed was "very right, very loving"…his prosecution on molestation charges. NBC's Peter Alexander asserted that Jackson became "the biggest star with truly international status ever brought to trial on a serious felony charge" and, outrageously, did not even bother to add that it ended in acquittal.
On the other hand…
ABC's Brian Rooney dropped the "self-styled" qualifier and came straight out and dubbed Jackson King of Pop. That must certainly chagrin fans of Elvis Presley--the King himself--and Lennon & McCartney. Rooney pinpointed the making of this superstar as the moment when he made "his famous moon walk for the first time on Motown's 25th anniversary special." NBC' Alexander reminded us that Jackson started off when he was just a child: "The rest of the Jackson Five sang and moved but Michael, the youngest and clearly the prodigy, was the one who moved you." NBC's Lester Holt gave Jackson the credit for inventing the music video--"he really jump started the genre"--and ABC anchor Charles Gibson closed his newscast with an extended clip from a Thriller dance sequence.
CBS' Whitaker mused that the onetime child star identified with Peter Pan "the boy who never grew up." He told a sad tale: "Somewhere along the way Jackson went from the King of Pop to Wacko Jacko. Some say it started with an accident during the filming of a TV commercial that burned his scalp severely and led to a dependence on prescription painkillers." He called him "a curious figure, who leaves behind a legacy of staggering musical genius--and stunningly bad judgment."
DEATH OF A PIN-UP Poor Farrah Fawcett. She had devoted her final years to "perhaps her greatest role," as CBS anchor Katie Couric put it, "a model of bravery as she stood up to cancer." Fawcett allowed herself to be profiled as she was dying of anal cancer in an NBC documentary Farrah's Story produced by her friend Alana Stewart. NBC's Lee Cowan reminded us of "her signature hair gone, her wincing in pain, pictures she wanted the world to see, determined to fight the cancer that eventually killed her." Yet when death finally came, her curtain call was overshadowed by Michael Jackson.
Nevertheless, CBS' Couric reminded us of Fawcett's image "in a one-piece red swimsuit that sold an estimated 12m copies and became as emblematic of the '70s as disco." ABC's David Muir called her "a television icon, a blonde bombshell in the truest sense whose glamour and smile first captivated the American audience in the '70s." NBC's Cowan stated that "every teenage boy" had the poster in his room. "There was also her golden halo, the looks that made her the perfect Angel for Charlie."
TESTOSTERONE THINKING Tabloid topics occupied the top three spots of the day's agenda as Mark Sanford rounded out Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Gov Sanford, Wednesday's Story of the Day, was in seclusion at his beach house on the South Carolina shore with his estranged wife Jenny after publicly declaring his love for another woman at a lachrymose statehouse press conference. CBS' Kelly Cobiella identified his amour as a 43-year-old divorced mother of two from Buenos Aires. Sanford traveled to South America last summer on a Commerce Department trade mission, NBC's Mark Potter reported, and would now reimburse the state for the cost of the Argentine part of the trip. CBS' Cobiella told us that reporters had asked if he is planning to resign: "No."
"Bicoastal, bipartisan and bisexual," John Berman summarized for ABC's A Closer Look as he surveyed sexual peccadillos by prominent politicians. The thing everyone on his list does have in common is that "they are all men." Berman consulted his colleague Cokie Roberts for her opinion. Roberts does not have a relaxed reputation in matters marital: "Testosterone is a powerful hormone and it seems to drive some men to do things that they would not rationally do if they were thinking with another part of their body."
WHEN IS A THREAT NOT A THREAT? Katie Couric, anchoring from Washington for CBS, seemed to have a miscommunication with David Martin, her Pentagon correspondent, over the introduction to his report on the enforcement of United Nations sanctions against North Korea. "The communist government put out a threat to the United States," Couric asserted in her lead-in. Martin merely mentioned that Pyongyang was worried that the United States would restart the Korean War and had promised to use nuclear weapons in retaliation if attacked.
The meat of Martin's report was more quirky than terrifying--and concerned US threats not North Korean ones. The freighter Kang Nam, a "rustbucket," is plying a route through the South China Seas from North Korea to Myanmar, "hugging the coast all the way." The Pentagon expects the Kang Nam to dock in Singapore to refuel and, per the Security Council, port authorities will be allowed to inspect its cargo if it has already been challenged on the high seas. If the Pentagon wants the ship inspected, a warship will have to confront it formally first. "It is a small ship but a big deal and the decision to intercept it is going to go all the way to the President."
TURNING INTO TRAINERS Terrorist bombings in Iraq continue. ABC counted 160 civilian deaths since the weekend. The bombs themselves were not the topic of Mike Boettcher's report from west Baghdad. Instead he filed a feature on the First Infantry Division as it prepares to discontinue its urban patrols at the end of the month. What will the troops do then? "There is going to be more training"--how to drive a truck, how to repair a HumVee, how to bandage a combat wound.
SEARCHING TEENAGE GIRLS’ PANTIES FOR HIDDEN ADVIL On this tabloid day, the only development inside-the-Beltway to warrant a reporter's attention contained good news for youth. All three newscasts had their Supreme Court correspondents cover the 8-1 vote that stopped public schools from strip-searching teenagers without "specific suspicions of real danger," as ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg put it. The lawsuit arose from the outrageous search of a 13-year-old Arizona girl's bra and panties in an eighth grade nurse's office. What was the suspected contraband? A pair of prescription-strength ibuprofen pills, NBC's Pete Williams told us, "each pill no stronger than two common Advil tablets." The girl's private parts turned out to be drugfree. CBS' Wyatt Andrews hailed "a major victory for student privacy."
