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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JANUARY 24, 2013
The news agenda was a mass of confusion. The three network newscasts simply agreed to disagree about what was important. ABC decided to lead with Martha Raddatz and the nuclear threat from North Korea, a worry that neither of the other two networks found newsworthy. CBS' man at the White House, Major Garrett, focused on the nomination of a former federal prosecutor as chairwoman of the Securities & Exchange Commission, again, an appointment that neither of its rivals bothered to mention. NBC sent Andrea Mitchell from the State Department to Capitol Hill to cover the nomination of John Kerry for Secretary of State: CBS mentioned it in passing, ABC not at all. The Story of the Day turned out to be a follow-up on Wednesday's choice for lead by CBS and ABC -- this time NBC decided to lead with the opportunity for military women to fight on the front lines in combat.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JANUARY 24, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
CONFUSED NEWS AGENDA -- KIM JONG UN OR MARY JO WHITE? The news agenda was a mass of confusion. The three network newscasts simply agreed to disagree about what was important. ABC decided to lead with Martha Raddatz and the nuclear threat from North Korea, a worry that neither of the other two networks found newsworthy. CBS' man at the White House, Major Garrett, focused on the nomination of a former federal prosecutor as chairwoman of the Securities & Exchange Commission, again, an appointment that neither of its rivals bothered to mention. NBC sent Andrea Mitchell from the State Department to Capitol Hill to cover the nomination of John Kerry for Secretary of State: CBS mentioned it in passing, ABC not at all. The Story of the Day turned out to be a follow-up on Wednesday's choice for lead by CBS and ABC -- this time NBC decided to lead with the opportunity for military women to fight on the front lines in combat.
NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski filed the women-in-combat story with an excellent soundbite from Sgt Natasha Thompson at Fort Stewart: "I'm 11-Bravo. I'm a bang-bang." CBS did not follow up on Wednesday's coverage. ABC did -- but misleadingly so. To watch Cecilia Vega's coverage you would get the impression that being eligible for combat amounted to being as buff as a fully-fledged special-ops commando.
The only other story all day to warrant coverage by a reporter on more than one newscast was Sen Dianne Feinstein's proposal to reimpose the ban on assault weapons that had been in effect from 1994 through 2004. A pair of Capitol Hill correspondents -- NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and CBS' Nancy Cordes -- filed. It is not surprise that ABC gave Feinstein's bill a pass. ABC has covered the entire gun control debate least heavily since it reemerged in the wake of the Newtown grade school shooting six weeks ago.
Check out the advice from Vice President Joe Biden quoted by NBC's O'Donnell on how we should arm ourselves for an emergency.
THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS North Korea's nuclear threat was headlined as dangerous and new by ABC's Martha Raddatz. Listen to her actual details and it seems like neither.
Follow CBS' Elizabeth Palmer into the heartland of Mali. Watch the cardplayers, the donkey cart and the washerwomen of Diabaly. See Palmer hang out with hardcore Malian troops on their jeep.
Are the burning electrolytes in the lithium batteries of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner a matter of concern? Who could be better for Sharyl Attkisson to consult for CBS than a onetime batterymaker at Everyready?
The icicle pictures were surely eyecatching enough to draw attention to the frigid cold in Alex Perez' How Cold Is It? round-up on ABC. His frozen egg, however, with the pathetic yolk joke, had less of an impact than his colleague Gio Benitez' banana hammer on Wednesday.
NBC's Katy Tur, like CBS' Elaine Quijano yesterday, used the winter weather as a news-hook to file a Superstorm Sandy updater. For the record, that is now the 33rd straight report on NBC on Sandy to be assigned to a female correspondent.
Try as he might, NBC anchor Brian Williams could not make yet another Camelot memorabilia collection up for auction seem interesting. He even dragged in his MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews for a soundbite to argue for John F Kennedy's abiding appeal. But rather than bolstering the case, it just came off as a lame plug for Elusive Hero, Matthews' JFK bio.
Talking of cross-promotion…
…David Kerley on ABC slipped in a gratuitous plug for Intervention, the cable-TV reality show on A&E, in his round-up of addictions, overdoses and robberies associated with prescription Vicodin.
…Discovery had a stellar evening, landing a plug on ABC for the second time in three weeks. Earlier it was Sharyn Alfonsi for the nature documentary series Africa; now it is Bill Weir with big-lunged scuba-diving operatic soprano Emily Riedel in Discovery's reality series Bering Sea Gold.
…and CBS, which I swore yesterday hardly ever closes its newscast with an animal feature, proves me wrong, closing with animals two nights in a row. Yesterday, we saw Anna Werner's chimpanzees; now Michelle Miller's giant squid -- with eyes the size of your head -- caught by Discovery's marine documentarians for the series Curiosity.
…and ABC's Matt Gutman went back to the well one more time on the Manti Te'o story in order to promote katie, the syndicated daytime talkshow hosted by his colleague Katie Couric. This story grows more bizarre even as it grows less newsworthy. Gutman's new characters include Tessi Tolutau, a Polynesian beauty queen, and Ranaiha Tuisosopo, a Christian music video performer. The linebacker, Gutman told us, once had an eight-hour telephone conversation with the singer posing as a woman.
NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski filed the women-in-combat story with an excellent soundbite from Sgt Natasha Thompson at Fort Stewart: "I'm 11-Bravo. I'm a bang-bang." CBS did not follow up on Wednesday's coverage. ABC did -- but misleadingly so. To watch Cecilia Vega's coverage you would get the impression that being eligible for combat amounted to being as buff as a fully-fledged special-ops commando.
The only other story all day to warrant coverage by a reporter on more than one newscast was Sen Dianne Feinstein's proposal to reimpose the ban on assault weapons that had been in effect from 1994 through 2004. A pair of Capitol Hill correspondents -- NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and CBS' Nancy Cordes -- filed. It is not surprise that ABC gave Feinstein's bill a pass. ABC has covered the entire gun control debate least heavily since it reemerged in the wake of the Newtown grade school shooting six weeks ago.
Check out the advice from Vice President Joe Biden quoted by NBC's O'Donnell on how we should arm ourselves for an emergency.
THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS North Korea's nuclear threat was headlined as dangerous and new by ABC's Martha Raddatz. Listen to her actual details and it seems like neither.
Follow CBS' Elizabeth Palmer into the heartland of Mali. Watch the cardplayers, the donkey cart and the washerwomen of Diabaly. See Palmer hang out with hardcore Malian troops on their jeep.
Are the burning electrolytes in the lithium batteries of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner a matter of concern? Who could be better for Sharyl Attkisson to consult for CBS than a onetime batterymaker at Everyready?
The icicle pictures were surely eyecatching enough to draw attention to the frigid cold in Alex Perez' How Cold Is It? round-up on ABC. His frozen egg, however, with the pathetic yolk joke, had less of an impact than his colleague Gio Benitez' banana hammer on Wednesday.
NBC's Katy Tur, like CBS' Elaine Quijano yesterday, used the winter weather as a news-hook to file a Superstorm Sandy updater. For the record, that is now the 33rd straight report on NBC on Sandy to be assigned to a female correspondent.
Try as he might, NBC anchor Brian Williams could not make yet another Camelot memorabilia collection up for auction seem interesting. He even dragged in his MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews for a soundbite to argue for John F Kennedy's abiding appeal. But rather than bolstering the case, it just came off as a lame plug for Elusive Hero, Matthews' JFK bio.
Talking of cross-promotion…
…David Kerley on ABC slipped in a gratuitous plug for Intervention, the cable-TV reality show on A&E, in his round-up of addictions, overdoses and robberies associated with prescription Vicodin.
…Discovery had a stellar evening, landing a plug on ABC for the second time in three weeks. Earlier it was Sharyn Alfonsi for the nature documentary series Africa; now it is Bill Weir with big-lunged scuba-diving operatic soprano Emily Riedel in Discovery's reality series Bering Sea Gold.
…and CBS, which I swore yesterday hardly ever closes its newscast with an animal feature, proves me wrong, closing with animals two nights in a row. Yesterday, we saw Anna Werner's chimpanzees; now Michelle Miller's giant squid -- with eyes the size of your head -- caught by Discovery's marine documentarians for the series Curiosity.
…and ABC's Matt Gutman went back to the well one more time on the Manti Te'o story in order to promote katie, the syndicated daytime talkshow hosted by his colleague Katie Couric. This story grows more bizarre even as it grows less newsworthy. Gutman's new characters include Tessi Tolutau, a Polynesian beauty queen, and Ranaiha Tuisosopo, a Christian music video performer. The linebacker, Gutman told us, once had an eight-hour telephone conversation with the singer posing as a woman.
