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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JUNE 9, 2010
Election Day came and went but did nothing to dislodge the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster as Story of the Day. Make that an unbeaten string of 22 straight weekdays (24 min v 25 on Tuesday, 29 on Monday so far this week). NBC and ABC both started with nauseating visuals, as the first wave of crude, now 51 days old and a thick blanket, tarred Louisiana's barrier islands. CBS kicked off with Sharyl Attkisson in zinging form on Capitol Hill where BP stands accused of blocking efforts to measure the size of the disaster. ABC, by the way, tried to shift the focus towards Tuesday's elections somewhat, sending anchor Diane Sawyer to Los Angeles to cover California's primaries for governor.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JUNE 9, 2010: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
HAZMAT VACUUMS--THE PHOTO-OP OF FUTILITY Election Day came and went but did nothing to dislodge the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster as Story of the Day. Make that an unbeaten string of 22 straight weekdays (24 min v 25 on Tuesday, 29 on Monday so far this week). NBC and ABC both started with nauseating visuals, as the first wave of crude, now 51 days old and a thick blanket, tarred Louisiana's barrier islands. CBS kicked off with Sharyl Attkisson in zinging form on Capitol Hill where BP stands accused of blocking efforts to measure the size of the disaster. ABC, by the way, tried to shift the focus towards Tuesday's elections somewhat, sending anchor Diane Sawyer to Los Angeles to cover California's primaries for governor.
Both NBC's Kerry Sanders and ABC's David Muir brought us images of workers clad in hazmat suits, sucking up glops of crude with industrial sized vacuum hoses. The exercise amounted to a futile photo-op. "If the oil were to stop gushing right now it would take more than 60 years with this equipment here right now to get it all," Sanders calculated. "Can it really make a difference?" Muir inquired incredulously, noting that 48 hours of sucking had cleaned up 1,100 gallons of oil--that is just 26 barrels. Then Muir went onto a skimming boat, whose day's work results in 1,200 gallons of oil being collected. "They are overwhelmed," he shrugged.
Both NBC's Anne Thompson and CBS' Mark Strassmann took us on a tour of the desolate Barataria Bay. Thompson called the millions of feet of containment boom "impressive" before conceding that they are "a meager defense against the relentless oil." Strassmann commented that the fishery--which used to account for fully 30% of Louisiana's catch--is now completely closed. Worse, the oil is now suffocating the sediment of its marshlands. More bad news from the tourist beaches of Gulf Shores Ala: "Red flags and health warnings have been posted, urging swimmers to stay out of the water," noted NBC's Mark Potter.
Matt Gutman looked at the lack of innovation in oil clean-up technology, pointing out that most techniques are decades old. He went on an ABC News Gets @nswers quest to see if the ideas flooding into BP's suggestion box had spurred new thinking. Actor Kevin Costner's oil-and-water "contraption" failed its first test run. There is a new sponge, an expensive kitty litter style powder, hard-to-dispose-of hay…and that new vacuum system.
BP'S BUREAUCRACY CBS' Kelly Cobiella followed up on the backlash against BP's red tape confronting small businesses seeking compensation for losses that ABC's David Muir told us about on Tuesday. "Some business have been asked to file 1,700 pages of documents before they can get a check." Cobiella reported that the state of Alabama is developing a one page application form that it wants BP to accept. Admiral Thad Allen of the Coast Guard is on the case too, asking by letter "who is getting paid and how quickly."
BP’S VETO NBC again used that wheel of correspondents--from Kerry Sanders to Anne Thompson to Mark Potter to Tom Costello on Capitol Hill--to kick off its newscast, the wheel that Tyndall Report admired last week. Costello covered Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's testimony on the size of the leak--12K barrels a day or 25K? "Still not clear," was how he put it. CBS' Sharyl Attkisson, rightly, congratulated her own network for using the Freedom of Information Act to push for an accurate measurement of the size of the leak. It was a FOIA request that delivered the first live videostream of the seabed gusher: "BP is still holding on to a lot of archived video as well as a log showing exactly what it is they do have." Because of BP's footdragging "the official answer to how big the leak is keeps getting put off," Attkisson charged.
As for that undersea plume, Attkisson was contemptuous of the corporation: BP "appears to be in a perpetual state of denial. They insist all the oil is on the top." She discovered a proposal five weeks ago to use sonar from USNavy undersea buoys to track the plume to give early warning to coastal communities. The Coast Guard rejected the scheme because it was vetoed by BP: "The spill is being totally funded by BP," read a USCG memo, "and anything that gets executed must go through them."
PRIMARIES WON BY MONEY, POWERBROKERS--NOT INSURGENTS Anchor Diane Sawyer's trip to Los Angeles for ABC allowed her to file an in person follow-up to Tuesday's primary elections. She sat down with Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for Governor of California and former incumbent, who matches up against Meg Whitman, former boss of eBay. Brown had little to suggest about how to handle the state's $20bn fiscal deficit--cutting his own and others' perks might be a start--but he was less vague about lashing into his November opponent. He likened Whitman's spending of $80m of her own money to get her message out to the "Ministry of Information in a totalitarian country…You can dominate the airwaves, radio and television and in the mail, just by buying it; not just for a few weeks but for months on end."
As for the other primary results, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell was in Little Rock to cover the "biggest surprise" of the night, as incumbent Blanche Lincoln won renomination for the Democratic line for the Senate from Arkansas. Despite Lincoln's survival, ABC's Jonathan Karl generalized that "it was another good day for insurgent candidates." Karl further contradicted his point about insurgents by pointing to the impact of a pair of powerhouse endorsements from party leaders as decisive: Palin Power in South Carolina and a Clinton Clincher in Arkansas.
According to Karl, even the victory by Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle in the race for the Republican line in the Nevada Senate race was no grass roots success. "Her campaign was going nowhere until big money conservative groups jumped into the race," he commented, pointing to the inside-the-Beltway think tank Club For Growth.
WEAPONIZING OR MERELY ENRICHING? What is the status of Iran's nuclear program? ABC and NBC both had their White House correspondent file on a new round of United Nations sanctions against Teheran approved by the Security Council. By a 12-2 vote, some sales of heavy weapons will be banned; cargo inspections will be more rigorous; and banking transfers will be limited. NBC's Chuck Todd reported that Iran is being accused by the White House of the "continued pursuit of nuclear weapons." In introducing Jake Tapper's report on ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer did not go to far as to allege that weapons were involved, just that Iran's program is "nuclear." Tapper did not characterize the program in any way. All he did was quote Barack Obama's generalization that "a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is in nobody's interest." CBS did not mention the sanctions, even in passing.
NATALEE IS A MORNING HOLDOVER Both Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer were toiling away in the morning news timeslot five years ago when teenage tourist Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba and Joran van der Sloot became a household world--at least among viewers of Good Morning America and Today. So it is no surprise that ABC and CBS, where Sawyer and Couric now anchor, should cover van der Sloot's arrest on their nightly newscasts. NBC Nightly News decided this week to treat the tabloid curiosity with the disdain it deserves.
ABC's Linsey Davis has filed once, on van der Sloot's reported confession in a murder case in Peru, in which he is said to have killed a 21-year-old woman after she tried to find out information about him and Holloway on his laptop computer. CBS' Elaine Quijano has filed twice, once on the reported confession and now on a bungled FBI sting in which van der Sloot was apparently paid $15K by the FBI as a downpayment for supposedly leading Holloway's mother to her daughter's dead body. van der Sloot apparently used the FBI's funds to fly to Peru, where the second woman was found dead.
CBS' Quijano also covered van der Sloot's arrest last week--and, to be fair, NBC did have Michelle Kosinski file a brief stand-up from Peru at that time, so its hands are not totally clean.
WILLIAMS WARMS UP HIS VUVUZELA Ian Williams landed the dream assignment from NBC. He filed from Pretoria as USA prepares to take on England in the World Cup. The USA squad, with 17 out of 23 players in professional European football leagues, has a chance, Williams claimed, of emulating their 1950 forebears. It was 60 years ago that USA beat England 1-0, an upset that sticks in England's craw like "a raspberry seed in a wisdom tooth." That's the bon mot of Walter Bahr, the giantkillers' captain.
Both NBC's Kerry Sanders and ABC's David Muir brought us images of workers clad in hazmat suits, sucking up glops of crude with industrial sized vacuum hoses. The exercise amounted to a futile photo-op. "If the oil were to stop gushing right now it would take more than 60 years with this equipment here right now to get it all," Sanders calculated. "Can it really make a difference?" Muir inquired incredulously, noting that 48 hours of sucking had cleaned up 1,100 gallons of oil--that is just 26 barrels. Then Muir went onto a skimming boat, whose day's work results in 1,200 gallons of oil being collected. "They are overwhelmed," he shrugged.
Both NBC's Anne Thompson and CBS' Mark Strassmann took us on a tour of the desolate Barataria Bay. Thompson called the millions of feet of containment boom "impressive" before conceding that they are "a meager defense against the relentless oil." Strassmann commented that the fishery--which used to account for fully 30% of Louisiana's catch--is now completely closed. Worse, the oil is now suffocating the sediment of its marshlands. More bad news from the tourist beaches of Gulf Shores Ala: "Red flags and health warnings have been posted, urging swimmers to stay out of the water," noted NBC's Mark Potter.
Matt Gutman looked at the lack of innovation in oil clean-up technology, pointing out that most techniques are decades old. He went on an ABC News Gets @nswers quest to see if the ideas flooding into BP's suggestion box had spurred new thinking. Actor Kevin Costner's oil-and-water "contraption" failed its first test run. There is a new sponge, an expensive kitty litter style powder, hard-to-dispose-of hay…and that new vacuum system.
BP'S BUREAUCRACY CBS' Kelly Cobiella followed up on the backlash against BP's red tape confronting small businesses seeking compensation for losses that ABC's David Muir told us about on Tuesday. "Some business have been asked to file 1,700 pages of documents before they can get a check." Cobiella reported that the state of Alabama is developing a one page application form that it wants BP to accept. Admiral Thad Allen of the Coast Guard is on the case too, asking by letter "who is getting paid and how quickly."
BP’S VETO NBC again used that wheel of correspondents--from Kerry Sanders to Anne Thompson to Mark Potter to Tom Costello on Capitol Hill--to kick off its newscast, the wheel that Tyndall Report admired last week. Costello covered Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's testimony on the size of the leak--12K barrels a day or 25K? "Still not clear," was how he put it. CBS' Sharyl Attkisson, rightly, congratulated her own network for using the Freedom of Information Act to push for an accurate measurement of the size of the leak. It was a FOIA request that delivered the first live videostream of the seabed gusher: "BP is still holding on to a lot of archived video as well as a log showing exactly what it is they do have." Because of BP's footdragging "the official answer to how big the leak is keeps getting put off," Attkisson charged.
As for that undersea plume, Attkisson was contemptuous of the corporation: BP "appears to be in a perpetual state of denial. They insist all the oil is on the top." She discovered a proposal five weeks ago to use sonar from USNavy undersea buoys to track the plume to give early warning to coastal communities. The Coast Guard rejected the scheme because it was vetoed by BP: "The spill is being totally funded by BP," read a USCG memo, "and anything that gets executed must go through them."
PRIMARIES WON BY MONEY, POWERBROKERS--NOT INSURGENTS Anchor Diane Sawyer's trip to Los Angeles for ABC allowed her to file an in person follow-up to Tuesday's primary elections. She sat down with Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for Governor of California and former incumbent, who matches up against Meg Whitman, former boss of eBay. Brown had little to suggest about how to handle the state's $20bn fiscal deficit--cutting his own and others' perks might be a start--but he was less vague about lashing into his November opponent. He likened Whitman's spending of $80m of her own money to get her message out to the "Ministry of Information in a totalitarian country…You can dominate the airwaves, radio and television and in the mail, just by buying it; not just for a few weeks but for months on end."
As for the other primary results, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell was in Little Rock to cover the "biggest surprise" of the night, as incumbent Blanche Lincoln won renomination for the Democratic line for the Senate from Arkansas. Despite Lincoln's survival, ABC's Jonathan Karl generalized that "it was another good day for insurgent candidates." Karl further contradicted his point about insurgents by pointing to the impact of a pair of powerhouse endorsements from party leaders as decisive: Palin Power in South Carolina and a Clinton Clincher in Arkansas.
According to Karl, even the victory by Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle in the race for the Republican line in the Nevada Senate race was no grass roots success. "Her campaign was going nowhere until big money conservative groups jumped into the race," he commented, pointing to the inside-the-Beltway think tank Club For Growth.
WEAPONIZING OR MERELY ENRICHING? What is the status of Iran's nuclear program? ABC and NBC both had their White House correspondent file on a new round of United Nations sanctions against Teheran approved by the Security Council. By a 12-2 vote, some sales of heavy weapons will be banned; cargo inspections will be more rigorous; and banking transfers will be limited. NBC's Chuck Todd reported that Iran is being accused by the White House of the "continued pursuit of nuclear weapons." In introducing Jake Tapper's report on ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer did not go to far as to allege that weapons were involved, just that Iran's program is "nuclear." Tapper did not characterize the program in any way. All he did was quote Barack Obama's generalization that "a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is in nobody's interest." CBS did not mention the sanctions, even in passing.
NATALEE IS A MORNING HOLDOVER Both Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer were toiling away in the morning news timeslot five years ago when teenage tourist Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba and Joran van der Sloot became a household world--at least among viewers of Good Morning America and Today. So it is no surprise that ABC and CBS, where Sawyer and Couric now anchor, should cover van der Sloot's arrest on their nightly newscasts. NBC Nightly News decided this week to treat the tabloid curiosity with the disdain it deserves.
ABC's Linsey Davis has filed once, on van der Sloot's reported confession in a murder case in Peru, in which he is said to have killed a 21-year-old woman after she tried to find out information about him and Holloway on his laptop computer. CBS' Elaine Quijano has filed twice, once on the reported confession and now on a bungled FBI sting in which van der Sloot was apparently paid $15K by the FBI as a downpayment for supposedly leading Holloway's mother to her daughter's dead body. van der Sloot apparently used the FBI's funds to fly to Peru, where the second woman was found dead.
CBS' Quijano also covered van der Sloot's arrest last week--and, to be fair, NBC did have Michelle Kosinski file a brief stand-up from Peru at that time, so its hands are not totally clean.
WILLIAMS WARMS UP HIS VUVUZELA Ian Williams landed the dream assignment from NBC. He filed from Pretoria as USA prepares to take on England in the World Cup. The USA squad, with 17 out of 23 players in professional European football leagues, has a chance, Williams claimed, of emulating their 1950 forebears. It was 60 years ago that USA beat England 1-0, an upset that sticks in England's craw like "a raspberry seed in a wisdom tooth." That's the bon mot of Walter Bahr, the giantkillers' captain.
