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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 24, 2009
The arrest of Henry Louis Gates was propelled to the top of the news agenda Wednesday night when his friend Barack Obama stated that police had "acted stupidly" in handcuffing the Harvard University professor. Gates had been accused of disorderly conduct at his own home; no subsequent charges were filed. The controversy was Story of the Day Thursday. The White House decided that it needed to be defused. So the President appeared in person at a briefing Friday afternoon. "I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning" the police in Cambridge, he confessed. "To the extent that my choice of words did not illuminate but rather contributed to more media frenzy I think that was unfortunate." Thus in trying to deflate attention he inflated coverage (21 min v 15 min on Thursday). All three newscast led with the Story of the Day yet again. NBC anchor Brian Williams enjoyed a long weekend so Amy Robach substituted.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JULY 24, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
OBAMA TRIES TO DEFLATE GATES STORY WITH PUBLICITY The arrest of Henry Louis Gates was propelled to the top of the news agenda Wednesday night when his friend Barack Obama stated that police had "acted stupidly" in handcuffing the Harvard University professor. Gates had been accused of disorderly conduct at his own home; no subsequent charges were filed. The controversy was Story of the Day Thursday. The White House decided that it needed to be defused. So the President appeared in person at a briefing Friday afternoon. "I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning" the police in Cambridge, he confessed. "To the extent that my choice of words did not illuminate but rather contributed to more media frenzy I think that was unfortunate." Thus in trying to deflate attention he inflated coverage (21 min v 15 min on Thursday). All three newscast led with the Story of the Day yet again. NBC anchor Brian Williams enjoyed a long weekend so Amy Robach substituted.
CBS kicked off with the statement itself: almost four minutes of unedited Obama soundbite, what anchor Katie Couric called "an extraordinary appearance." Her colleague Bob Schieffer of CBS' Face the Nation observed that the President had admitted "his words basically made it worse. Now you just do not hear Presidents say things like that very often and he did not release a written statement. He came to the press room and he said it in person." The other Sunday morning anchors pitched in too. David Gregory of NBC's Meet the Press noted that Obama was "agitated yesterday that it got the kind of media attention it got." George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week reported that the White House "realized that this debate had cascaded out of their control and that only the President could get that control back."
NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd reminded us that "the whole issue of racial profiling is very personal to the President." He quoted from his book The Audacity of Hope in which he recounted "police cars pulling me over for no apparent reason." ABC's Pierre Thomas told us about the mantra in African-American households when dealing with police: "Survive the encounter. Get justice later." Mothers tell children not to be sarcastic; to remain respectful. "Not even an African-American President can change the dynamics, the fear, even the anger that too often define encounters between black men and police," CBS' Bill Whitaker generalized.
As for the specific situation that sparked the headlines, both NBC's Ron Allen and ABC's Dan Harris filed from Cambridge. President Obama said he spoke on the telephone to the arresting police officer, Sgt James Crowley: "There was a discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House." Obama repeated his impression that Crowley was "an outstanding police officer" and fellow cops in Cambridge held a news conference in support and solidarity. Crowley granted an interview to WHDH-TV, NBC's affiliate in Boston, and Allen noted that the sergeant "insists Professor Gates provoked the confrontation." ABC's Harris talked to Gates' lawyer. He said his client is "relieved and excited by the President's telephone outreach." However, "Professor Gates does not drink beer."
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ Only ABC had a correspondent cover the President's $4.35bn public school funding plan. Yunji de Nies characterized Barack Obama's Race to the Top contest as "a choice--reform schools or miss out on billions." To enter the contest to apply for discretionary funding from Secretary Arne Duncan, school districts will have to agree to end tenure for teachers, to adopt national testing standards and to offer teachers bonuses. In four states, ABC's de Nies noted, incentive pay for students' performances is prohibited. So Secretary Duncan's competition excludes Nevada, Wisconsin, New York State and California.
The schools in California are in terrible shape as it is. Thursday ABC's Mike von Fremd, showing the online video in which Arnold Schwarzenegger "waves a knife across the Governor's desk celebrating the cuts," told us that public education would be hardest hit as that state tries to close a $26bn annual deficit. Now NBC's George Lewis covers the legislative all-nighter in Sacramento in which some of the package was defeated. Cuts for counties and municipalities have been lessened by $1bn and renewed oil drilling off Santa Barbara was defeated. Schwarzenegger "will have to come up with some more gimmicks to fill those holes."
NBC's Andrea Mitchell updated us on Sarah Palin's political prospects as she leaves office as Governor of Alaska. "Many say she hurt herself by quitting," mused Mitchell, quoting Schwarzenegger's sarcastic comment to CNBC's John Harwood: "Would you ever see me resigning in the middle of my term? Even if it is the hundredth term, I would never give up." Given Palin's negative opinion poll ratings on favorability and grasp of complex issues, for "a future run for President she has got some serious work to do."
COMPLICATED ON CBS; SIMPLE ON ABC The Cash for Clunker subsidy, which offers federal discounts to buyers of new automobiles when they replace a used gas guzzler, goes into effect. NBC had Kelly O'Donnell explain the qualifications two weeks ago. Now ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi and CBS' Jeff Glor go through the program's requirements. CBS' Glor was exasperated as he ticked off the "stringent" and "complicated" rules about the age and inefficiency of the car being traded in. "How did a program so seemingly well-intentioned get so far off track?" he wondered. ABC's Alfonsi could not have disagreed more. "The idea is simple," she announced. Its only drawback is that it will subsidize a mere 500,000 new cars.
CHEVRON STRIKES PR GUSHER ABC anchor Charles Gibson took us on a helicopter trip 160 miles offshore over the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico to publicize his primetime documentary Over the Barrel. This particular segment concerned efforts to increase domestic production of oil. Just as his colleague David Muir had done last summer, Gibson offered free publicity to Chevron's deep sea drilling. The platform Gibson visited floats over a seabed wellhead 7,000 feet down and pumps oil from deposits another 25,000 feet below that. Yet Gibson concluded by quoting the caution from veteran oilman T Boone Pickens: "No amount of drilling will be enough to make us independent of foreign oil."
CRONKITE & KURALT It was nostalgia week at CBS News. A week that started with obituaries for the Tiffany Network's legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite ended with a tribute to its legendary human interest reporter Charles Kuralt. Steve Hartman's Assignment America filed a follow up to Kuralt's 1978 profile of a Mississippi Delta sharecropper who had sent all nine of his children to college. Hartman returned to a Chandler family reunion to find that those nine children gave their parents 37 grandchildren, 37 of whom in their turn are college graduates. Hartman quoted Kuralt: "I know that in the future whenever I hear that the family is a dying institution, I will think of them. Whenever I hear anything in America is impossible, I will think of them."
SMALL WORLD There was no overseas news to end the week, just a couple of global features. NBC's Making a Difference closer from Lee Cowan showed us a party of eight blind climbers from Phoenix that had successfully scaled Kenya's Mount Kilimanjaro. ABC's Persons of the Week were the musicians on the CD Songs Around the World who have an online music video hit with their jam of Ben E King's Stand By Me. The track started with a solo performance recorded by Mark Johnson in Santa Monica and then went global, first to a washboard accompaniment in New Orleans, anchor Charles Gibson told us, then "in the Netherlands more vocals..Zuma NM drums…from Russia a cello…in Italy an alto sax…Spain congas…and in South Africa a swaying choir."
CBS kicked off with the statement itself: almost four minutes of unedited Obama soundbite, what anchor Katie Couric called "an extraordinary appearance." Her colleague Bob Schieffer of CBS' Face the Nation observed that the President had admitted "his words basically made it worse. Now you just do not hear Presidents say things like that very often and he did not release a written statement. He came to the press room and he said it in person." The other Sunday morning anchors pitched in too. David Gregory of NBC's Meet the Press noted that Obama was "agitated yesterday that it got the kind of media attention it got." George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week reported that the White House "realized that this debate had cascaded out of their control and that only the President could get that control back."
NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd reminded us that "the whole issue of racial profiling is very personal to the President." He quoted from his book The Audacity of Hope in which he recounted "police cars pulling me over for no apparent reason." ABC's Pierre Thomas told us about the mantra in African-American households when dealing with police: "Survive the encounter. Get justice later." Mothers tell children not to be sarcastic; to remain respectful. "Not even an African-American President can change the dynamics, the fear, even the anger that too often define encounters between black men and police," CBS' Bill Whitaker generalized.
As for the specific situation that sparked the headlines, both NBC's Ron Allen and ABC's Dan Harris filed from Cambridge. President Obama said he spoke on the telephone to the arresting police officer, Sgt James Crowley: "There was a discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House." Obama repeated his impression that Crowley was "an outstanding police officer" and fellow cops in Cambridge held a news conference in support and solidarity. Crowley granted an interview to WHDH-TV, NBC's affiliate in Boston, and Allen noted that the sergeant "insists Professor Gates provoked the confrontation." ABC's Harris talked to Gates' lawyer. He said his client is "relieved and excited by the President's telephone outreach." However, "Professor Gates does not drink beer."
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ Only ABC had a correspondent cover the President's $4.35bn public school funding plan. Yunji de Nies characterized Barack Obama's Race to the Top contest as "a choice--reform schools or miss out on billions." To enter the contest to apply for discretionary funding from Secretary Arne Duncan, school districts will have to agree to end tenure for teachers, to adopt national testing standards and to offer teachers bonuses. In four states, ABC's de Nies noted, incentive pay for students' performances is prohibited. So Secretary Duncan's competition excludes Nevada, Wisconsin, New York State and California.
The schools in California are in terrible shape as it is. Thursday ABC's Mike von Fremd, showing the online video in which Arnold Schwarzenegger "waves a knife across the Governor's desk celebrating the cuts," told us that public education would be hardest hit as that state tries to close a $26bn annual deficit. Now NBC's George Lewis covers the legislative all-nighter in Sacramento in which some of the package was defeated. Cuts for counties and municipalities have been lessened by $1bn and renewed oil drilling off Santa Barbara was defeated. Schwarzenegger "will have to come up with some more gimmicks to fill those holes."
NBC's Andrea Mitchell updated us on Sarah Palin's political prospects as she leaves office as Governor of Alaska. "Many say she hurt herself by quitting," mused Mitchell, quoting Schwarzenegger's sarcastic comment to CNBC's John Harwood: "Would you ever see me resigning in the middle of my term? Even if it is the hundredth term, I would never give up." Given Palin's negative opinion poll ratings on favorability and grasp of complex issues, for "a future run for President she has got some serious work to do."
COMPLICATED ON CBS; SIMPLE ON ABC The Cash for Clunker subsidy, which offers federal discounts to buyers of new automobiles when they replace a used gas guzzler, goes into effect. NBC had Kelly O'Donnell explain the qualifications two weeks ago. Now ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi and CBS' Jeff Glor go through the program's requirements. CBS' Glor was exasperated as he ticked off the "stringent" and "complicated" rules about the age and inefficiency of the car being traded in. "How did a program so seemingly well-intentioned get so far off track?" he wondered. ABC's Alfonsi could not have disagreed more. "The idea is simple," she announced. Its only drawback is that it will subsidize a mere 500,000 new cars.
CHEVRON STRIKES PR GUSHER ABC anchor Charles Gibson took us on a helicopter trip 160 miles offshore over the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico to publicize his primetime documentary Over the Barrel. This particular segment concerned efforts to increase domestic production of oil. Just as his colleague David Muir had done last summer, Gibson offered free publicity to Chevron's deep sea drilling. The platform Gibson visited floats over a seabed wellhead 7,000 feet down and pumps oil from deposits another 25,000 feet below that. Yet Gibson concluded by quoting the caution from veteran oilman T Boone Pickens: "No amount of drilling will be enough to make us independent of foreign oil."
CRONKITE & KURALT It was nostalgia week at CBS News. A week that started with obituaries for the Tiffany Network's legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite ended with a tribute to its legendary human interest reporter Charles Kuralt. Steve Hartman's Assignment America filed a follow up to Kuralt's 1978 profile of a Mississippi Delta sharecropper who had sent all nine of his children to college. Hartman returned to a Chandler family reunion to find that those nine children gave their parents 37 grandchildren, 37 of whom in their turn are college graduates. Hartman quoted Kuralt: "I know that in the future whenever I hear that the family is a dying institution, I will think of them. Whenever I hear anything in America is impossible, I will think of them."
SMALL WORLD There was no overseas news to end the week, just a couple of global features. NBC's Making a Difference closer from Lee Cowan showed us a party of eight blind climbers from Phoenix that had successfully scaled Kenya's Mount Kilimanjaro. ABC's Persons of the Week were the musicians on the CD Songs Around the World who have an online music video hit with their jam of Ben E King's Stand By Me. The track started with a solo performance recorded by Mark Johnson in Santa Monica and then went global, first to a washboard accompaniment in New Orleans, anchor Charles Gibson told us, then "in the Netherlands more vocals..Zuma NM drums…from Russia a cello…in Italy an alto sax…Spain congas…and in South Africa a swaying choir."
