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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARCH 17, 2011
"The nuclear crisis in Japan has, in some ways, overshadowed the growing humanitarian disaster there," declared CBS anchor Katie Couric, introducing a report from Tokyo. She can strike that qualifier "in some ways." The distortion of the news agenda is complete, with 430,000 homeless, 10,000 missing believed dead, and remote coastal villages cut off from relief deliveries of food and water amid the winter snow. Perversely, all three networks decided to lead instead with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex (ABC from Washington DC, NBC and CBS from Tokyo), as their coverage of the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami continued. For the fourth straight day, ABC and NBC labeled their newscasts special editions--Disaster in the Pacific and Disaster in Japan respectively. Yet the saturation coverage is subsiding, down to 53% of the three-network newshole (32 min v 44, 50, 51, 50 for the four previous weekdays). Meanwhile the United Nations Security Council authorized its member states to go to take up arms against Moammar Khadafy's government of Libya. If the United States finds itself at war this will go down as the least newsworthy call to arms (5 mins) in its history.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MARCH 17, 2011: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CONFUSING A POSSIBLE CRISIS FOR A CURRENT DISASTER…BTW, IT’S WAR "The nuclear crisis in Japan has, in some ways, overshadowed the growing humanitarian disaster there," declared CBS anchor Katie Couric, introducing a report from Tokyo. She can strike that qualifier "in some ways." The distortion of the news agenda is complete, with 430,000 homeless, 10,000 missing believed dead, and remote coastal villages cut off from relief deliveries of food and water amid the winter snow. Perversely, all three networks decided to lead instead with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex (ABC from Washington DC, NBC and CBS from Tokyo), as their coverage of the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami continued. For the fourth straight day, ABC and NBC labeled their newscasts special editions--Disaster in the Pacific and Disaster in Japan respectively. Yet the saturation coverage is subsiding, down to 53% of the three-network newshole (32 min v 44, 50, 51, 50 for the four previous weekdays). Meanwhile the United Nations Security Council authorized its member states to go to take up arms against Moammar Khadafy's government of Libya. If the United States finds itself at war this will go down as the least newsworthy call to arms (5 mins) in its history.
THURSDAY THOUGHTS Anchor Diane Sawyer misintroduced ABC's Clarissa Ward as "traveling through the heart of the disaster." Not. Dateline Osaka
How disastrous are conditions inside Fukushima Daiichi? ABC's David Muir is convinced it is as catastrophic as Chernobyl
On CBS, Carnegie physicist-turned-talkinghead James Acton points to spent fuel, downplays meltdown risk
Cognitively dissonant, a trio of in-house physicians follow those scary headlines with radiation reassurance: CBS, ABC, NBC
CBS anchor Katie Couric ironically profiles Ritsuko Komaki: Hiroshima survivor, radiation oncologist, Fukushima worrier
Citydwellers may be anxious; the homeless in the countryside are desperate: NBC's Ann Curry; CBS' Lucy Craft
Here ABC anchor Diane Sawyer, properly, dwells on Japan's agonized elderly…here is her fluff about preschoolers-&-rainbows
As for Libya? War plans at the Pentagon from CBS' David Martin. War plans in Tripoli from NBC's Jim Maceda. No ABC reporter
THURSDAY THOUGHTS Anchor Diane Sawyer misintroduced ABC's Clarissa Ward as "traveling through the heart of the disaster." Not. Dateline Osaka
How disastrous are conditions inside Fukushima Daiichi? ABC's David Muir is convinced it is as catastrophic as Chernobyl
On CBS, Carnegie physicist-turned-talkinghead James Acton points to spent fuel, downplays meltdown risk
Cognitively dissonant, a trio of in-house physicians follow those scary headlines with radiation reassurance: CBS, ABC, NBC
CBS anchor Katie Couric ironically profiles Ritsuko Komaki: Hiroshima survivor, radiation oncologist, Fukushima worrier
Citydwellers may be anxious; the homeless in the countryside are desperate: NBC's Ann Curry; CBS' Lucy Craft
Here ABC anchor Diane Sawyer, properly, dwells on Japan's agonized elderly…here is her fluff about preschoolers-&-rainbows
As for Libya? War plans at the Pentagon from CBS' David Martin. War plans in Tripoli from NBC's Jim Maceda. No ABC reporter
