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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 22, 2009
For the third weekday out of the last six, Barack Obama leveraged his bully pulpit to make his push for healthcare legislation the Story of the Day. This time he did it by scheduling a primetime White House press conference, prompting both ABC and NBC to lead with their previews. CBS, too, led with a health-related story but it chose the 'flu instead. The National Institutes of Health called clinical trial volunteers for a vaccine against the H1N1 strain of influenza, the so-called Mexican swine 'flu.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JULY 22, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
PREVIEWING THE PRESIDENT’S PRESSER For the third weekday out of the last six, Barack Obama leveraged his bully pulpit to make his push for healthcare legislation the Story of the Day. This time he did it by scheduling a primetime White House press conference, prompting both ABC and NBC to lead with their previews. CBS, too, led with a health-related story but it chose the 'flu instead. The National Institutes of Health called clinical trial volunteers for a vaccine against the H1N1 strain of influenza, the so-called Mexican swine 'flu.
Even though NBC decided to make Chuck Todd's preview from the White House its lead story, Todd spent most of his time explaining why the presser would not be so newsworthy. "The President has been long on cheerleading. He has also been repetitive," he complained. "On three key aspects of reform, the President has been vague about where he stands." Todd still does not know how revenues will be raised, whether the plan will mandate universal coverage or how the government-run scheme will work.
CBS had Wyatt Andrews file a Reality Check. If passed, the legislation will guarantee universal coverage by 2013, he asserted, yet he raised another pitfall not mentioned by NBC's Todd. Will the legislation cut healthcare costs? "The fact is that nothing on the table right now leads to savings the administration can prove." To save money, Andrews argued, doctors shall have to be "paid differently, not for every single test and procedure, but for healthier patients." Yet the draft legislation does not call for wholesale change, only for "a series of pilot programs."
CBS' Reality Check notwithstanding, both ABC's Jake Tapper and CBS' Chip Reid (no link) focused on cost cutting as the fresh focus of Obama's argument for the necessity of the legislation. Both quoted from the President's prepared remarks: "If we do not control these costs we will not be able to control our deficit." Obama's second talking point had been that both House and Senate come up with a bill before they go home for the August recess. This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC stated flatly: "It is not going to happen." He referred us to The Hill magazine's reporting from Sen Dick Durbin: "He counts the votes in the Senate. He has counted the votes."
ABC offered a sidebar feature on healthcare cost cutting in Laura Marquez' A Closer Look. She traveled to the corporate headquarters of the Safeway supermarket chain. The firm's healthcare costs have remained unchanged for the last four years compared with 40% inflation for most other employers. Safeway's formula for its 25,000 workforce is to measure four key indicators--weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and cigarette use. The lower the score, the less the worker pays to be covered.
NATURAL BORN Presidential candidate John McCain was not born in the United States but in the Panama Canal Zone. President Chester Arthur swore he was born in Vermont but his political opponents called him Canadian. NBC's Pete Williams examined the clause in the Constitution that required a President to be a "natural born citizen" before admitting that "the Supreme Court has never said exactly what that means." So is the current President "natural born"? Williams showed us an official document from the State of Hawaii verifying his birth in that state in 1961 and the simultaneous birth announcement published in The Honolulu Advertiser. "Legal scholars, liberal and conservative alike, are in widespread agreement that Barack Obama is fully qualified."
So why was Williams assigned to cover this apparent non-controversy? "A lot of us live with this issue. We get e-mails. We get asked about it," NBC anchor Brian Williams explained. "Members of Congress say they hear this question too," NBC's Pete Williams added. "It has not gone away becoming a staple of blogs and conservative talkradio."
MAJORITY IS TOO SMALL FOR NRA Tuesday, CBS' Bob Orr previewed the proposed amendment to the Pentagon Budget that would make it easier to carry concealed weapons across state lines. Now NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and ABC's Jonathan Karl file brief updates on the result. The majority of the Senate--a 58-39 vote--supported the loosening of gun controls, but those 58 were two too few for passage. "This is the first major defeat for the National Rifle Association on a Congressional vote in ten years," ABC's Karl calculated. NBC's O'Donnell told us that the District of Columbia, Wisconsin and Illinois still ban packing concealed heat.
TRIAL SHOTS The National Institutes for Health hope to begin clinic trials for their new influenza vaccine on 2,500 adult volunteers in eight cities at the start of August, ABC's Lisa Stark told us. If the shots are safe and effective, they plan to have 100m doses manufactured by mid-October: "Vaccine development has proven difficult. This virus grows slowly," Stark explained, referring to the H1N1 strain. CBS' in-house physician Jennifer Ashton warned that 43m people were vaccinated back in 1976 against a similar 'flu strain. That program "backfired--the outbreak never materialized. Approximately 500 people suffered severe side effects; 25 died."
HOLD THE LINE IN EL PASO NBC sent Mark Potter to El Paso, where the volume of visaless border crossings into the United States from Mexico has fallen since 1993 from 1,000 each day to fewer than 50. Potter gave credit for the reduction to Operation Hold the Line, the massive investment by the Border Patrol--"more agents, more cameras and the huge border fence." Immigration officials also pointed out that the "economic downturn--fewer jobs for immigrants--has also slowed illegal border traffic."
MISLEADING & MISSED THE LEAD Operation Innocence Lost was the topic of the anchor's Katie Couric Reports feature on CBS. Sensationalist and sordid it was. It was also misleading and missed the lead.
The lost innocence referred to teenagers turning to prostitution. Couric tried to dramatize her findings, warning viewers that "you may not want your young children to watch" and promising to tell us about "a dark side of this country most of us never see or even know exists." Her statistics were certainly lurid, estimating that there are 300,000 child prostitutes nationwide, "teenage girls mostly."
Couric's slippery use of the word "children" added excess sensationalism to a story that detracted from its credibility. She introduced us to three former sex workers, Jessica, Kayla and Rosita, none of whom one would normally call "children." Rosita turned tricks from the age of 15 through 18, charging $150 per customer, claiming to have serviced eight a day, on average. Kayla had been working for two years when the FBI's Innocence Lost sting operation arrested her at age 17; she was charging men $480 for two hours of sex. Jessica was no child at all, a Michigan student who turned to prostitution for a ten-day period to earn $2,500 to pay her college tuition.
As for the FBI's Innocence Lost, Couric claimed that it has conducted "thousands of sting operations in over 30 cities" yet its grand total of girl prostitutes located in that time is just 700. In Couric's enthusiasm to shock our sensibilities about the depravities of adolescent street sex, she seems to have missed the story. The FBI is apparently throwing extravagant resources at the problem with a puny payoff.
TUMULTUOUS ABC, which missed the Henry Louis Gates story when it broke Tuesday, played catch-up as Dan Harris followed up on NBC's Mike Taibbi and CBS' Jim Axelrod. Professor Gates had been arrested at his own Harvard home by Cambridge police for disorderly conduct and subsequently released without charges. Harris gave us this summary of the police version of the dispute: "Gates initially refused to show his ID and then exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior and made accusations of racial bias in full view of the public." Then he offered Gates' version: "He did not behave inappropriately and if he were not black he would have been treated differently." Mused Harris: "There is no sign that we are now living in a post-racial America."
JACKO’S BACKO The death of the pop star Michael Jackson has been out of the news for a couple of weeks. CBS' Ben Tracy and ABC's Lisa Fletcher filed an update as Los Angeles detectives executed a search warrant at the Houston clinic of Jackson's physician Conrad Murray. CBS' Tracy reported that a preliminary autopsy had found that Jackson was killed by an overdose of the anesthetic Diprivan. The doctor is under suspicion of administering the drug. ABC's Fletcher speculated that Murray may be charged with involuntary manslaughter, meaning he "did not cause the death intentionally but knew what he was doing was incredibly risky."
SHADOWS OVER ASIA Both CBS and NBC closed from Shanghai with a travelogue of images tracking the shadow thrown over Asia by a total eclipse of the sun. NBC's Adrienne Mong showed us moonwatchers in India and Bhutan and Thailand and China and Japan--catch the seal with shades at Tokyo Zoo. CBS' Terry McCarthy threw in Vietnam: "It was the eclipse we almost did not see," he reported, because it is monsoon season. "We got lucky as the clouds parted just in time."
Even though NBC decided to make Chuck Todd's preview from the White House its lead story, Todd spent most of his time explaining why the presser would not be so newsworthy. "The President has been long on cheerleading. He has also been repetitive," he complained. "On three key aspects of reform, the President has been vague about where he stands." Todd still does not know how revenues will be raised, whether the plan will mandate universal coverage or how the government-run scheme will work.
CBS had Wyatt Andrews file a Reality Check. If passed, the legislation will guarantee universal coverage by 2013, he asserted, yet he raised another pitfall not mentioned by NBC's Todd. Will the legislation cut healthcare costs? "The fact is that nothing on the table right now leads to savings the administration can prove." To save money, Andrews argued, doctors shall have to be "paid differently, not for every single test and procedure, but for healthier patients." Yet the draft legislation does not call for wholesale change, only for "a series of pilot programs."
CBS' Reality Check notwithstanding, both ABC's Jake Tapper and CBS' Chip Reid (no link) focused on cost cutting as the fresh focus of Obama's argument for the necessity of the legislation. Both quoted from the President's prepared remarks: "If we do not control these costs we will not be able to control our deficit." Obama's second talking point had been that both House and Senate come up with a bill before they go home for the August recess. This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC stated flatly: "It is not going to happen." He referred us to The Hill magazine's reporting from Sen Dick Durbin: "He counts the votes in the Senate. He has counted the votes."
ABC offered a sidebar feature on healthcare cost cutting in Laura Marquez' A Closer Look. She traveled to the corporate headquarters of the Safeway supermarket chain. The firm's healthcare costs have remained unchanged for the last four years compared with 40% inflation for most other employers. Safeway's formula for its 25,000 workforce is to measure four key indicators--weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and cigarette use. The lower the score, the less the worker pays to be covered.
NATURAL BORN Presidential candidate John McCain was not born in the United States but in the Panama Canal Zone. President Chester Arthur swore he was born in Vermont but his political opponents called him Canadian. NBC's Pete Williams examined the clause in the Constitution that required a President to be a "natural born citizen" before admitting that "the Supreme Court has never said exactly what that means." So is the current President "natural born"? Williams showed us an official document from the State of Hawaii verifying his birth in that state in 1961 and the simultaneous birth announcement published in The Honolulu Advertiser. "Legal scholars, liberal and conservative alike, are in widespread agreement that Barack Obama is fully qualified."
So why was Williams assigned to cover this apparent non-controversy? "A lot of us live with this issue. We get e-mails. We get asked about it," NBC anchor Brian Williams explained. "Members of Congress say they hear this question too," NBC's Pete Williams added. "It has not gone away becoming a staple of blogs and conservative talkradio."
MAJORITY IS TOO SMALL FOR NRA Tuesday, CBS' Bob Orr previewed the proposed amendment to the Pentagon Budget that would make it easier to carry concealed weapons across state lines. Now NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and ABC's Jonathan Karl file brief updates on the result. The majority of the Senate--a 58-39 vote--supported the loosening of gun controls, but those 58 were two too few for passage. "This is the first major defeat for the National Rifle Association on a Congressional vote in ten years," ABC's Karl calculated. NBC's O'Donnell told us that the District of Columbia, Wisconsin and Illinois still ban packing concealed heat.
TRIAL SHOTS The National Institutes for Health hope to begin clinic trials for their new influenza vaccine on 2,500 adult volunteers in eight cities at the start of August, ABC's Lisa Stark told us. If the shots are safe and effective, they plan to have 100m doses manufactured by mid-October: "Vaccine development has proven difficult. This virus grows slowly," Stark explained, referring to the H1N1 strain. CBS' in-house physician Jennifer Ashton warned that 43m people were vaccinated back in 1976 against a similar 'flu strain. That program "backfired--the outbreak never materialized. Approximately 500 people suffered severe side effects; 25 died."
HOLD THE LINE IN EL PASO NBC sent Mark Potter to El Paso, where the volume of visaless border crossings into the United States from Mexico has fallen since 1993 from 1,000 each day to fewer than 50. Potter gave credit for the reduction to Operation Hold the Line, the massive investment by the Border Patrol--"more agents, more cameras and the huge border fence." Immigration officials also pointed out that the "economic downturn--fewer jobs for immigrants--has also slowed illegal border traffic."
MISLEADING & MISSED THE LEAD Operation Innocence Lost was the topic of the anchor's Katie Couric Reports feature on CBS. Sensationalist and sordid it was. It was also misleading and missed the lead.
The lost innocence referred to teenagers turning to prostitution. Couric tried to dramatize her findings, warning viewers that "you may not want your young children to watch" and promising to tell us about "a dark side of this country most of us never see or even know exists." Her statistics were certainly lurid, estimating that there are 300,000 child prostitutes nationwide, "teenage girls mostly."
Couric's slippery use of the word "children" added excess sensationalism to a story that detracted from its credibility. She introduced us to three former sex workers, Jessica, Kayla and Rosita, none of whom one would normally call "children." Rosita turned tricks from the age of 15 through 18, charging $150 per customer, claiming to have serviced eight a day, on average. Kayla had been working for two years when the FBI's Innocence Lost sting operation arrested her at age 17; she was charging men $480 for two hours of sex. Jessica was no child at all, a Michigan student who turned to prostitution for a ten-day period to earn $2,500 to pay her college tuition.
As for the FBI's Innocence Lost, Couric claimed that it has conducted "thousands of sting operations in over 30 cities" yet its grand total of girl prostitutes located in that time is just 700. In Couric's enthusiasm to shock our sensibilities about the depravities of adolescent street sex, she seems to have missed the story. The FBI is apparently throwing extravagant resources at the problem with a puny payoff.
TUMULTUOUS ABC, which missed the Henry Louis Gates story when it broke Tuesday, played catch-up as Dan Harris followed up on NBC's Mike Taibbi and CBS' Jim Axelrod. Professor Gates had been arrested at his own Harvard home by Cambridge police for disorderly conduct and subsequently released without charges. Harris gave us this summary of the police version of the dispute: "Gates initially refused to show his ID and then exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior and made accusations of racial bias in full view of the public." Then he offered Gates' version: "He did not behave inappropriately and if he were not black he would have been treated differently." Mused Harris: "There is no sign that we are now living in a post-racial America."
JACKO’S BACKO The death of the pop star Michael Jackson has been out of the news for a couple of weeks. CBS' Ben Tracy and ABC's Lisa Fletcher filed an update as Los Angeles detectives executed a search warrant at the Houston clinic of Jackson's physician Conrad Murray. CBS' Tracy reported that a preliminary autopsy had found that Jackson was killed by an overdose of the anesthetic Diprivan. The doctor is under suspicion of administering the drug. ABC's Fletcher speculated that Murray may be charged with involuntary manslaughter, meaning he "did not cause the death intentionally but knew what he was doing was incredibly risky."
SHADOWS OVER ASIA Both CBS and NBC closed from Shanghai with a travelogue of images tracking the shadow thrown over Asia by a total eclipse of the sun. NBC's Adrienne Mong showed us moonwatchers in India and Bhutan and Thailand and China and Japan--catch the seal with shades at Tokyo Zoo. CBS' Terry McCarthy threw in Vietnam: "It was the eclipse we almost did not see," he reported, because it is monsoon season. "We got lucky as the clouds parted just in time."
