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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM AUGUST 10, 2009
The North American Free Trade Area Summit in Guadalajara was such a cursory affair that it failed to qualify as Story of the Day even though both NBC and CBS led with their White House correspondents on the road in Mexico. ABC marked back-to-school season by kicking off with the precautions districts are taking against the H1N1 swine strain of influenza. Yet the day's #1 newsmaker was not chosen as the lead on any of the three newscasts. It was a follow-up to Saturday's midair collision over New York City's Hudson River between a small plane and a tourist helicopter that killed all nine people aloft.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR AUGUST 10, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
GUADALAJARA SUMMIT GETS SHORT SHRIFT The North American Free Trade Area Summit in Guadalajara was such a cursory affair that it failed to qualify as Story of the Day even though both NBC and CBS led with their White House correspondents on the road in Mexico. ABC marked back-to-school season by kicking off with the precautions districts are taking against the H1N1 swine strain of influenza. Yet the day's #1 newsmaker was not chosen as the lead on any of the three newscasts. It was a follow-up to Saturday's midair collision over New York City's Hudson River between a small plane and a tourist helicopter that killed all nine people aloft.
It was "a short summit," shrugged NBC's Savannah Guthrie by way of explanation for why she hardly paid any attention to its agenda "from the economy to energy to the swine 'flu." She decided to focus on Barack Obama's domestic preoccupations instead as he urged a calm tone in the debate over healthcare reform. ABC's Jake Tapper, too, picked up on a healthcare angle from the summit, asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada whether a single payer system results in treatment delays. "If you are prepared to spend an unlimited amount of money you can do an almost unlimited number of things in people's healthcare," was Harper's reply, implicitly conceding that delays occur.
Chip Reid on CBS was the White House correspondent who took the summit's agenda seriously, noting "little progress on a series of long-running contentious issues" such as stalled cooperation against narcotraffickers, Mexico's flawed record on human rights and the NAFTA-busting ban on Mexican truck traffic north of the border. Reid did see cooperation concerning the swine 'flu, which is more serious in this hemisphere than in the rest of the world. Of the globe's 1,154 H1N1 deaths, fully 1,008 have occurred in the Americas, north and south.
THUMBS UP FOR HEALTHCARE EXPLAINERS High marks to both ABC and CBS for backgrounder explainers on specific aspects of the healthcare debate. CBS' Sharyl Attkisson looked into "very private negotiations" between Big Pharma and the White House in mid-June. Attkisson reported that the resulting deal consisted of a promise to cut pharmaceutical costs by $80bn--she did not say over how many years--in exchange for a ban on prescription cost controls and the administration's opposition to discount drug imports from Canada. Attkisson wondered whether it will stick: "News of a backroom deal riled fellow Democrats including key committee chairman Henry Waxman." The Congressman declared: "We are not bound by that agreement."
ABC's healthcare Fact Check was Kate Snow's A Closer Look into the legislation's proposals for so-called end-of-life care. Snow contradicted claims that the legislation's proposed cost-cutting solutions amounted to compulsory euthanasia as "shocking, inflammatory and incorrect." Snow pointed the finger at a couple of politicians--Betsy McCaughey and Sarah Palin--for disseminating the euthanasia scare, quoting Palin's dread of standing "in front of an Obama death panel." Proposed legislation "would create no such panel," Snow asserted. Yet the cost of care for terminally-ill patients is enormous, with medical expenses in the last year of one's life averaging $25,000. Cities such as La Crosse Wisc, which offer doctor-patient counseling about terminal healthcare, have cut that annual average by $7,000.
TYPHOON SEASON CBS made use of Barry Petersen, its man in Tokyo, to narrate wild videotape of Typhoon Morakot plowing into Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. He showed us an evacuated coastal hotel toppling into the ocean as the typhoon dumped 6.5 ft of rain on the island. "The storm then moved into China forcing one million people to flee coastal areas."
US MILITARY DEATH SQUADS Brian Ross filed an Investigates feature on ABC based on a report on the War on Drugs in Afghanistan from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ross told us about a "secret kill-or-capture program" launched last October targeting 50 narcotrafficking druglords for assassination. Strictly speaking, Ross noted, the killings are only legal if they occur during combat and are banned "away from the battlefield." He then told us about the loophole that, in effect, turns the US military and CIA operatives into death squads: "Most of the country is considered part of the battlefield, especially in the poppy-growing areas."
Lara Logan visited anchor Katie Couric's set at CBS for a brief q-&-a on Gen Stanley McChrystal's comment that "the Taliban now have the upper hand" in some regions of Afghanistan. Couric asked what that means for the national elections next week. Logan was vague: "In parts of the country…they will have a very difficult time."
SUMMER FLEW, NOW FACES ‘FLU Students are already going back to school in Atlanta and ABC's Steve Osunsami was on hand to see what precautions are under way against the 'flu given that clinical trials have not yet tested a vaccine. He saw slogans--Clean Gene--and sanitized surfaces. Teenagers should now bump fists instead of giving high-fives. When coughing and sneezing, hack in the elbow not the hand. CBS had in-house physician Jennifer Ashton offer a brief update. Her main cause for concern was that the H1N1 swine strain of influenza "could mix with seasonal 'flu and become a new strain."
UNSAFE DISTANCE ABC and NBC sent their Washington-based transportation correspondents to the banks of the Hudson River to report on the recovery of the wrecks of the weekend's midair collision. NBC's Tom Costello and ABC's Lisa Stark were on the Hoboken side as divers went down 60 ft to search for the last two bodies of the nine who were killed. CBS had Bob Orr stay in DC and narrate the videotape.
"The question now," suggested NBC's Costello: "Is the Hudson's airspace too congested?" The tourist helicopter and the joyriding Piper Lancer were two of an average of 225 daily flights in the three-mile-long, 1,100 ft high corridor. It is governed by "visual flight rules," CBS' Orr told us, "meaning the pilots, and not air traffic controlers, were solely responsible for keeping a safe distance."
EXPRESS IN NAME ONLY No harm was done on Continental Express Flight 2816 but the comedy of errors that befell the 47 passengers on a crowded Embraer regional jetliner was ghastly enough to warrant the retelling by NBC's Anne Thompson and CBS' Cynthia Bowers. The tale of woe occurred on the tarmac at the Rochester Airport in Minnesota. The Minneapolis-bound flight had been diverted there because of rough weather. By the time it landed the pilots had reached their limit for hours worked and so were unable to take off again. Terminal security personnel had gone home for the night so passengers were forbidden to enter. There followed almost six hours trapped inside the plane cabin on the runway--no food, no legroom and a single toilet that "backed up and began to reek," as CBS' Bowers put it. And the terminal, a passenger complained to NBC's Thompson, was just 50 yards away.
It was "a short summit," shrugged NBC's Savannah Guthrie by way of explanation for why she hardly paid any attention to its agenda "from the economy to energy to the swine 'flu." She decided to focus on Barack Obama's domestic preoccupations instead as he urged a calm tone in the debate over healthcare reform. ABC's Jake Tapper, too, picked up on a healthcare angle from the summit, asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada whether a single payer system results in treatment delays. "If you are prepared to spend an unlimited amount of money you can do an almost unlimited number of things in people's healthcare," was Harper's reply, implicitly conceding that delays occur.
Chip Reid on CBS was the White House correspondent who took the summit's agenda seriously, noting "little progress on a series of long-running contentious issues" such as stalled cooperation against narcotraffickers, Mexico's flawed record on human rights and the NAFTA-busting ban on Mexican truck traffic north of the border. Reid did see cooperation concerning the swine 'flu, which is more serious in this hemisphere than in the rest of the world. Of the globe's 1,154 H1N1 deaths, fully 1,008 have occurred in the Americas, north and south.
THUMBS UP FOR HEALTHCARE EXPLAINERS High marks to both ABC and CBS for backgrounder explainers on specific aspects of the healthcare debate. CBS' Sharyl Attkisson looked into "very private negotiations" between Big Pharma and the White House in mid-June. Attkisson reported that the resulting deal consisted of a promise to cut pharmaceutical costs by $80bn--she did not say over how many years--in exchange for a ban on prescription cost controls and the administration's opposition to discount drug imports from Canada. Attkisson wondered whether it will stick: "News of a backroom deal riled fellow Democrats including key committee chairman Henry Waxman." The Congressman declared: "We are not bound by that agreement."
ABC's healthcare Fact Check was Kate Snow's A Closer Look into the legislation's proposals for so-called end-of-life care. Snow contradicted claims that the legislation's proposed cost-cutting solutions amounted to compulsory euthanasia as "shocking, inflammatory and incorrect." Snow pointed the finger at a couple of politicians--Betsy McCaughey and Sarah Palin--for disseminating the euthanasia scare, quoting Palin's dread of standing "in front of an Obama death panel." Proposed legislation "would create no such panel," Snow asserted. Yet the cost of care for terminally-ill patients is enormous, with medical expenses in the last year of one's life averaging $25,000. Cities such as La Crosse Wisc, which offer doctor-patient counseling about terminal healthcare, have cut that annual average by $7,000.
TYPHOON SEASON CBS made use of Barry Petersen, its man in Tokyo, to narrate wild videotape of Typhoon Morakot plowing into Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. He showed us an evacuated coastal hotel toppling into the ocean as the typhoon dumped 6.5 ft of rain on the island. "The storm then moved into China forcing one million people to flee coastal areas."
US MILITARY DEATH SQUADS Brian Ross filed an Investigates feature on ABC based on a report on the War on Drugs in Afghanistan from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ross told us about a "secret kill-or-capture program" launched last October targeting 50 narcotrafficking druglords for assassination. Strictly speaking, Ross noted, the killings are only legal if they occur during combat and are banned "away from the battlefield." He then told us about the loophole that, in effect, turns the US military and CIA operatives into death squads: "Most of the country is considered part of the battlefield, especially in the poppy-growing areas."
Lara Logan visited anchor Katie Couric's set at CBS for a brief q-&-a on Gen Stanley McChrystal's comment that "the Taliban now have the upper hand" in some regions of Afghanistan. Couric asked what that means for the national elections next week. Logan was vague: "In parts of the country…they will have a very difficult time."
SUMMER FLEW, NOW FACES ‘FLU Students are already going back to school in Atlanta and ABC's Steve Osunsami was on hand to see what precautions are under way against the 'flu given that clinical trials have not yet tested a vaccine. He saw slogans--Clean Gene--and sanitized surfaces. Teenagers should now bump fists instead of giving high-fives. When coughing and sneezing, hack in the elbow not the hand. CBS had in-house physician Jennifer Ashton offer a brief update. Her main cause for concern was that the H1N1 swine strain of influenza "could mix with seasonal 'flu and become a new strain."
UNSAFE DISTANCE ABC and NBC sent their Washington-based transportation correspondents to the banks of the Hudson River to report on the recovery of the wrecks of the weekend's midair collision. NBC's Tom Costello and ABC's Lisa Stark were on the Hoboken side as divers went down 60 ft to search for the last two bodies of the nine who were killed. CBS had Bob Orr stay in DC and narrate the videotape.
"The question now," suggested NBC's Costello: "Is the Hudson's airspace too congested?" The tourist helicopter and the joyriding Piper Lancer were two of an average of 225 daily flights in the three-mile-long, 1,100 ft high corridor. It is governed by "visual flight rules," CBS' Orr told us, "meaning the pilots, and not air traffic controlers, were solely responsible for keeping a safe distance."
EXPRESS IN NAME ONLY No harm was done on Continental Express Flight 2816 but the comedy of errors that befell the 47 passengers on a crowded Embraer regional jetliner was ghastly enough to warrant the retelling by NBC's Anne Thompson and CBS' Cynthia Bowers. The tale of woe occurred on the tarmac at the Rochester Airport in Minnesota. The Minneapolis-bound flight had been diverted there because of rough weather. By the time it landed the pilots had reached their limit for hours worked and so were unable to take off again. Terminal security personnel had gone home for the night so passengers were forbidden to enter. There followed almost six hours trapped inside the plane cabin on the runway--no food, no legroom and a single toilet that "backed up and began to reek," as CBS' Bowers put it. And the terminal, a passenger complained to NBC's Thompson, was just 50 yards away.
