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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JULY 9, 2009
President Barack Obama's third major overseas diplomatic trip continues to underwhelm as a newsmaker. The G8 Summit in Italy held talks on global warming and the networks yawned. The summit failed to be chosen as the lead item on any of the three newscasts and was supplanted as Story of the Day by preparations for the H1N1 strain of influenza this fall. ABC led with swine 'flu. CBS led with the looming relaunch of General Motors. NBC chose one of a pair race-related outrages--the desecration of an historic black cemetery in suburban Chicago.
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OBAMA’S G8 DIPLOMACY IS A YAWNER President Barack Obama's third major overseas diplomatic trip continues to underwhelm as a newsmaker. The G8 Summit in Italy held talks on global warming and the networks yawned. The summit failed to be chosen as the lead item on any of the three newscasts and was supplanted as Story of the Day by preparations for the H1N1 strain of influenza this fall. ABC led with swine 'flu. CBS led with the looming relaunch of General Motors. NBC chose one of a pair race-related outrages--the desecration of an historic black cemetery in suburban Chicago.
Burr Oaks Cemetery had for years been the only graveyard in Chicagoland where African-Americans could bury their dead, CBS' Cynthia Bowers explained. It is the final resting place of boxer Ezzard Charles and singer Dinah Washington and bluesman Willie Dixon and Civil-Rights-era icon Emmett Till. The cemetery is now making headlines because it turned out not to be a final resting place for as many as 300 of its dead.
CBS' Bowers called it a "sickening scheme." NBC's Kevin Tibbles called it "a macabre act." Prosecutors called it a $300,000 fraud. A trio of gravediggers and a manager are charged with reselling plots for new coffins by graverobbing old ones. "A pile of bones from more than 100 bodies has been discovered above ground in an older and overgrown section," NBC's Tibbles told us. Precisely whose bodies have not been allowed to rest in peace is hard to reconstruct because many bereaved families were too poor to afford a headstone for their departed kin. Tibbles added that a team of FBI forensic experts "with experience examining mass graves in Serbia" has been brought in to assist in identification.
The day's second race-related headline came from the suburbs of Philadelphia. The Valley Swim Club had agreed with Creative Steps, a summer day camp, to lease its pool for weekly swimming sessions. The camp has 60-or-so children, mostly black and Latino, according to ABC's Dan Harris: "You get ready. You jump in the pool. Most of the white people get out of the pool." A couple of days later the Valley returned Creative Steps' money and told the campers not to return. It explained that the camp's children would "change the complexion" of the club. Later, NBC's Ron Allen reported, when Valley was accused of racism, it released a second statement calling such allegations "completely untrue. We underestimated the capacity of our facilities."
GREEN GM CBS' Anthony Mason prepared us for the "once-mighty General Motors Corporation" to become "the smaller General Motors Company." For an investment of $50bn, the United States Treasury will be the majority stockholder, with a 60% interest. "The administration picked the new management team. It is going to pick the new Board of Directors." GM may even change the color of its logo from blue to green "to emphasize its commitment to smaller more fuel-efficient cars." NBC's Kelly O'Donnell gave us a primer on the federal Cash for Clunkers scheme that offers $4,500 subsidies to trade in gas guzzlers for one of those greener vehicles. It turns out they must only be marginally greener--a trade-up from 18 mpg to an inefficient 22 mpg. And buyers can forget about receiving a trade-in from the dealer on top of the government's largesse. All clunkers have to be scrapped.
FALL ‘FLU While the new swine strain of influenza is enjoying its winter season in Chile, Argentina and Australia, NBC's Robert Bazell told us that public health authorities are bracing themselves for "a potentially dangerous widespread outbreak" this fall. State and local governments were urged by the federal Department of Health "to formulate plans now for banning large gatherings, closing schools and businesses, and preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed." An H1N1 virus vaccine is being readied for October. "Supplies will be limited," ABC's Lisa Stark warned. The shots will be for "the most vulnerable first, school-aged children, pregnant women, health workers, people with other illnesses."
REMOTE REPORTING NBC had correspondent Richard Engel in New York City and producer Ali Arouzi in London yet they were still able to piece together coverage on the first major street demonstrations in Teheran in eleven days. "The opposition had gone underground," Engel commented, before emerging in response to online networking to commemorate the tenth anniversary of a student revolt that the government "also brutally put down." These protests ended with tear gas and billy clubs. Engel talked to unidentified "analysts" who predicted that demonstrations henceforth will be "sporadic as the opposition tries this new hit-and-run-style tactic."
ABC, by contrast, had Clarissa Ward exploring the Moslem neighborhoods of Urumqi in search of Tursun Gul. She is the woman who represented "the most striking image" of Xinjiang Province's ethnic unrest between Uighur and Han. Ward showed us the photograph of Gul "hobbling on a crutch toward a wall of stone-faced soldiers and armored vehicles demanding to know what they have done with her family." When Ward located Gul she asked about her courage. "How could I be afraid when I did not commit any crime?" she replied. Her husband and four brothers have still not been heard from. In all, Ward added, police have made 1,400 arrests.
TODD MANGLES HIS METAPHOR As for the G8 Summit reporting. CBS' White House correspondent Chip Reid stuck to the global warming agenda, covering Barack Obama's "disappointment" as the eight major economies failed to agree with the nine largest developing nations on a formula to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40 years. Chuck Todd, NBC's man at the White House, found himself in a terrible mess as he filed from Rome. "You have heard of the saying While Rome is Burning…" he began, setting us up for some reference to Obama's imperial self-indulgent vanity while his citizen's livelihoods go up in flames. Instead we heard the non-sequitur that Obama's "domestic agenda and his political poll numbers, while not burning up, seem to be wilting a little in the summer heat…Obama's healthcare and economic policies are under increasing fire at home."
ABC's G8 coverage disregarded diplomacy altogether as Yunji de Nies guided us through the First Tweens' excellent summer adventure including visits to Buckingham Palace and the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin and the Coliseum. de Nies replayed the President's soundbite with her colleague Jake Tapper praising his trench-coat-clad daughter as a Get Smart spook in the Kremlin's halls. Sasha and Malia travel free on Air Force One while their parents pay "for every extra room, meal and souvenir. First Families know that a front row seat to history is priceless."
VIRAL EVIAN In the viral world of online video advertising, CBS' Mark Phillips told us, a spot that attracts 20m hits is considered to have hit the jackpot. Just since the weekend, an ad for Evian spring water has reached 6m so Phillips decided to give it an extra boost with a behind-the-scenes explanation of how animators at the Moving Picture Company managed to coordinate Prague, Melbourne, London and Manhattan to make those babies go rollerskating.
Burr Oaks Cemetery had for years been the only graveyard in Chicagoland where African-Americans could bury their dead, CBS' Cynthia Bowers explained. It is the final resting place of boxer Ezzard Charles and singer Dinah Washington and bluesman Willie Dixon and Civil-Rights-era icon Emmett Till. The cemetery is now making headlines because it turned out not to be a final resting place for as many as 300 of its dead.
CBS' Bowers called it a "sickening scheme." NBC's Kevin Tibbles called it "a macabre act." Prosecutors called it a $300,000 fraud. A trio of gravediggers and a manager are charged with reselling plots for new coffins by graverobbing old ones. "A pile of bones from more than 100 bodies has been discovered above ground in an older and overgrown section," NBC's Tibbles told us. Precisely whose bodies have not been allowed to rest in peace is hard to reconstruct because many bereaved families were too poor to afford a headstone for their departed kin. Tibbles added that a team of FBI forensic experts "with experience examining mass graves in Serbia" has been brought in to assist in identification.
The day's second race-related headline came from the suburbs of Philadelphia. The Valley Swim Club had agreed with Creative Steps, a summer day camp, to lease its pool for weekly swimming sessions. The camp has 60-or-so children, mostly black and Latino, according to ABC's Dan Harris: "You get ready. You jump in the pool. Most of the white people get out of the pool." A couple of days later the Valley returned Creative Steps' money and told the campers not to return. It explained that the camp's children would "change the complexion" of the club. Later, NBC's Ron Allen reported, when Valley was accused of racism, it released a second statement calling such allegations "completely untrue. We underestimated the capacity of our facilities."
GREEN GM CBS' Anthony Mason prepared us for the "once-mighty General Motors Corporation" to become "the smaller General Motors Company." For an investment of $50bn, the United States Treasury will be the majority stockholder, with a 60% interest. "The administration picked the new management team. It is going to pick the new Board of Directors." GM may even change the color of its logo from blue to green "to emphasize its commitment to smaller more fuel-efficient cars." NBC's Kelly O'Donnell gave us a primer on the federal Cash for Clunkers scheme that offers $4,500 subsidies to trade in gas guzzlers for one of those greener vehicles. It turns out they must only be marginally greener--a trade-up from 18 mpg to an inefficient 22 mpg. And buyers can forget about receiving a trade-in from the dealer on top of the government's largesse. All clunkers have to be scrapped.
FALL ‘FLU While the new swine strain of influenza is enjoying its winter season in Chile, Argentina and Australia, NBC's Robert Bazell told us that public health authorities are bracing themselves for "a potentially dangerous widespread outbreak" this fall. State and local governments were urged by the federal Department of Health "to formulate plans now for banning large gatherings, closing schools and businesses, and preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed." An H1N1 virus vaccine is being readied for October. "Supplies will be limited," ABC's Lisa Stark warned. The shots will be for "the most vulnerable first, school-aged children, pregnant women, health workers, people with other illnesses."
REMOTE REPORTING NBC had correspondent Richard Engel in New York City and producer Ali Arouzi in London yet they were still able to piece together coverage on the first major street demonstrations in Teheran in eleven days. "The opposition had gone underground," Engel commented, before emerging in response to online networking to commemorate the tenth anniversary of a student revolt that the government "also brutally put down." These protests ended with tear gas and billy clubs. Engel talked to unidentified "analysts" who predicted that demonstrations henceforth will be "sporadic as the opposition tries this new hit-and-run-style tactic."
ABC, by contrast, had Clarissa Ward exploring the Moslem neighborhoods of Urumqi in search of Tursun Gul. She is the woman who represented "the most striking image" of Xinjiang Province's ethnic unrest between Uighur and Han. Ward showed us the photograph of Gul "hobbling on a crutch toward a wall of stone-faced soldiers and armored vehicles demanding to know what they have done with her family." When Ward located Gul she asked about her courage. "How could I be afraid when I did not commit any crime?" she replied. Her husband and four brothers have still not been heard from. In all, Ward added, police have made 1,400 arrests.
TODD MANGLES HIS METAPHOR As for the G8 Summit reporting. CBS' White House correspondent Chip Reid stuck to the global warming agenda, covering Barack Obama's "disappointment" as the eight major economies failed to agree with the nine largest developing nations on a formula to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40 years. Chuck Todd, NBC's man at the White House, found himself in a terrible mess as he filed from Rome. "You have heard of the saying While Rome is Burning…" he began, setting us up for some reference to Obama's imperial self-indulgent vanity while his citizen's livelihoods go up in flames. Instead we heard the non-sequitur that Obama's "domestic agenda and his political poll numbers, while not burning up, seem to be wilting a little in the summer heat…Obama's healthcare and economic policies are under increasing fire at home."
ABC's G8 coverage disregarded diplomacy altogether as Yunji de Nies guided us through the First Tweens' excellent summer adventure including visits to Buckingham Palace and the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin and the Coliseum. de Nies replayed the President's soundbite with her colleague Jake Tapper praising his trench-coat-clad daughter as a Get Smart spook in the Kremlin's halls. Sasha and Malia travel free on Air Force One while their parents pay "for every extra room, meal and souvenir. First Families know that a front row seat to history is priceless."
VIRAL EVIAN In the viral world of online video advertising, CBS' Mark Phillips told us, a spot that attracts 20m hits is considered to have hit the jackpot. Just since the weekend, an ad for Evian spring water has reached 6m so Phillips decided to give it an extra boost with a behind-the-scenes explanation of how animators at the Moving Picture Company managed to coordinate Prague, Melbourne, London and Manhattan to make those babies go rollerskating.
