 |           |
TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARCH 15, 2010
The remnants of the nor'easter storm that buffeted the mid-Atlantic and New England all weekend qualified as Story of the Day. Reporters were dispatched to the suburbs around New York City to survey downed trees and disrupted power lines. Yet the clean-up was not newsworthy enough to qualify as the lead on any of the three newscasts. NBC and CBS chose to lead with a corrective follow-up on their headline item from last week: the Toyota Prius that was believed to have had a runaway accelerator on a San Diego Interstate may turn out to have been a hoax. ABC kicked off the week with a countdown to the climax of the healthcare reform debate.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MARCH 15, 2010: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
PRESIDENT’S UNINSURED POSTER PATIENT IS GRAVELY ILL The remnants of the nor'easter storm that buffeted the mid-Atlantic and New England all weekend qualified as Story of the Day. Reporters were dispatched to the suburbs around New York City to survey downed trees and disrupted power lines. Yet the clean-up was not newsworthy enough to qualify as the lead on any of the three newscasts. NBC and CBS chose to lead with a corrective follow-up on their headline item from last week: the Toyota Prius that was believed to have had a runaway accelerator on a San Diego Interstate may turn out to have been a hoax. ABC kicked off the week with a countdown to the climax of the healthcare reform debate.
ABC's White House correspondent Jake Tapper traveled with Barack Obama to Medina Ohio to listen to his pep rally against the insurance industry. The President's poster patient was Natoma Canfield, a cleaning woman who had to cancel her coverage, even though she had breast cancer, because her premium was hiked by 40%. Canfield was supposed to introduce Obama at his rally but could not attend: "She was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with leukemia," Tapper told us.
Tapper tackled the President after his speech in order to ask how his legislation could have improved Canfield's prognosis. "Because she would be a part of a million people who are in a pool her rates would be lowered." CBS had White House correspondent Chip Reid cover the same rally. He checked with Republicans opponents of the bill and they seemed to agree that Canfield would be helped--but only eventually: "Most of it does not go into effect for another four years."
ABC turned to the vote in the House of Representatives. Jonathan Karl counted 37 Democrats who voted against the House's version of the legislation and are now being pressed to approve the Senate version; a smaller number supported the House bill but may reject the Senate's because "it does not do enough to restrict abortion funding." Karl concluded: "Here is a tea leaf for you. Dennis Kucinich has for weeks been firmly saying that he is against this bill" because it rejects the public option. "Today when he was asked if he still opposes it, he said only No comment."
DUNCAN & DODD In the shadow of the healthcare debate, a couple of other pieces of domestic policy received coverage. NBC's Rehema Ellis outlined Education Secretary Arne Duncan's proposal to revamp the No Child Left Behind Program: "The previous law was too punitive. It was too prescriptive. It actually led to a dumbing down, a lowering of standards, and it narrowed the curriculum. We want to reverse all of that," was how Ellis cross-promoted her sibling channel MSNBC, quoting Secretary Duncan on Morning Joe. On CBS, Anthony Mason publicized the plan by Christopher Dodd, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut, to regulate high finance: "Critics say the reforms do little to police derivatives and credit default swaps, the complex financial contracts, which helped set off the crisis."
SOUTH OF THE BORDER Only one story with a foreign dateline was deemed worthy of a correspondent's assignment Monday. Gunfire in Juarez over the weekend killed three US citizens, an official at the United States Consulate in the city, her husband and another man who was married to a consular worker. NBC's Mark Potter cautioned that "investigators believe the killings may have been a case of mistaken identity and warn against assuming the victim's diplomatic status made them targets." Covering the story on CBS from Los Angeles, Bill Whitaker offered the opposite lesson: "These are the first deadly hits on American diplomatic personnel in Mexico's drug war." He quoted Alberto Islas, a Mexican security analyst, as calling it "a signal to the US government…an act of intimidation."
ABC's Ryan Owens, like NBC's Potter, was on the Tex-Mex border. He repeated a State Department warning that American visitors should stay away from six border cities: Monterrey, Matamoros, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Nogales and Tijuana. This time last year there was a similar spate of coverage of Mexican narcoviolence from the beaches of Cancun by ABC's Jim Avila, NBC's Potter and CBS' Seth Doane. Now CBS' Whitaker shows us footage of coeds going wild in Acapulco. What a coincidence. It is Spring Break.
DOING THE RIGHT THING BY TOYOTA All three networks gave maximum publicity last Tuesday to the panicked calls to 911 by James Sikes at the wheel of his Toyota Prius on I-8 in San Diego. No one was harmed in the incident--apart from Toyota's already battered image for safety--yet NBC's Miguel Almaguer, CBS' Ben Tracy and ABC's David Muir all treated the apparent runaway as a drama of national importance.
So it was the ethical thing to do, in fairness to Toyota, to treat the possible debunking of Sikes' account of a jammed accelerator with equal prominence, even though the details of the story turned out to be trivial. No one--not Toyota, not federal investigators, no reporter--flat out accused Sikes of perpetrating a hoax. Here is what they did say: "raising serious doubts"--CBS' Dean Reynolds…"driver error means hitting the gas instead of the brake"--NBC's Tom Costello…"significant inconsistencies"--ABC's Muir.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the entire Toyota accelerator problem has been overcovered from the start. It is not as if American roads are a scene of unprecedented carnage. On the contrary, just last Thursday, CBS' Reynolds and ABC's David Wright both reported that highway fatalities are declining at a 9% annual rate with total deaths lower than at any time since the mid 1950s.
BLOW WINDS The clean-up from the storm that battered New York and New England over the weekend was really a regional story not a national one. NBC's Mike Taibbi and CBS' Manuel Gallegus showed us that uprooted trees and downed powerlines in Gotham's Connecticut suburbs; ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi filed from flooded New Jersey. Falling trees killed as many as nine people. The ground had become saturated by melted snow from previous storms so tree roots could not hold in this storm's gales. The storm was so big that NBC brought in Steve Lyons from its sibling Weather Channel to explain the meteorology.
GRANT’S GOLDEN LOOPHOLE NBC kicked off a week of Fleecing of America features by sending Lisa Myers to the Twin Creeks Mine in Elko to teach us a history lesson. Why do mines on federal lands not pay a penny in royalties for gold and silver even though they are owed for coal and oil? The loophole was written into the mining law under Ulysses S Grant in 1872. How come that law has never been amended? "Credited with stopping reform in recent years, the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada." What state is Elko in? Need you ask?
INCONSEQUENTIAL PIGEONS For CBS' closer it seemed that Steve Hartman was gearing up for a fun feature on roller pigeons: "Once they are airborne they roll like gymnasts in the Cirque du Poleil," he punned. Just as we were watching the flock of rollers cavorting outside the Watts Tower in South Central Los Angeles, Hartman's Assignment America pulled the plug. Teaching neighborhood youth to raise rollers is Bobby Wilson's gang prevention program, Hartman explained. "Of course, what he does not realize is that the birds are inconsequential. It could be snakes or stamps and the kids would still respond to the real catalyst for change here…a human being who has been there and cares."
Fine, fine, fine. Now tell us about roller pigeons.
ABC's White House correspondent Jake Tapper traveled with Barack Obama to Medina Ohio to listen to his pep rally against the insurance industry. The President's poster patient was Natoma Canfield, a cleaning woman who had to cancel her coverage, even though she had breast cancer, because her premium was hiked by 40%. Canfield was supposed to introduce Obama at his rally but could not attend: "She was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with leukemia," Tapper told us.
Tapper tackled the President after his speech in order to ask how his legislation could have improved Canfield's prognosis. "Because she would be a part of a million people who are in a pool her rates would be lowered." CBS had White House correspondent Chip Reid cover the same rally. He checked with Republicans opponents of the bill and they seemed to agree that Canfield would be helped--but only eventually: "Most of it does not go into effect for another four years."
ABC turned to the vote in the House of Representatives. Jonathan Karl counted 37 Democrats who voted against the House's version of the legislation and are now being pressed to approve the Senate version; a smaller number supported the House bill but may reject the Senate's because "it does not do enough to restrict abortion funding." Karl concluded: "Here is a tea leaf for you. Dennis Kucinich has for weeks been firmly saying that he is against this bill" because it rejects the public option. "Today when he was asked if he still opposes it, he said only No comment."
DUNCAN & DODD In the shadow of the healthcare debate, a couple of other pieces of domestic policy received coverage. NBC's Rehema Ellis outlined Education Secretary Arne Duncan's proposal to revamp the No Child Left Behind Program: "The previous law was too punitive. It was too prescriptive. It actually led to a dumbing down, a lowering of standards, and it narrowed the curriculum. We want to reverse all of that," was how Ellis cross-promoted her sibling channel MSNBC, quoting Secretary Duncan on Morning Joe. On CBS, Anthony Mason publicized the plan by Christopher Dodd, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut, to regulate high finance: "Critics say the reforms do little to police derivatives and credit default swaps, the complex financial contracts, which helped set off the crisis."
SOUTH OF THE BORDER Only one story with a foreign dateline was deemed worthy of a correspondent's assignment Monday. Gunfire in Juarez over the weekend killed three US citizens, an official at the United States Consulate in the city, her husband and another man who was married to a consular worker. NBC's Mark Potter cautioned that "investigators believe the killings may have been a case of mistaken identity and warn against assuming the victim's diplomatic status made them targets." Covering the story on CBS from Los Angeles, Bill Whitaker offered the opposite lesson: "These are the first deadly hits on American diplomatic personnel in Mexico's drug war." He quoted Alberto Islas, a Mexican security analyst, as calling it "a signal to the US government…an act of intimidation."
ABC's Ryan Owens, like NBC's Potter, was on the Tex-Mex border. He repeated a State Department warning that American visitors should stay away from six border cities: Monterrey, Matamoros, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Nogales and Tijuana. This time last year there was a similar spate of coverage of Mexican narcoviolence from the beaches of Cancun by ABC's Jim Avila, NBC's Potter and CBS' Seth Doane. Now CBS' Whitaker shows us footage of coeds going wild in Acapulco. What a coincidence. It is Spring Break.
DOING THE RIGHT THING BY TOYOTA All three networks gave maximum publicity last Tuesday to the panicked calls to 911 by James Sikes at the wheel of his Toyota Prius on I-8 in San Diego. No one was harmed in the incident--apart from Toyota's already battered image for safety--yet NBC's Miguel Almaguer, CBS' Ben Tracy and ABC's David Muir all treated the apparent runaway as a drama of national importance.
So it was the ethical thing to do, in fairness to Toyota, to treat the possible debunking of Sikes' account of a jammed accelerator with equal prominence, even though the details of the story turned out to be trivial. No one--not Toyota, not federal investigators, no reporter--flat out accused Sikes of perpetrating a hoax. Here is what they did say: "raising serious doubts"--CBS' Dean Reynolds…"driver error means hitting the gas instead of the brake"--NBC's Tom Costello…"significant inconsistencies"--ABC's Muir.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the entire Toyota accelerator problem has been overcovered from the start. It is not as if American roads are a scene of unprecedented carnage. On the contrary, just last Thursday, CBS' Reynolds and ABC's David Wright both reported that highway fatalities are declining at a 9% annual rate with total deaths lower than at any time since the mid 1950s.
BLOW WINDS The clean-up from the storm that battered New York and New England over the weekend was really a regional story not a national one. NBC's Mike Taibbi and CBS' Manuel Gallegus showed us that uprooted trees and downed powerlines in Gotham's Connecticut suburbs; ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi filed from flooded New Jersey. Falling trees killed as many as nine people. The ground had become saturated by melted snow from previous storms so tree roots could not hold in this storm's gales. The storm was so big that NBC brought in Steve Lyons from its sibling Weather Channel to explain the meteorology.
GRANT’S GOLDEN LOOPHOLE NBC kicked off a week of Fleecing of America features by sending Lisa Myers to the Twin Creeks Mine in Elko to teach us a history lesson. Why do mines on federal lands not pay a penny in royalties for gold and silver even though they are owed for coal and oil? The loophole was written into the mining law under Ulysses S Grant in 1872. How come that law has never been amended? "Credited with stopping reform in recent years, the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada." What state is Elko in? Need you ask?
INCONSEQUENTIAL PIGEONS For CBS' closer it seemed that Steve Hartman was gearing up for a fun feature on roller pigeons: "Once they are airborne they roll like gymnasts in the Cirque du Poleil," he punned. Just as we were watching the flock of rollers cavorting outside the Watts Tower in South Central Los Angeles, Hartman's Assignment America pulled the plug. Teaching neighborhood youth to raise rollers is Bobby Wilson's gang prevention program, Hartman explained. "Of course, what he does not realize is that the birds are inconsequential. It could be snakes or stamps and the kids would still respond to the real catalyst for change here…a human being who has been there and cares."
Fine, fine, fine. Now tell us about roller pigeons.
