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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 10, 2009
All three newscasts led off from the Motor City where the Story of the Day was General Motors' relaunch as a part-nationalized firm. After reorganization in bankruptcy, GM now makes only four brands of cars--Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC; it is 60% owned by the federal government; and the firm has fewer workers and fewer debts than the money losing corporation of just 40 days ago. Apart from that it was a light summer Friday of news, allowing NBC anchor Brian Williams to take a long weekend, with Lester Holt substituting.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JULY 10, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
DATELINE DETROIT All three newscasts led off from the Motor City where the Story of the Day was General Motors' relaunch as a part-nationalized firm. After reorganization in bankruptcy, GM now makes only four brands of cars--Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC; it is 60% owned by the federal government; and the firm has fewer workers and fewer debts than the money losing corporation of just 40 days ago. Apart from that it was a light summer Friday of news, allowing NBC anchor Brian Williams to take a long weekend, with Lester Holt substituting.
"Leaner, more nimble, new," were the slogans for the revamped GM that ABC's Chris Bury quoted. "Leaner and promising to be greener," was how CNBC's Phil LeBeau put it on NBC. CBS' Dean Reynolds went through the downsizing statistics: hourly labor costs cut from $70 to $45; debt from $180bn to $50bn; Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands shed; 18K workers laid off--14K blue collar, 4K white collar; 2,300 dealerships let go. CNBC's LeBeau used a different set of numbers, with the debt load reduced by $40bn and the job losses totaling 27K. ABC's Bury commented that GM "emerged from bankruptcy with blinding speed, steamrolling over objections from accident victims and disgruntled dealers."
So will General Motors be modern? ABC's Bury touted a deal to retail cars directly on eBay. CNBC's LeBeau cited Facebook and Twitter as new marketing media to combat GM's image for making "lackluster and poorly built" vehicles. ABC's Bill Weir visited GM's revived Studio X design room "where the da Vincis of Detroit came up with classics like the Corvette" and showcased a new Camaro, a new Malibu and the coming Volt. How long will it take for GM to remake its reputation? "It took Hyundai about 15 years to go from laughing stock to respected brand."
As for the new GM being green, both CBS' Reynolds and CNBC's LeBeau pointed skeptically to the return of marketing executive Bob Lutz. LeBeau reminded us that Lutz called "the role of cars in global warming a crock" and Reynolds called him "infamous" for questioning global warming and the demand for hybrids.
BARACK O IS NO JACKO President Barack Obama proceeded on his undercovered overseas trip. Altogether this week it was accorded only 40 minutes on the three newscasts combined: seven reports on his diplomacy in Moscow, five on the G8 summit, one on his Vatican trip, one on his daughters' excellent summer adventure and one on his looming visit to Africa. By contrast, the same week saw Michael Jackson attract 62 minutes of coverage even though his death occurred some ten days earlier.
Friday saw just three reports on Obama's diplomacy. NBC's Chuck Todd looked back at the G8 Summit in Italy, reflecting that the 24 nations attending meant that "this group has outgrown itself," producing pledge of action instead of concrete accomplishments. CBS' Chip Reid reported on the President's talks with Pope Benedict XVI, with abortion, stem cell research, Middle East peace and development aid to Africa topping their agenda. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo jumped ahead to Accra to preview his arrival in Ghana, where the locals plan to greet Obama as a native son, no matter that his family "is from an entirely different country."
ALARMING DRONES From the Pentagon, CBS' David Martin picked up on a Website item purportedly posted by an al-Qaeda commander. It was a commentary on the 50 different airstrikes inside Pakistan over the past year by the CIA's unmanned Predator drone. The CIA says its drones have killed "half of al-Qaeda's top leaders and hundreds of its fighters," Martin reported, and this online communique appears to authenticate that. "The harm is alarming. The matter is very grave," Martin quoted. "So many brave commanders have been snatched away. So many hidden homes have been leveled." It claimed the CIA's success followed from an infiltration by spies "who have spread through the land like locusts."
That note about leveled homes raises the question of drones killing civilians. Martin asked an unidentified "senior official" and was offered the following unsupported assertion: "More innocent people have been executed by al-Qaeda as suspected spies than killed by CIA drones." Specific facts and figures would have given that anonymous source's nebulous claim more weight
CBS DISREGARDS UIGHURS AND HAN NBC and ABC have decided all week long that the ethnic unrest in China's Xinjiang Province is worthy of coverage. Ian Williams and Clarissa Ward respectively were dispatched to Urumqi to follow the military crackdown following riots involving migrant Han Chinese and the local Uighur population. CBS has not assigned a reporter to the story all week long. The Chinese government banned mosques from observing Friday prayers on the Moslem weekly holy day. ABC's Ward reported that some opened anyway: "There were no fiery sermons. The prayers were quick and quiet." She followed the Uighur faithful onto the street and shot clandestine videotape of demonstrations, police violence and arrests. "From a rooftop we sneak images" but police spotted her cameras and forced her to stop. NBC's Williams noted that "anger and frustration poured out of a mosque" after the brief prayers. "The Uighurs' grievances run deep. They now make up less than half the population of their home region because of the massive migration of Han."
DISPENSING WITH QUALIFIERS Sonia Sotomayor "is on a glide path to confirmation," declared Wyatt Andrews, speculating that at least ten Senate Republicans might support the Supreme Court nominee. He added the qualifier "absent any bombshell revelations." Only CBS assigned a reporter to preview the Senate Judiciary Committee's week of hearings. Andrews anticipated a scripted event with Democrats pushing "the personal story of the girl from the projects" and Republicans responding with "tough but respectful questioning" about her apparent animus against white men.
Andrews cited two examples of such animus. She ruled against some white firefighters from New Haven who sued their city alleging racial bias; and she made a notorious statement in 2001 that Andrews paraphrased thus: "A wise Latina woman would reach a better conclusion than a white male who has not lived that life." Andrews should have, but did not, add Sotomayor's three qualifiers: her comparison was a hope not a prediction; the difference was a tendency not a superiority; and that hypothetical wise woman's life experiences contained a richness that the man's lacked.
MONOPOLY MONEY The printing presses of the Californian Republic attracted the attention of ABC's Laura Marquez in San Francisco and NBC's George Lewis in Los Angeles. They were churning out IOUs, Sacramento's promises to pay debts in October. NBC's Lewis estimated that the state will be littered with $3bn in such paper by the end of the month, out of a total deficit of $26bn. He described "an explosion of online offers from entrepreneurs willing to buy the IOUs at a discount." The federal Securities & Exchange Commission is responding by limiting the IOU trade to licensed brokers and ABC's Marquez warned that most major banks will now refuse to cash the paper.
HISTORIC CASKET RUINED ABC caught up on the scandal at Burr Oaks Cemetery in suburban Chicago that CBS' Cynthia Bowers and NBC's Kevin Tibbles covered Thursday. Barbara Pinto called the allegations that gravediggers had exhumed cadavers so they could resell plots in the historic black graveyard "an unspeakable scam." CBS' Bowers followed up with the arrival of "hundreds of grief-stricken families" at the cemetery in search of the remains of their loved ones. On NBC, Tibbles' follow-up focused on Emmett Till, the Chicago teenager whose Mississippi murder in 1955 was a galvanizing scandal of the nascent civil rights movement. Till's remains at Burr Oaks had not been disturbed but his casket had been left "rotted and ruined" after his body was exhumed for a second autopsy in 2005. "For many this derelict coffin should be a museum piece," Tibbles explained. Till's mother had insisted that the casket remain open before burial "so the world could see" the mutilated state of her boy's body.
"Leaner, more nimble, new," were the slogans for the revamped GM that ABC's Chris Bury quoted. "Leaner and promising to be greener," was how CNBC's Phil LeBeau put it on NBC. CBS' Dean Reynolds went through the downsizing statistics: hourly labor costs cut from $70 to $45; debt from $180bn to $50bn; Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands shed; 18K workers laid off--14K blue collar, 4K white collar; 2,300 dealerships let go. CNBC's LeBeau used a different set of numbers, with the debt load reduced by $40bn and the job losses totaling 27K. ABC's Bury commented that GM "emerged from bankruptcy with blinding speed, steamrolling over objections from accident victims and disgruntled dealers."
So will General Motors be modern? ABC's Bury touted a deal to retail cars directly on eBay. CNBC's LeBeau cited Facebook and Twitter as new marketing media to combat GM's image for making "lackluster and poorly built" vehicles. ABC's Bill Weir visited GM's revived Studio X design room "where the da Vincis of Detroit came up with classics like the Corvette" and showcased a new Camaro, a new Malibu and the coming Volt. How long will it take for GM to remake its reputation? "It took Hyundai about 15 years to go from laughing stock to respected brand."
As for the new GM being green, both CBS' Reynolds and CNBC's LeBeau pointed skeptically to the return of marketing executive Bob Lutz. LeBeau reminded us that Lutz called "the role of cars in global warming a crock" and Reynolds called him "infamous" for questioning global warming and the demand for hybrids.
BARACK O IS NO JACKO President Barack Obama proceeded on his undercovered overseas trip. Altogether this week it was accorded only 40 minutes on the three newscasts combined: seven reports on his diplomacy in Moscow, five on the G8 summit, one on his Vatican trip, one on his daughters' excellent summer adventure and one on his looming visit to Africa. By contrast, the same week saw Michael Jackson attract 62 minutes of coverage even though his death occurred some ten days earlier.
Friday saw just three reports on Obama's diplomacy. NBC's Chuck Todd looked back at the G8 Summit in Italy, reflecting that the 24 nations attending meant that "this group has outgrown itself," producing pledge of action instead of concrete accomplishments. CBS' Chip Reid reported on the President's talks with Pope Benedict XVI, with abortion, stem cell research, Middle East peace and development aid to Africa topping their agenda. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo jumped ahead to Accra to preview his arrival in Ghana, where the locals plan to greet Obama as a native son, no matter that his family "is from an entirely different country."
ALARMING DRONES From the Pentagon, CBS' David Martin picked up on a Website item purportedly posted by an al-Qaeda commander. It was a commentary on the 50 different airstrikes inside Pakistan over the past year by the CIA's unmanned Predator drone. The CIA says its drones have killed "half of al-Qaeda's top leaders and hundreds of its fighters," Martin reported, and this online communique appears to authenticate that. "The harm is alarming. The matter is very grave," Martin quoted. "So many brave commanders have been snatched away. So many hidden homes have been leveled." It claimed the CIA's success followed from an infiltration by spies "who have spread through the land like locusts."
That note about leveled homes raises the question of drones killing civilians. Martin asked an unidentified "senior official" and was offered the following unsupported assertion: "More innocent people have been executed by al-Qaeda as suspected spies than killed by CIA drones." Specific facts and figures would have given that anonymous source's nebulous claim more weight
CBS DISREGARDS UIGHURS AND HAN NBC and ABC have decided all week long that the ethnic unrest in China's Xinjiang Province is worthy of coverage. Ian Williams and Clarissa Ward respectively were dispatched to Urumqi to follow the military crackdown following riots involving migrant Han Chinese and the local Uighur population. CBS has not assigned a reporter to the story all week long. The Chinese government banned mosques from observing Friday prayers on the Moslem weekly holy day. ABC's Ward reported that some opened anyway: "There were no fiery sermons. The prayers were quick and quiet." She followed the Uighur faithful onto the street and shot clandestine videotape of demonstrations, police violence and arrests. "From a rooftop we sneak images" but police spotted her cameras and forced her to stop. NBC's Williams noted that "anger and frustration poured out of a mosque" after the brief prayers. "The Uighurs' grievances run deep. They now make up less than half the population of their home region because of the massive migration of Han."
DISPENSING WITH QUALIFIERS Sonia Sotomayor "is on a glide path to confirmation," declared Wyatt Andrews, speculating that at least ten Senate Republicans might support the Supreme Court nominee. He added the qualifier "absent any bombshell revelations." Only CBS assigned a reporter to preview the Senate Judiciary Committee's week of hearings. Andrews anticipated a scripted event with Democrats pushing "the personal story of the girl from the projects" and Republicans responding with "tough but respectful questioning" about her apparent animus against white men.
Andrews cited two examples of such animus. She ruled against some white firefighters from New Haven who sued their city alleging racial bias; and she made a notorious statement in 2001 that Andrews paraphrased thus: "A wise Latina woman would reach a better conclusion than a white male who has not lived that life." Andrews should have, but did not, add Sotomayor's three qualifiers: her comparison was a hope not a prediction; the difference was a tendency not a superiority; and that hypothetical wise woman's life experiences contained a richness that the man's lacked.
MONOPOLY MONEY The printing presses of the Californian Republic attracted the attention of ABC's Laura Marquez in San Francisco and NBC's George Lewis in Los Angeles. They were churning out IOUs, Sacramento's promises to pay debts in October. NBC's Lewis estimated that the state will be littered with $3bn in such paper by the end of the month, out of a total deficit of $26bn. He described "an explosion of online offers from entrepreneurs willing to buy the IOUs at a discount." The federal Securities & Exchange Commission is responding by limiting the IOU trade to licensed brokers and ABC's Marquez warned that most major banks will now refuse to cash the paper.
HISTORIC CASKET RUINED ABC caught up on the scandal at Burr Oaks Cemetery in suburban Chicago that CBS' Cynthia Bowers and NBC's Kevin Tibbles covered Thursday. Barbara Pinto called the allegations that gravediggers had exhumed cadavers so they could resell plots in the historic black graveyard "an unspeakable scam." CBS' Bowers followed up with the arrival of "hundreds of grief-stricken families" at the cemetery in search of the remains of their loved ones. On NBC, Tibbles' follow-up focused on Emmett Till, the Chicago teenager whose Mississippi murder in 1955 was a galvanizing scandal of the nascent civil rights movement. Till's remains at Burr Oaks had not been disturbed but his casket had been left "rotted and ruined" after his body was exhumed for a second autopsy in 2005. "For many this derelict coffin should be a museum piece," Tibbles explained. Till's mother had insisted that the casket remain open before burial "so the world could see" the mutilated state of her boy's body.
