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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JUNE 29, 2009
A 71-year-old millionaire was sentenced to two additional life times in federal prison. Bernard Madoff, who pleaded guilty to bilking investors in a Ponzi scheme worth as much as $65bn, was sentenced to 150 years behind bars. CBS and ABC both led with an eyewitness account of the hearing in a Manhattan courtroom. Madoff's fate was Story of the Day. NBC decided that the fourth day of follow-ups from last week's death of Michael Jackson was more important as lead item than the conman. NBC's news judgment, in this instance, was bizarre.
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ONE HUNDRED & FIFTY YEARS A 71-year-old millionaire was sentenced to two additional life times in federal prison. Bernard Madoff, who pleaded guilty to bilking investors in a Ponzi scheme worth as much as $65bn, was sentenced to 150 years behind bars. CBS and ABC both led with an eyewitness account of the hearing in a Manhattan courtroom. Madoff's fate was Story of the Day. NBC decided that the fourth day of follow-ups from last week's death of Michael Jackson was more important as lead item than the conman. NBC's news judgment, in this instance, was bizarre.
Before he was sentenced, Madoff heard denunciations from nine of the investors he swindled and made a statement of his own. Judge Denny Chin called Madoff's fraud "extraordinarily evil" imposing the maximum legal sentence. To CNBC's Scott Cohn, reporting on NBC, Madoff seemed "thin and emotionally emotionless, slumped deeper and deeper in his chair." On CBS, Armen Keteyian called him "devoid of emotion." ABC's Brian Ross had a different takeaway: "I saw no tears in his eyes and it seemed to me there was a distinct smirk on his face."
Madoff's wife Ruth was not in the courtroom. CBS' Jeff Glor quoted her denunciation of her husband: "Like everyone else I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years." Glor commented that she recently handed $80m over to the feds "with the hope of avoiding prosecution." ABC's Ross listed Mrs Madoff as one of the "inner circle" that is still under investigation. Besides Madoff's wife, there is his brother Peter, his sons Andrew and Mark, his accountant David Fiehling and two associates, Annette Bongiorno and Frank diPascali.
ABC's Ross quoted Madoff to his investors: "I am sorry. I know that does not help." Then ABC ran a 1st Person soundbite from Burt Ross, one of those investors: "It is hard to imagine that somebody who could do this for decades in a calculating, premeditated way would all of a sudden have remorse." Judge Chin, ABC's Ross noted, "had not received a single letter on Madoff's behalf from family or friends."
SOTOMAYOR SUFFERS REVERSAL The final day of the Supreme Court's term saw the Justices hand down what ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg called a "sweeping ruling" on affirmative action, even though the vote was a close 5-4. CBS' Wyatt Andrews called the decision "groundbreaking" and NBC's Pete Williams judged that it "sets new rules for the nation's employers." The case concerned a firefighters' promotion test that turned out to exclude all the African-Americans who took it while including 19 whites and one Hispanic. The City of New Haven invalidated the test, CBS' Andrews explained, "obeying 38 years of civil rights law forbidding anything that caused a disparate impact against minorities." Now the Court "sets a new legal standard," NBC's Williams explained, insisting that the city provide evidence to demonstrate that it was the test itself--not those taking it--that was flawed.
Besides what ABC's Crawford Greenburg called the "far-ranging impact" of the decision in the workforce, the ruling was also newsworthy because it overturned the lower court judgment of Sonia Sotomayor, the federal judge who has been nominated to join the Justices next October. Did the reversal undermine Sotomayor's judicial credentials? Some say yes: "Critics say she ignored important issues"--ABC's Crawford Greenburg…"Opponents called the ruling a legal rebuke"--CBS' Andrews. On the other hand, no: "Supporters say she was on solid ground, following case law at the time"--CBS' Andrews…"Her supporters say she followed the law"--ABC's Crawford Greenburg.
PAJAMA JUNTA ABC was the only newscast to assign a correspondent to the "bloodless coup" in Honduras, as Jonathan Karl described it. "The military stormed in and forced President Manuel Zelaya, wearing just his pajamas, to leave the country." Western hemisphere presidents as diverse as Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama condemned the ouster. Karl noted that the United States has troops stationed in Honduras "for anti-drug training and humanitarian operations." So far the US has neither cut off aid nor severed diplomatic ties with the new junta.
CAVALRY COLONELS A pair of colonels from the First Cavalry Division was featured on the eve of the end to the military occupation of Iraq's urban areas. CBS' Lara Logan was in Mosul to cover Col Gary Volesky as he ended patrols in "the most dangerous city in Iraq." Logan collected local vox pop: "It is clear from speaking to people here that they have had enough of being occupied and they are eager to see control of their country back in Iraqi hands." On ABC, Martha Raddatz narrated footage of Col Tim Karcher, who completed his pullout from Baghdad's Sadr City ten days ago. The end of his patrols did not mean the end to his war: "Today," Raddatz reported, "I learned of the firefight west of Sadr City and the enormous bomb that shattered Karcher's vehicle. He lost both legs. He is fighting for his life."
BIGGER NEWSHOLE ALLOWS PIX FROM FOXHOLE NBC ran three fewer minutes of commercials than usual (a 22 min newshole v ABC 18, CBS 19) and assigned that extra time to extending Richard Engel's Tip of the Spear report from the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. He followed-up on the USArmy platoon of Viper Company that he first covered last October with action footage of a firefight in an abandoned hillside farmhouse. Engel intercut his own video with first person footage taken by a sergeant named Christopher Thompson, who documented the duel by wearing a helmetcam. Altogether eight soldiers from Viper Company have been killed since Engel started covering them. None in this particular skirmish even though the troops "think they killed three of four Taliban fighters."
TABLOID TIDBITS BELONG ON ET INSTEAD On such a busy day of news there really was no excuse for NBC to treat the housekeeping follow-up to last week's blockbuster as its lead item. There was nothing compelling in the tidbits of information about Michael Jackson to make the late singer occupy the top spot on a nightly newscast. Such gossipy fare belongs on Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight instead.
Anyway, NBC's Lee Cowan told us that some of Jackson's kinfolk believe he died intestate while "others say there is a will." CBS' Ben Tracy (no link) saw "a potential legal battle brewing" over the custody of the Jackson orphans, now temporarily in the custody of grandmother Katherine. Tracy quoted TMZ.com, "which broke the news of Jackson's death" as quoting "one of the singer's former lawyers" as claiming to be in possession of a signed will. ABC's Jim Avila quoted the attorney for Jackson's physician as denying that he injected his patient with prescription Demerol on the day he died. CBS' Tracy repeated rumors that Jackson's body was "riddled with needle wounds, that he was nearly bald, that he weighed just 112 lbs" before telling us that most of those rumors had been contradicted by the Los Angeles County Coroner.
And on and on…
NBC's Rehema Ellis, at least, tried to cover the wider cultural importance of Jackson's career. Ellis, who happens to be African-American, reported that some blacks had experienced "a particular kind of discomfort" at the sight of Jackson changing his face, hair and skin to appear less negro. His death changed that, she generalized: "Jackson may have regained what propelled him to stardom in the first place--widespread acceptance from the community he came from."
KRULWICH’S ANIMAL PLANET Robert Krulwich's dispatches from the animal kingdom for ABC are always eyecatching. His latest is no exception. See flocks of starlings turn the Scottish sky black and bend trees to the ground in Pennsylvania.
Before he was sentenced, Madoff heard denunciations from nine of the investors he swindled and made a statement of his own. Judge Denny Chin called Madoff's fraud "extraordinarily evil" imposing the maximum legal sentence. To CNBC's Scott Cohn, reporting on NBC, Madoff seemed "thin and emotionally emotionless, slumped deeper and deeper in his chair." On CBS, Armen Keteyian called him "devoid of emotion." ABC's Brian Ross had a different takeaway: "I saw no tears in his eyes and it seemed to me there was a distinct smirk on his face."
Madoff's wife Ruth was not in the courtroom. CBS' Jeff Glor quoted her denunciation of her husband: "Like everyone else I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years." Glor commented that she recently handed $80m over to the feds "with the hope of avoiding prosecution." ABC's Ross listed Mrs Madoff as one of the "inner circle" that is still under investigation. Besides Madoff's wife, there is his brother Peter, his sons Andrew and Mark, his accountant David Fiehling and two associates, Annette Bongiorno and Frank diPascali.
ABC's Ross quoted Madoff to his investors: "I am sorry. I know that does not help." Then ABC ran a 1st Person soundbite from Burt Ross, one of those investors: "It is hard to imagine that somebody who could do this for decades in a calculating, premeditated way would all of a sudden have remorse." Judge Chin, ABC's Ross noted, "had not received a single letter on Madoff's behalf from family or friends."
SOTOMAYOR SUFFERS REVERSAL The final day of the Supreme Court's term saw the Justices hand down what ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg called a "sweeping ruling" on affirmative action, even though the vote was a close 5-4. CBS' Wyatt Andrews called the decision "groundbreaking" and NBC's Pete Williams judged that it "sets new rules for the nation's employers." The case concerned a firefighters' promotion test that turned out to exclude all the African-Americans who took it while including 19 whites and one Hispanic. The City of New Haven invalidated the test, CBS' Andrews explained, "obeying 38 years of civil rights law forbidding anything that caused a disparate impact against minorities." Now the Court "sets a new legal standard," NBC's Williams explained, insisting that the city provide evidence to demonstrate that it was the test itself--not those taking it--that was flawed.
Besides what ABC's Crawford Greenburg called the "far-ranging impact" of the decision in the workforce, the ruling was also newsworthy because it overturned the lower court judgment of Sonia Sotomayor, the federal judge who has been nominated to join the Justices next October. Did the reversal undermine Sotomayor's judicial credentials? Some say yes: "Critics say she ignored important issues"--ABC's Crawford Greenburg…"Opponents called the ruling a legal rebuke"--CBS' Andrews. On the other hand, no: "Supporters say she was on solid ground, following case law at the time"--CBS' Andrews…"Her supporters say she followed the law"--ABC's Crawford Greenburg.
PAJAMA JUNTA ABC was the only newscast to assign a correspondent to the "bloodless coup" in Honduras, as Jonathan Karl described it. "The military stormed in and forced President Manuel Zelaya, wearing just his pajamas, to leave the country." Western hemisphere presidents as diverse as Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama condemned the ouster. Karl noted that the United States has troops stationed in Honduras "for anti-drug training and humanitarian operations." So far the US has neither cut off aid nor severed diplomatic ties with the new junta.
CAVALRY COLONELS A pair of colonels from the First Cavalry Division was featured on the eve of the end to the military occupation of Iraq's urban areas. CBS' Lara Logan was in Mosul to cover Col Gary Volesky as he ended patrols in "the most dangerous city in Iraq." Logan collected local vox pop: "It is clear from speaking to people here that they have had enough of being occupied and they are eager to see control of their country back in Iraqi hands." On ABC, Martha Raddatz narrated footage of Col Tim Karcher, who completed his pullout from Baghdad's Sadr City ten days ago. The end of his patrols did not mean the end to his war: "Today," Raddatz reported, "I learned of the firefight west of Sadr City and the enormous bomb that shattered Karcher's vehicle. He lost both legs. He is fighting for his life."
BIGGER NEWSHOLE ALLOWS PIX FROM FOXHOLE NBC ran three fewer minutes of commercials than usual (a 22 min newshole v ABC 18, CBS 19) and assigned that extra time to extending Richard Engel's Tip of the Spear report from the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. He followed-up on the USArmy platoon of Viper Company that he first covered last October with action footage of a firefight in an abandoned hillside farmhouse. Engel intercut his own video with first person footage taken by a sergeant named Christopher Thompson, who documented the duel by wearing a helmetcam. Altogether eight soldiers from Viper Company have been killed since Engel started covering them. None in this particular skirmish even though the troops "think they killed three of four Taliban fighters."
TABLOID TIDBITS BELONG ON ET INSTEAD On such a busy day of news there really was no excuse for NBC to treat the housekeeping follow-up to last week's blockbuster as its lead item. There was nothing compelling in the tidbits of information about Michael Jackson to make the late singer occupy the top spot on a nightly newscast. Such gossipy fare belongs on Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight instead.
Anyway, NBC's Lee Cowan told us that some of Jackson's kinfolk believe he died intestate while "others say there is a will." CBS' Ben Tracy (no link) saw "a potential legal battle brewing" over the custody of the Jackson orphans, now temporarily in the custody of grandmother Katherine. Tracy quoted TMZ.com, "which broke the news of Jackson's death" as quoting "one of the singer's former lawyers" as claiming to be in possession of a signed will. ABC's Jim Avila quoted the attorney for Jackson's physician as denying that he injected his patient with prescription Demerol on the day he died. CBS' Tracy repeated rumors that Jackson's body was "riddled with needle wounds, that he was nearly bald, that he weighed just 112 lbs" before telling us that most of those rumors had been contradicted by the Los Angeles County Coroner.
And on and on…
NBC's Rehema Ellis, at least, tried to cover the wider cultural importance of Jackson's career. Ellis, who happens to be African-American, reported that some blacks had experienced "a particular kind of discomfort" at the sight of Jackson changing his face, hair and skin to appear less negro. His death changed that, she generalized: "Jackson may have regained what propelled him to stardom in the first place--widespread acceptance from the community he came from."
KRULWICH’S ANIMAL PLANET Robert Krulwich's dispatches from the animal kingdom for ABC are always eyecatching. His latest is no exception. See flocks of starlings turn the Scottish sky black and bend trees to the ground in Pennsylvania.
