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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARCH 20, 2013
For the second day in a row the Middle East was the source of the Story of the Day. Tuesday was the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War; Wednesday saw all three White House correspondents travel with Barack Obama to Jerusalem. NBC led with press-conference-hogging Chuck Todd on the President's meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. CBS, with substitute Bob Schieffer in the anchor chair, had Pentagon correspondent David Martin kick off on Syria, as a rocket attack in Aleppo may or may not have used chemical weapons. As for ABC, it chose a domestic crime for its lead: the murder -- possibly an assassination -- of the director of the Colorado prison system.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MARCH 20, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
BENJAMIN AND BARACK STAND SHOULDER-TO-SHOULDER For the second day in a row the Middle East was the source of the Story of the Day. Tuesday was the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War; Wednesday saw all three White House correspondents travel with Barack Obama to Jerusalem. NBC led with press-conference-hogging Chuck Todd on the President's meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. CBS, with substitute Bob Schieffer in the anchor chair, had Pentagon correspondent David Martin kick off on Syria, as a rocket attack in Aleppo may or may not have used chemical weapons. As for ABC, it chose a domestic crime for its lead: the murder -- possibly an assassination -- of the director of the Colorado prison system.
The main message of the Obama-Netanyahu press conference was to project a united front on their diplomacy towards Iran concerning its nuclear enrichment program. Chuck Todd filed for NBC, Major Garrett for CBS, and Jonathan Karl for ABC. Karl, yet again, relied on his network's Virtual View computer animation shop. Last Friday, VV animated an imaginary intercontinental ballistic missile war between the United States and North Korea; this time it visualized an antiseptic regional ballistic missile conflict between Iran and Israel.
NBC turned to Richard Engel for its follow-up to the press conference. He offered a vivid video travelogue of the new look for Israel's borders, a reaction to the Arab Spring. The Zionist state is walling itself off from its Moslem neighbors. Pick your state-of-siege metaphor: fortress or prison?
CBS' David Martin and ABC's Alex Marquardt both covered the speculation about the rocket attack in Syria. Marquardt made the point that it was a neighborhood controled by the regime's army that came under attack. Martin noted that there were no symptoms of either mustard gas or Sarin. He suggested a non-WMD tear-gas attack.
Later, Martin returned to conclude CBS' newscast with a tribute to the Semper Fi charity, which has disbursed $72m to disabled veterans of the Iraq War. Double amputee Eddie Wright accounted for the source of his anger, when he vents to his wife, as being "because my career got cut short." Wright appeared to use the term "career" as coded shorthand for "arms."
The shooting death of the prison boss at his home in the forest outside Colorado Springs was sinister enough to warrant coverage by a correspondent on all three newscasts. Only ABC had its own reporter, Clayton Sandell, on hand. NBC had Los-Angeles-based Kristen Dahlgren narrate the video remotely. CBS turned to Brian Maass of KCNC-TV, its Denver local affiliate, with its own correspondent Mark Strassmann filing a supporting package on Colorado's bereaved governor signing the state's new firearms regulations into law.
WEDNESDAY’S WORDS The sorry task of turning dry macro-economic statistics into video news is a cross Anthony Mason, in particular, has to bear. Of the 27 stories on the slow recovery from recession filed in the past year-or-so, almost half have had Mason's name on them. Here he tries again for CBS, at least allowing his newscast to catch up on the Cypriot banking crisis that, until now, only CNBC's Sue Herera had mentioned, on NBC.
Both NBC and ABC picked up on a workplace story from CVS Pharmacies that is surefire watercooler fodder. Is it acceptable for employers to add a surcharge to their workers' out-of-pocket health insurance contribution when those workers refuse to undergo annual physical check-ups for their weight and blood sugar? NBC's svelte Stephanie Gosk and ABC's properly-proportioned Steve Osunsami delivered the skinny.
The same two newscasts picked up on a survey by the Centers for Disease Control on autism. NBC's Robert Bazell reckoned that increasing numbers of children on the mild end of the spectrum are being diagnosed. ABC's in-house physician Richard Besser pointed to a Swedish study of the mutating genetic material inherited from those grandfathers who happened already to be elderly when the autistic children's parents were conceived.
A nightly newscast throwback, a onetime in-house physician on both NBC and CBS, has gone over to the other side: ABC's Bob Woodruff interviewed Dr Bob Arnot in his capacity as medical consultant for Monster energy drinks. Woodruff's story featured a TV doctors' duel, as Arnot was defending Monster for issuing a cease-and-desist order against a nutritionist, whose warning against hyper-caffeinated drinks is going to be publicized on The Dr Oz Show in daytime syndication.
It was not just Jonathan Karl on ABC who used computer animation. The graphics department at CBS was busy too, depicting how Joseph Barone was sucked into the mud beneath the streets of New York City for Jim Axelrod.
CBS did what it likes to do: introduce us to a memorable, telegenic individual to anecdotalize a general phenomenon. Meet Father Tim Kitzke, an overworked parish priest from Milwaukee, courtesy of Elaine Quijano.
The main message of the Obama-Netanyahu press conference was to project a united front on their diplomacy towards Iran concerning its nuclear enrichment program. Chuck Todd filed for NBC, Major Garrett for CBS, and Jonathan Karl for ABC. Karl, yet again, relied on his network's Virtual View computer animation shop. Last Friday, VV animated an imaginary intercontinental ballistic missile war between the United States and North Korea; this time it visualized an antiseptic regional ballistic missile conflict between Iran and Israel.
NBC turned to Richard Engel for its follow-up to the press conference. He offered a vivid video travelogue of the new look for Israel's borders, a reaction to the Arab Spring. The Zionist state is walling itself off from its Moslem neighbors. Pick your state-of-siege metaphor: fortress or prison?
CBS' David Martin and ABC's Alex Marquardt both covered the speculation about the rocket attack in Syria. Marquardt made the point that it was a neighborhood controled by the regime's army that came under attack. Martin noted that there were no symptoms of either mustard gas or Sarin. He suggested a non-WMD tear-gas attack.
Later, Martin returned to conclude CBS' newscast with a tribute to the Semper Fi charity, which has disbursed $72m to disabled veterans of the Iraq War. Double amputee Eddie Wright accounted for the source of his anger, when he vents to his wife, as being "because my career got cut short." Wright appeared to use the term "career" as coded shorthand for "arms."
The shooting death of the prison boss at his home in the forest outside Colorado Springs was sinister enough to warrant coverage by a correspondent on all three newscasts. Only ABC had its own reporter, Clayton Sandell, on hand. NBC had Los-Angeles-based Kristen Dahlgren narrate the video remotely. CBS turned to Brian Maass of KCNC-TV, its Denver local affiliate, with its own correspondent Mark Strassmann filing a supporting package on Colorado's bereaved governor signing the state's new firearms regulations into law.
WEDNESDAY’S WORDS The sorry task of turning dry macro-economic statistics into video news is a cross Anthony Mason, in particular, has to bear. Of the 27 stories on the slow recovery from recession filed in the past year-or-so, almost half have had Mason's name on them. Here he tries again for CBS, at least allowing his newscast to catch up on the Cypriot banking crisis that, until now, only CNBC's Sue Herera had mentioned, on NBC.
Both NBC and ABC picked up on a workplace story from CVS Pharmacies that is surefire watercooler fodder. Is it acceptable for employers to add a surcharge to their workers' out-of-pocket health insurance contribution when those workers refuse to undergo annual physical check-ups for their weight and blood sugar? NBC's svelte Stephanie Gosk and ABC's properly-proportioned Steve Osunsami delivered the skinny.
The same two newscasts picked up on a survey by the Centers for Disease Control on autism. NBC's Robert Bazell reckoned that increasing numbers of children on the mild end of the spectrum are being diagnosed. ABC's in-house physician Richard Besser pointed to a Swedish study of the mutating genetic material inherited from those grandfathers who happened already to be elderly when the autistic children's parents were conceived.
A nightly newscast throwback, a onetime in-house physician on both NBC and CBS, has gone over to the other side: ABC's Bob Woodruff interviewed Dr Bob Arnot in his capacity as medical consultant for Monster energy drinks. Woodruff's story featured a TV doctors' duel, as Arnot was defending Monster for issuing a cease-and-desist order against a nutritionist, whose warning against hyper-caffeinated drinks is going to be publicized on The Dr Oz Show in daytime syndication.
It was not just Jonathan Karl on ABC who used computer animation. The graphics department at CBS was busy too, depicting how Joseph Barone was sucked into the mud beneath the streets of New York City for Jim Axelrod.
CBS did what it likes to do: introduce us to a memorable, telegenic individual to anecdotalize a general phenomenon. Meet Father Tim Kitzke, an overworked parish priest from Milwaukee, courtesy of Elaine Quijano.
