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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM FEBRUARY 26, 2013
CBS anchor Scott Pelley made the trip to Washington. He sat down with Speaker John Boehner to talk sequester and so, for the first time since last Tuesday, the looming $85bn automatic cuts in annual federal government were Story of the Day. NBC, too, made the federal budget its lead item, as White House correspondent Chuck Todd presented his network's in-house polling on the negative knock-on effects on consumer confidence (NBC also happened to have Brian Williams anchor from Washington but, unlike CBS' Pelley, he offered no first-hand Beltway reporting). As for ABC, anchor David Muir, substituting for Diane Sawyer, chose a completely different topic for its lead: he had Alex Marquardt in Cairo narrate grisly video of a deflated hot air balloon plummeting 1,000 feet to earth over the tourist sites of Luxor: 19 were killed.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR FEBRUARY 26, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
TAKE YOUR PICK ON THE SEQUESTER DILEMMA CBS anchor Scott Pelley made the trip to Washington. He sat down with Speaker John Boehner to talk sequester and so, for the first time since last Tuesday, the looming $85bn automatic cuts in annual federal government were Story of the Day. NBC, too, made the federal budget its lead item, as White House correspondent Chuck Todd presented his network's in-house polling on the negative knock-on effects on consumer confidence (NBC also happened to have Brian Williams anchor from Washington but, unlike CBS' Pelley, he offered no first-hand Beltway reporting). As for ABC, anchor David Muir, substituting for Diane Sawyer, chose a completely different topic for its lead: he had Alex Marquardt in Cairo narrate grisly video of a deflated hot air balloon plummeting 1,000 feet to earth over the tourist sites of Luxor: 19 were killed.
The three network newscasts are developing radically different editorial positions with regard to the sequester:
CBS takes it most seriously, as evidenced by anchor Scott Pelley's personal intervention into the coverage, here and here. Its newscast has also taken time to particularize the various cuts that several nooks of the executive branch expect: Ben Tracy on USDA food inspectors, Wyatt Andrews on NIH biologists, David Martin on DoD civilian workers. Now comes Elaine Quijano on ICE detention facilities. Budget cuts mean that visaless immigrant inmates who happen to be non-criminals will be released from detention pending deportation. Yet when Speaker Boehner mischaracterized those very detainees as criminals, anchor Pelley failed to set him straight.
ABC's White House correspondent Jonathan Karl is less upset about the cuts. First (here and here) he could not describe cuts of less than 3% as a serious threat -- either to the level of federal services, or of general economic demand. Now, however, Karl does concede that "it is hard to disagree" with the argument that it is "stupid" to make the cuts automatic, rather than targeted.
Chuck Todd, NBC's man at the White House, is the most relaxed. His argument, first made in a stand-up here, now repeated in a fully-reported package, is that a continuing resolution to keep the government operating will be passed at the end of March, so it will be easy to make adjustments for any serious disruptions that the sequester might have caused at the month's beginning. "Feels a lot like political posturing," Todd shrugs.
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS The line-ups for the Conclave of Cardinals are still being set. Anne Thompson is already in place for NBC. ABC has now added Christiane Amanpour. CBS introduces its in-house consultant Delia Gallagher of Inside the Vatican magazine. Delia drops in just a little bit of Latin to flaunt her bona fides.
Not only did ABC lead its newscast with Alex Marquardt from Cairo and the hot air balloon disaster, it stayed in the Middle East for Bob Woodruff's nightmarish report from an abandoned Lebanese prison, now converted by the Save the Children charity into a heatless Syrian refugee camp. CBS closed with David Martin's reminder that he had an exclusive with Tony Mendez, the CIA spy, back in 1997, years before Argo was even a screenplay, let alone an Oscar-winner. ABC's Bil Weir publicized Argo last fall here, NBC's Andrea Mitchell here.
The Supreme Court beat was covered by both NBC and CBS. CBS' Jan Crawford filed a preview on the Voting Rights Act case; NBC's Pete Williams covered the hearings on collecting DNA from those arrested but not yet convicted, so still presumed innocent. Williams did that irritating thing of tarting up his report with a gratuitous clip of fictional footage. You can guess which network is the primetime home of Law & Order, can't you?
On the first anniversary of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, CBS did the right thing and assigned Mark Strassmann to look at the big picture. Are so-called Stand Your Ground self-defense laws making the world safer or more lethal?
Yet again, breast cancer is a story that interests NBC and does not register on ABC's agenda: this primer for thirtysomething women by in-house physician Nancy Snyderman is the eighth breast cancer story filed by NBC (CBS has filed five) since the last time ABC assigned a correspondent to the illness, back in December 2011.
Why was ABC's Nick Watt asked to report on the Coast Guard search for the missing yacht Charm Blow off Monterey Bay? No reason was the reason.
ABC loves sharks. Here are the nine scary shark stories in our database (seven filed by ABC). Here are the eight scientific shark stories (five filed by ABC): Linsey Davis has the latest, giving free publicity to Ocearch, Chris Fischer's great white GPS tracker.
For Black History Month, NBC's sibling Website thegrio.com lists its annual list of 100 Making History Today. Ron Allen gave the list a cross-promotional boost by profiling the South Side of Chicago's symphonic McGill Brothers: flautist Demarre and clarinetist Anthony. Whose is the coolest neighborhood they ever played in? Mr Rogers' that's whose.
Yahoo! is ABC News' digital partner. So when substitute anchor David Muir reported on CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to forbid the firm's workforce from telecommuting, he should have made mention of the corporate connection. There was none.
The three network newscasts are developing radically different editorial positions with regard to the sequester:
CBS takes it most seriously, as evidenced by anchor Scott Pelley's personal intervention into the coverage, here and here. Its newscast has also taken time to particularize the various cuts that several nooks of the executive branch expect: Ben Tracy on USDA food inspectors, Wyatt Andrews on NIH biologists, David Martin on DoD civilian workers. Now comes Elaine Quijano on ICE detention facilities. Budget cuts mean that visaless immigrant inmates who happen to be non-criminals will be released from detention pending deportation. Yet when Speaker Boehner mischaracterized those very detainees as criminals, anchor Pelley failed to set him straight.
ABC's White House correspondent Jonathan Karl is less upset about the cuts. First (here and here) he could not describe cuts of less than 3% as a serious threat -- either to the level of federal services, or of general economic demand. Now, however, Karl does concede that "it is hard to disagree" with the argument that it is "stupid" to make the cuts automatic, rather than targeted.
Chuck Todd, NBC's man at the White House, is the most relaxed. His argument, first made in a stand-up here, now repeated in a fully-reported package, is that a continuing resolution to keep the government operating will be passed at the end of March, so it will be easy to make adjustments for any serious disruptions that the sequester might have caused at the month's beginning. "Feels a lot like political posturing," Todd shrugs.
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS The line-ups for the Conclave of Cardinals are still being set. Anne Thompson is already in place for NBC. ABC has now added Christiane Amanpour. CBS introduces its in-house consultant Delia Gallagher of Inside the Vatican magazine. Delia drops in just a little bit of Latin to flaunt her bona fides.
Not only did ABC lead its newscast with Alex Marquardt from Cairo and the hot air balloon disaster, it stayed in the Middle East for Bob Woodruff's nightmarish report from an abandoned Lebanese prison, now converted by the Save the Children charity into a heatless Syrian refugee camp. CBS closed with David Martin's reminder that he had an exclusive with Tony Mendez, the CIA spy, back in 1997, years before Argo was even a screenplay, let alone an Oscar-winner. ABC's Bil Weir publicized Argo last fall here, NBC's Andrea Mitchell here.
The Supreme Court beat was covered by both NBC and CBS. CBS' Jan Crawford filed a preview on the Voting Rights Act case; NBC's Pete Williams covered the hearings on collecting DNA from those arrested but not yet convicted, so still presumed innocent. Williams did that irritating thing of tarting up his report with a gratuitous clip of fictional footage. You can guess which network is the primetime home of Law & Order, can't you?
On the first anniversary of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, CBS did the right thing and assigned Mark Strassmann to look at the big picture. Are so-called Stand Your Ground self-defense laws making the world safer or more lethal?
Yet again, breast cancer is a story that interests NBC and does not register on ABC's agenda: this primer for thirtysomething women by in-house physician Nancy Snyderman is the eighth breast cancer story filed by NBC (CBS has filed five) since the last time ABC assigned a correspondent to the illness, back in December 2011.
Why was ABC's Nick Watt asked to report on the Coast Guard search for the missing yacht Charm Blow off Monterey Bay? No reason was the reason.
ABC loves sharks. Here are the nine scary shark stories in our database (seven filed by ABC). Here are the eight scientific shark stories (five filed by ABC): Linsey Davis has the latest, giving free publicity to Ocearch, Chris Fischer's great white GPS tracker.
For Black History Month, NBC's sibling Website thegrio.com lists its annual list of 100 Making History Today. Ron Allen gave the list a cross-promotional boost by profiling the South Side of Chicago's symphonic McGill Brothers: flautist Demarre and clarinetist Anthony. Whose is the coolest neighborhood they ever played in? Mr Rogers' that's whose.
Yahoo! is ABC News' digital partner. So when substitute anchor David Muir reported on CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to forbid the firm's workforce from telecommuting, he should have made mention of the corporate connection. There was none.
