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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 07, 2009
This was the second saturation day of Michael Jackson coverage. The celebrity-packed memorial for the dead singer at the Staples Center auditorium in Los Angeles attracted two of the three network anchors to the scene--CBS' Katie Couric and NBC's Brian Williams. ABC's Charles Gibson stayed in New York City as the network sent Nightline anchor Cynthia McFadden to attend. Jackson coverage accounted for 70% of the three-network newshole (40 min out of 58), more than the day of his death itself (24 min) and more than each day since then, except for the 57 minutes on the first day of mourning.
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FULL COURT JACKSON PRESS AT STAPLES CENTER This was the second saturation day of Michael Jackson coverage. The celebrity-packed memorial for the dead singer at the Staples Center auditorium in Los Angeles attracted two of the three network anchors to the scene--CBS' Katie Couric and NBC's Brian Williams. ABC's Charles Gibson stayed in New York City as the network sent Nightline anchor Cynthia McFadden to attend. Jackson coverage accounted for 70% of the three-network newshole (40 min out of 58), more than the day of his death itself (24 min) and more than each day since then, except for the 57 minutes on the first day of mourning.
"I think we witnessed the period to a very long sentence that has been growing for almost two weeks." That was the grammatical metaphor that NBC's Lester Holt used to describe the end to the mourning period for Jackson's artistic legacy that the ceremonies represented. Martin Bashir of ABC's Nightline concurred. He saw the day's gathering as "memorializing him and emphasizing his genius as a performer, a composer, a singer, a dancer." That done, Bashir expected attention now to turn to such sordid matters as the toxicological autopsy, child custody and probate disputes.
In a spirit of rehabilitating Jackson's tarnished image, all three newscasts used the same soundbite of comfort from the Rev Al Sharpton to his three orphaned children: "There was not nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with." They also used the tearful tribute from daughter Paris, aged eleven: "Since I was born, daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine." NBC's Lee Cowan reported that those words "brought 20,000 people to tears."
Many of Jackson's musical colleagues sang at the memorial in tribute--Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, brother Jermaine Jackson. Lionel Richie chose a spiritual because Jackson's mother Katherine requested "that this not simply be a secular service," as NBC's Cowan put it. CBS' Couric called it "part church, part concert hall" and ABC's McFadden found the audience respectful and quiet and the mood "extremely moving."
CBS, LAPD OVERESTIMATE JACKSON’S PULLING POWER The three newscasts are not in lockstep. CBS (18 min v ABC 12, NBC 10) decided that the Michael Jackson memorial was more newsworthy than the other two newscasts, including a Katie Couric interview with Stevie Wonder in its coverage. This is the fourth weekday out of the last five that CBS has covered the story most heavily. Over that five-day period CBS has spent almost as much time on Jackson (45 min v ABC 25, NBC 26) as the other two newscasts put together
So whose judgment is right? Was the memorial worth the hype? Is there abiding interest in the late singer?
Sharing the view with CBS that this was a blockbuster event was the Los Angeles Police Department. CBS' Ben Tracy reported that the department spent $3.8m on security and deployed 3,000 officers to the scene "more than were on hand for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics." Tracy reported that the LAPD expected 250,000 mourners to arrive at the Staples Center, capacity 20,000. NBC's Michelle Kosinski quoted a crowd estimate of 700,000. In the end, CBS' Tracy saw "hundreds" of mourning fans, not thousands. NBC's Kosinki counted the crowd as a "manageable" 2,000: "Most honored Michael Jackson simply where they discovered him, in front of TV screens." She quoted a global estimate of 1.0bn viewers. By contrast 2.5bn had watched Princess Diana's funeral on television.
CBS' Jeff Glor surveyed the mourning around the nation and the globe. He quoted President Barack Obama's tribute from Moscow: "He had a profound impact over not just one generation, but two."
OBAMA LOSES COMMAND OF THE NEWS AGENDA Barack Obama appeared bemused by the Michael Jackson hoopla. "Like Elvis and Sinatra he was someone who captivated the imagination of the country," he told ABC's Jake Tapper, before turning sarcastic. "I assume at some point people will start focusing again on things like nuclear weapons."
Obama's visit to Moscow (10 min on Monday, 10 min on Tuesday) marked the first time in his short Presidency that a major overseas trip failed to dominated the news agenda. His summitry at London's G20 (54 min on April 1st and 2nd) and his speech to the world's Moslems in Cairo (28 min on June 4th) had no such problems. NBC's Savannah Guthrie noted that the President "barely drew a crowd" outside the Kremlin and Russian national television "barely mentioned the visit at all."
Even after Obama offered himself up for interviews to the networks' traveling White House correspondents he barely made a ripple. He described his two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that included a 50-minute monologue from his host on the deterioration of Russian-US relations since the end of the Cold War. "He is strong. He cares deeply about Russia. He has suspicions about the United States," was how Obama described Putin to NBC's Chuck Todd. "This is a very smart, very tough, very unsentimental person," he offered to CBS' Chip Reid. ABC's Tapper reported that Obama met Mikhail Gorbachev, the onetime General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and had this to say about Putin: "I thought it was important to listen."
SEE SALMON RUN CBS spent so much time on Michael Jackson's memorial that it had none left for a follow-up on Sarah Palin. ABC's Kate Snow and NBC's Andrea Mitchell followed the soon-to-be-former Alaska Governor to Bristol Bay where she joined her husband's fishing. NBC's Mitchell told us it was "the peak of the salmon run." ABC's Snow showed us the fishy specks of blood and guts on Palin's waders and T-shirt. Palin boasted to Mitchell about the "the fish slime and the dirt under the fingernails." Palin dropped her g's as she explained to Snow how to catch the salmon: "We are chasin' the tide. It is ebbin' and flowin' of course." Mitchell called it a "giant photo opportunity." "The photo shoot is over," Palin told Snow. "Only kiddin'."
ABC's Snow extracted one tidbit from Palin about the legal fees she is running up by defending herself against ethics complaints: "The adversaries would love to see us put on a path of personal bankruptcy so we could not afford to run." The word run intrigued the correspondent: "Was that a hint that she is planning a run for President in 2012?" "Do not know what the future holds. I am not gonna shut any door."
"I think we witnessed the period to a very long sentence that has been growing for almost two weeks." That was the grammatical metaphor that NBC's Lester Holt used to describe the end to the mourning period for Jackson's artistic legacy that the ceremonies represented. Martin Bashir of ABC's Nightline concurred. He saw the day's gathering as "memorializing him and emphasizing his genius as a performer, a composer, a singer, a dancer." That done, Bashir expected attention now to turn to such sordid matters as the toxicological autopsy, child custody and probate disputes.
In a spirit of rehabilitating Jackson's tarnished image, all three newscasts used the same soundbite of comfort from the Rev Al Sharpton to his three orphaned children: "There was not nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with." They also used the tearful tribute from daughter Paris, aged eleven: "Since I was born, daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine." NBC's Lee Cowan reported that those words "brought 20,000 people to tears."
Many of Jackson's musical colleagues sang at the memorial in tribute--Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, brother Jermaine Jackson. Lionel Richie chose a spiritual because Jackson's mother Katherine requested "that this not simply be a secular service," as NBC's Cowan put it. CBS' Couric called it "part church, part concert hall" and ABC's McFadden found the audience respectful and quiet and the mood "extremely moving."
CBS, LAPD OVERESTIMATE JACKSON’S PULLING POWER The three newscasts are not in lockstep. CBS (18 min v ABC 12, NBC 10) decided that the Michael Jackson memorial was more newsworthy than the other two newscasts, including a Katie Couric interview with Stevie Wonder in its coverage. This is the fourth weekday out of the last five that CBS has covered the story most heavily. Over that five-day period CBS has spent almost as much time on Jackson (45 min v ABC 25, NBC 26) as the other two newscasts put together
So whose judgment is right? Was the memorial worth the hype? Is there abiding interest in the late singer?
Sharing the view with CBS that this was a blockbuster event was the Los Angeles Police Department. CBS' Ben Tracy reported that the department spent $3.8m on security and deployed 3,000 officers to the scene "more than were on hand for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics." Tracy reported that the LAPD expected 250,000 mourners to arrive at the Staples Center, capacity 20,000. NBC's Michelle Kosinski quoted a crowd estimate of 700,000. In the end, CBS' Tracy saw "hundreds" of mourning fans, not thousands. NBC's Kosinki counted the crowd as a "manageable" 2,000: "Most honored Michael Jackson simply where they discovered him, in front of TV screens." She quoted a global estimate of 1.0bn viewers. By contrast 2.5bn had watched Princess Diana's funeral on television.
CBS' Jeff Glor surveyed the mourning around the nation and the globe. He quoted President Barack Obama's tribute from Moscow: "He had a profound impact over not just one generation, but two."
OBAMA LOSES COMMAND OF THE NEWS AGENDA Barack Obama appeared bemused by the Michael Jackson hoopla. "Like Elvis and Sinatra he was someone who captivated the imagination of the country," he told ABC's Jake Tapper, before turning sarcastic. "I assume at some point people will start focusing again on things like nuclear weapons."
Obama's visit to Moscow (10 min on Monday, 10 min on Tuesday) marked the first time in his short Presidency that a major overseas trip failed to dominated the news agenda. His summitry at London's G20 (54 min on April 1st and 2nd) and his speech to the world's Moslems in Cairo (28 min on June 4th) had no such problems. NBC's Savannah Guthrie noted that the President "barely drew a crowd" outside the Kremlin and Russian national television "barely mentioned the visit at all."
Even after Obama offered himself up for interviews to the networks' traveling White House correspondents he barely made a ripple. He described his two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that included a 50-minute monologue from his host on the deterioration of Russian-US relations since the end of the Cold War. "He is strong. He cares deeply about Russia. He has suspicions about the United States," was how Obama described Putin to NBC's Chuck Todd. "This is a very smart, very tough, very unsentimental person," he offered to CBS' Chip Reid. ABC's Tapper reported that Obama met Mikhail Gorbachev, the onetime General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and had this to say about Putin: "I thought it was important to listen."
SEE SALMON RUN CBS spent so much time on Michael Jackson's memorial that it had none left for a follow-up on Sarah Palin. ABC's Kate Snow and NBC's Andrea Mitchell followed the soon-to-be-former Alaska Governor to Bristol Bay where she joined her husband's fishing. NBC's Mitchell told us it was "the peak of the salmon run." ABC's Snow showed us the fishy specks of blood and guts on Palin's waders and T-shirt. Palin boasted to Mitchell about the "the fish slime and the dirt under the fingernails." Palin dropped her g's as she explained to Snow how to catch the salmon: "We are chasin' the tide. It is ebbin' and flowin' of course." Mitchell called it a "giant photo opportunity." "The photo shoot is over," Palin told Snow. "Only kiddin'."
ABC's Snow extracted one tidbit from Palin about the legal fees she is running up by defending herself against ethics complaints: "The adversaries would love to see us put on a path of personal bankruptcy so we could not afford to run." The word run intrigued the correspondent: "Was that a hint that she is planning a run for President in 2012?" "Do not know what the future holds. I am not gonna shut any door."
