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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM AUGUST 05, 2009
There was complete unanimity among the three nightly newscasts that Laura Ling and Euna Lee should be Story of the Day for the second straight day. They each led with the arrival of the pair of Current TV journalists in a private jet from North Korea to Burbank, where they were welcomed home by their families, their boss Al Gore and the assembled news media. Then each newscast followed with the back story of the five months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy that led to Bill Clinton's photo-op with the dictator Kim Jong Il and Kim's grant of pardon to the pair.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR AUGUST 05, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
MOMMY ENDS HER NORTH KOREAN BUSINESS TRIP There was complete unanimity among the three nightly newscasts that Laura Ling and Euna Lee should be Story of the Day for the second straight day. They each led with the arrival of the pair of Current TV journalists in a private jet from North Korea to Burbank, where they were welcomed home by their families, their boss Al Gore and the assembled news media. Then each newscast followed with the back story of the five months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy that led to Bill Clinton's photo-op with the dictator Kim Jong Il and Kim's grant of pardon to the pair.
"We knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end." That is how Ling recalled her reaction upon seeing Clinton in person in Pyongyang. "His mission accomplished, Clinton left the talking to his former Vice President," observed ABC's Kate Snow. Lee's four-year-old daughter Hannah "hugged her mother and would not let go," observed CBS' Bill Whitaker. ABC's Snow offered the detail that the girl had been told: "Mommy is on a business trip"--a trip that lasted 140 days and included a 12-year sentence in a forced labor camp. NBC's George Lewis saw mother and daughter "hold on to one another for dear life." He called the family scene "poignant."
SECRET BACK CHANNELS The back story was handled by anchor Katie Couric (at the tail of the Bill Whitaker videostream) on CBS, by Martha Raddatz on ABC and by Andrea Mitchell, traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Kenya, on NBC. All three pointed out that the journalists were never sent to prison as sentenced. They were allowed to telephone their families back in the United States and in mid-July they relayed a message from North Korea that a visit by Bill Clinton would secure their release. Their families told Al Gore; Gore asked Clinton to make the trip; the White House approved it; and once Clinton was assured in advance that the pardons would be granted he agreed to go.
NBC's Mitchell added the detail of the back-channel diplomacy that preceded those July phone calls: the State Department talked to North Korea's United Nations ambassador in New York City while in Pyongyang the Swedish ambassador looked after the journalists' interests. ABC's Raddatz explained that North Korea insisted on Clinton instead of Gore as the intermediary because "Kim Jong Il sees Clinton as a charismatic and powerful force who will attract world attention."
CBS' Couric consulted with diplomatic experts about the White House's purported insistence that Clinton was traveling "as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Obama Administration" and that Clinton's talks with Kim should not touch on North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Couric was skeptical: "Given the former President's interest in the issue it is likely the subject came up."
From the White House, ABC's Jake Tapper parsed the difference between Barack Obama's line that Clinton's trip was "strictly private" and Clinton's explanation that "the White House asked him" to go. Tapper's unidentified source, an Obama aide, tried the paraphrase that Clinton "coordinated his trip with the White House and that the White House said it was OK for him to go." Tapper was not impressed: "Of course that is not what President Clinton said." NBC's Mitchell reported that Obama telephoned Clinton today, "their first conversation since the mission began, to say he did a great job."
MURDEROUS BLOGGER MAY HAD NO TRAFFIC The only other story deemed sufficiently newsworthy to be covered by a correspondent on all three newscasts was the carnage at the Latin Impact aerobic dance class at an LA Fitness gym in suburban Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. A suicidal gunman barged in, switched off the lights, sprayed the class with 36 bullets, killed three female dancers, wounded nine others and then shot himself fatally too. CBS' Susan Koeppen suggested that the killer selected the class because it was filled with women. In a suicide note he left at the scene he "complains he never spent a weekend with a girl, never lived with a woman and only had sex a few times."
The man was George Sodini, a 48-year-old member of LA Fitness and a systems analyst at a law firm. Sodini was a blogger. NBC's Mike Taibbi quoted from his posts that he had not had a girlfriend since 1984: "30m women rejected me…Every evening I am alone." ABC's John Berman called the blog "extraordinary" and "murderous" in that Sodini explicitly posted his plans to commit the murders. "His last line was simply Death Lives." Articulating the horror that haunts all bloggers, Berman reported that police "are not even sure whether anyone read Sodini's lonely blog…If someone had read it they really should have reported it to somebody."
ABC IN BOLIVIA TRUMPS MSNBC.COM IN ELKHART The Elkhart Blog is a project at msnbc.com that NBC's Chuck Todd publicized when President Barack Obama visited the Indiana town to announce a $2.4bn federal investment in renewable electric battery development. The President conceded that Elkhart, with an unemployment rate of 17%, is an appropriate test case to judge his administration's progress towards economic revitalization. "Is that fair?" Todd asked. "Absolutely." ABC's sidebar feature on Obama's green jobs initiative was more imaginative, more exotic--not to mention more visually stunning. Jeffrey Kofman took A Closer Look at the Uyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia. They contain more than half of the world's known reserves of lithium. Batteries made from lithium are "far lighter, more durable and hold a charge much longer than any other." Evaporation ponds are being built to extract the lithium from the brine under the salt surface, Kofman showed us: "That vast sea of white could offer this poor country a richer future and the planet a greener future."
FLYING BACON A pair of Congressmen from Georgia have each received more than $10,000 in campaign contributions from General Dynamics over the past two years: Sanford Bishop, a Democrat, and Jack Kingston, a Republican. They persuaded their colleagues to add two more Gulfstream 550 corporate jets to the Pentagon's request for a single plane for its Africa Command. In ABC's Your Money report, Jonathan Karl noted that the extra planes would belong to a USAF squadron "that flies government VIPs, including--guess who--members of Congress." The three Gulfstreams, pricetag $200m, happen to be built in Georgia. "Call it jets for junkets."
FROM SNAIL TO E Make that three days in a row that the looming $7bn loss at the United States Postal Service has made it to the networks' nightly newscasts. NBC's Lisa Myers sounded the alarm Monday; ABC's Steve Osunsami followed up Tuesday. Now CBS' Nancy Cordes tells us about the woes of snail mail "in an Internet age." A combination of layoffs and delivery cutbacks and office closings faces the USPS. Cordes showed us the belt tightening at Elite Occasions, a specialty gift store, by way of explanation: the conversion of all of its invoicing, catalogues and promotional fliers from paper to e-mail eliminates most of its postage and saves between $10,000 and $20,000 each year.
BACK CEMENT IS USELESS The fact that 40,000 medical procedures annually, each costing between $2,000 and $5,000, are useless would be news enough. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook described the research in the New England Journal of Medicine into patients with chronic back pain. It found that vertebroplasty--strengthening bone fractures with cement injections--offered no more relief than a placebo treatment. "Vertebroplasty is endorsed by multiple medical societies," LaPook shrugged. Then the good doctor went further by pointing out that these are the "kind of savings" that Barack Obama seeks from healthcare reform. "Congress has earmarked $1bn to study the effectiveness of many different treatments."
PUTIN’S PECS NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski tried to dress up the "male cheesecake photos" of Vladimir Putin as a serious news story by folding them into a report on the return of Russian nuclear powered attack submarines to the waters off the Atlantic seaboard for the first time in 20 years. "Putin is flexing more than military muscle," he quipped, showing the shirtless prime minister. On ABC, Nick Watt did not even try to treat Putin's chest with dignity. He narrated Putin's Siberian vacation photos with relish: "Putin can ride a horse without a shirt…he can drive a boat…he can even do the butterfly…Putin has been snapped fishing shirtless…hunting shirtless." In a nation where men have an average life expectancy of 59 years, the virility of the 56-year-old prime minister is "impressive."
"He tranquilizes tigers!"
"We knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end." That is how Ling recalled her reaction upon seeing Clinton in person in Pyongyang. "His mission accomplished, Clinton left the talking to his former Vice President," observed ABC's Kate Snow. Lee's four-year-old daughter Hannah "hugged her mother and would not let go," observed CBS' Bill Whitaker. ABC's Snow offered the detail that the girl had been told: "Mommy is on a business trip"--a trip that lasted 140 days and included a 12-year sentence in a forced labor camp. NBC's George Lewis saw mother and daughter "hold on to one another for dear life." He called the family scene "poignant."
SECRET BACK CHANNELS The back story was handled by anchor Katie Couric (at the tail of the Bill Whitaker videostream) on CBS, by Martha Raddatz on ABC and by Andrea Mitchell, traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Kenya, on NBC. All three pointed out that the journalists were never sent to prison as sentenced. They were allowed to telephone their families back in the United States and in mid-July they relayed a message from North Korea that a visit by Bill Clinton would secure their release. Their families told Al Gore; Gore asked Clinton to make the trip; the White House approved it; and once Clinton was assured in advance that the pardons would be granted he agreed to go.
NBC's Mitchell added the detail of the back-channel diplomacy that preceded those July phone calls: the State Department talked to North Korea's United Nations ambassador in New York City while in Pyongyang the Swedish ambassador looked after the journalists' interests. ABC's Raddatz explained that North Korea insisted on Clinton instead of Gore as the intermediary because "Kim Jong Il sees Clinton as a charismatic and powerful force who will attract world attention."
CBS' Couric consulted with diplomatic experts about the White House's purported insistence that Clinton was traveling "as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Obama Administration" and that Clinton's talks with Kim should not touch on North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Couric was skeptical: "Given the former President's interest in the issue it is likely the subject came up."
From the White House, ABC's Jake Tapper parsed the difference between Barack Obama's line that Clinton's trip was "strictly private" and Clinton's explanation that "the White House asked him" to go. Tapper's unidentified source, an Obama aide, tried the paraphrase that Clinton "coordinated his trip with the White House and that the White House said it was OK for him to go." Tapper was not impressed: "Of course that is not what President Clinton said." NBC's Mitchell reported that Obama telephoned Clinton today, "their first conversation since the mission began, to say he did a great job."
MURDEROUS BLOGGER MAY HAD NO TRAFFIC The only other story deemed sufficiently newsworthy to be covered by a correspondent on all three newscasts was the carnage at the Latin Impact aerobic dance class at an LA Fitness gym in suburban Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. A suicidal gunman barged in, switched off the lights, sprayed the class with 36 bullets, killed three female dancers, wounded nine others and then shot himself fatally too. CBS' Susan Koeppen suggested that the killer selected the class because it was filled with women. In a suicide note he left at the scene he "complains he never spent a weekend with a girl, never lived with a woman and only had sex a few times."
The man was George Sodini, a 48-year-old member of LA Fitness and a systems analyst at a law firm. Sodini was a blogger. NBC's Mike Taibbi quoted from his posts that he had not had a girlfriend since 1984: "30m women rejected me…Every evening I am alone." ABC's John Berman called the blog "extraordinary" and "murderous" in that Sodini explicitly posted his plans to commit the murders. "His last line was simply Death Lives." Articulating the horror that haunts all bloggers, Berman reported that police "are not even sure whether anyone read Sodini's lonely blog…If someone had read it they really should have reported it to somebody."
ABC IN BOLIVIA TRUMPS MSNBC.COM IN ELKHART The Elkhart Blog is a project at msnbc.com that NBC's Chuck Todd publicized when President Barack Obama visited the Indiana town to announce a $2.4bn federal investment in renewable electric battery development. The President conceded that Elkhart, with an unemployment rate of 17%, is an appropriate test case to judge his administration's progress towards economic revitalization. "Is that fair?" Todd asked. "Absolutely." ABC's sidebar feature on Obama's green jobs initiative was more imaginative, more exotic--not to mention more visually stunning. Jeffrey Kofman took A Closer Look at the Uyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia. They contain more than half of the world's known reserves of lithium. Batteries made from lithium are "far lighter, more durable and hold a charge much longer than any other." Evaporation ponds are being built to extract the lithium from the brine under the salt surface, Kofman showed us: "That vast sea of white could offer this poor country a richer future and the planet a greener future."
FLYING BACON A pair of Congressmen from Georgia have each received more than $10,000 in campaign contributions from General Dynamics over the past two years: Sanford Bishop, a Democrat, and Jack Kingston, a Republican. They persuaded their colleagues to add two more Gulfstream 550 corporate jets to the Pentagon's request for a single plane for its Africa Command. In ABC's Your Money report, Jonathan Karl noted that the extra planes would belong to a USAF squadron "that flies government VIPs, including--guess who--members of Congress." The three Gulfstreams, pricetag $200m, happen to be built in Georgia. "Call it jets for junkets."
FROM SNAIL TO E Make that three days in a row that the looming $7bn loss at the United States Postal Service has made it to the networks' nightly newscasts. NBC's Lisa Myers sounded the alarm Monday; ABC's Steve Osunsami followed up Tuesday. Now CBS' Nancy Cordes tells us about the woes of snail mail "in an Internet age." A combination of layoffs and delivery cutbacks and office closings faces the USPS. Cordes showed us the belt tightening at Elite Occasions, a specialty gift store, by way of explanation: the conversion of all of its invoicing, catalogues and promotional fliers from paper to e-mail eliminates most of its postage and saves between $10,000 and $20,000 each year.
BACK CEMENT IS USELESS The fact that 40,000 medical procedures annually, each costing between $2,000 and $5,000, are useless would be news enough. CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook described the research in the New England Journal of Medicine into patients with chronic back pain. It found that vertebroplasty--strengthening bone fractures with cement injections--offered no more relief than a placebo treatment. "Vertebroplasty is endorsed by multiple medical societies," LaPook shrugged. Then the good doctor went further by pointing out that these are the "kind of savings" that Barack Obama seeks from healthcare reform. "Congress has earmarked $1bn to study the effectiveness of many different treatments."
PUTIN’S PECS NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski tried to dress up the "male cheesecake photos" of Vladimir Putin as a serious news story by folding them into a report on the return of Russian nuclear powered attack submarines to the waters off the Atlantic seaboard for the first time in 20 years. "Putin is flexing more than military muscle," he quipped, showing the shirtless prime minister. On ABC, Nick Watt did not even try to treat Putin's chest with dignity. He narrated Putin's Siberian vacation photos with relish: "Putin can ride a horse without a shirt…he can drive a boat…he can even do the butterfly…Putin has been snapped fishing shirtless…hunting shirtless." In a nation where men have an average life expectancy of 59 years, the virility of the 56-year-old prime minister is "impressive."
"He tranquilizes tigers!"
