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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JANUARY 25, 2013
Stock market investments are on the verge of recovering all of the losses that they suffered since the fall of 2007. This near-milestone inspired three different packages on the three different newscasts. NBC's lead by John Yang focused on the prospects for the overall economy, specifically the real estate and employment sectors. ABC's David Muir looked at the straitened expectations of the babyboom generation as it heads for retirement. CBS sent Anthony Mason to Switzerland to hang out with plutocrats at the World Economic Forum in Davos: he led the newscast with a brief stand-up on the stock market, featuring the optimism of the CEOs of Merck and JP Morgan and Coca-Cola, before returning later with a sitdown with Bill Gates, the philanthropic billionaire. ABC's lead was filed by in-house physician Richard Besser on the stomach 'flu. Yet there was not a single story that was deemed newsworthy enough to attract coverage by a correspondent on more than one newscast. The ignominious Story of the Day, by default, was the cold winter weather.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JANUARY 25, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
WHAT A PATHETIC DAY OF NEWS Stock market investments are on the verge of recovering all of the losses that they suffered since the fall of 2007. This near-milestone inspired three different packages on the three different newscasts. NBC's lead by John Yang focused on the prospects for the overall economy, specifically the real estate and employment sectors. ABC's David Muir looked at the straitened expectations of the babyboom generation as it heads for retirement. CBS sent Anthony Mason to Switzerland to hang out with plutocrats at the World Economic Forum in Davos: he led the newscast with a brief stand-up on the stock market, featuring the optimism of the CEOs of Merck and JP Morgan and Coca-Cola, before returning later with a sitdown with Bill Gates, the philanthropic billionaire. ABC's lead was filed by in-house physician Richard Besser on the stomach 'flu. Yet there was not a single story that was deemed newsworthy enough to attract coverage by a correspondent on more than one newscast. The ignominious Story of the Day, by default, was the cold winter weather.
Steve Osunsami became the fourth reporter assigned by ABC to file a How Cold Is It? story in the five weekdays this week. NBC (two reports) and CBS (one) found the concept of cold weather in winter less newsworthy. After Sam Champion's frozen T-shirt and Gio Benitez' banana hammer and Alex Perez' frozen egg, Osunsami's failed apartment plumbing was ho-hum.
A more interesting weather story was filed from Salt Lake City by NBC's Miguel Almaguer. You might think that the voters of Utah, being true-red Republicans, might have no truck with environmental regulation. You might think that, being mostly Mormons, they would run no risk of cigarette-smoking-style lung problems. Almaguer corrected us. He showed us the atmospheric inversion that traps smog in the Salt Lake Valley. Breathing is like smoking a pack-a-day. The proposed solution? Restrictions on driving, free mass transit, and a ban on aerosols.
Check out XVIVO.net, a source of flashy medical video for ABC's Richard Besser. NBC's in-house physician Nancy Snyderman was more prosaic, less hi-tech. "Just wash your hands," she instructed, as if that was newsworthy.
FRIDAY’S FINDINGS When Andrea Mitchell aired a soundbite from Haley Barbour in her NBC report on possible changes in the Electoral College system, it marked the seventh time in the past seven weeks that she used a clip from her own MSNBC program, Andrea Mitchell Reports. I observe this not to criticize but to note a new concept in video newsgathering -- instead of venturing out into the field to collect video and then subsequently going on air to broadcast her results, the on-air live interviews at lunchtime become her newsgathering, which she later edits into her day-end packages.
Islamists may be able to kick the dancing star Tata Waletanna and bandleader Moussa Mega out of the city of Gao, but they cannot make the music stop. CBS' Elizabeth Palmer proves it.
Just like ABC's David Kerley did on Thursday, Pierre Thomas did on Friday. Both peppered their packages with real-life smash-and-grab crime footage, via retail security cameras. Kerley showed us pharmacies; Thomas' Investigation showed us gun shops. Thomas estimated that more than a quarter of a million firearms are stolen each year, about 10% from stores, about 90% in home burglaries. His anchor Diane Sawyer translated this statistic thus in her misleading introduction: "A huge percentage of the guns out on the street are stolen." Thomas was more circumspect: "many," he said.
Remember that this week started with Inauguration Day? ABC reminded us with Jason Wu, its Person of the Week, who designed the First Lady's red Inaugural Ball gown. Of the seven stories filed this week by ABC on the inauguration, Diane Sawyer told us about the gown, David Wright about Beyonce, Cecilia Vega about the First Family. Only one, by Jonathan Karl was about the politics of the President's speech.
NBC, with its Rockefeller Center location and its Today show plaza, likes to style itself as a Big Apple tourist destination in its own right -- check out this Erica Hill package last month. So NBC's love for Broadway comes as no surprise: it aired 12 of the 24 features on the Great White Way in our database. Kristen Dahlgren on The Phantom of the Opera is the latest entrant. Yet it is a surprise that ABC, with its Good Morning America studio right on Times Square, is not just as boosterish.
How pathetic was the day's news agenda? CBS cross-promoted two separate segments on Sunday's 60 Minutes: Steve Kroft on Barack Obama and Scott Pelley on Lance Armstrong. They even roped in Bob Schieffer to try to justify the decision to publicize Kroft's profile as newsworthy.
Steve Osunsami became the fourth reporter assigned by ABC to file a How Cold Is It? story in the five weekdays this week. NBC (two reports) and CBS (one) found the concept of cold weather in winter less newsworthy. After Sam Champion's frozen T-shirt and Gio Benitez' banana hammer and Alex Perez' frozen egg, Osunsami's failed apartment plumbing was ho-hum.
A more interesting weather story was filed from Salt Lake City by NBC's Miguel Almaguer. You might think that the voters of Utah, being true-red Republicans, might have no truck with environmental regulation. You might think that, being mostly Mormons, they would run no risk of cigarette-smoking-style lung problems. Almaguer corrected us. He showed us the atmospheric inversion that traps smog in the Salt Lake Valley. Breathing is like smoking a pack-a-day. The proposed solution? Restrictions on driving, free mass transit, and a ban on aerosols.
Check out XVIVO.net, a source of flashy medical video for ABC's Richard Besser. NBC's in-house physician Nancy Snyderman was more prosaic, less hi-tech. "Just wash your hands," she instructed, as if that was newsworthy.
FRIDAY’S FINDINGS When Andrea Mitchell aired a soundbite from Haley Barbour in her NBC report on possible changes in the Electoral College system, it marked the seventh time in the past seven weeks that she used a clip from her own MSNBC program, Andrea Mitchell Reports. I observe this not to criticize but to note a new concept in video newsgathering -- instead of venturing out into the field to collect video and then subsequently going on air to broadcast her results, the on-air live interviews at lunchtime become her newsgathering, which she later edits into her day-end packages.
Islamists may be able to kick the dancing star Tata Waletanna and bandleader Moussa Mega out of the city of Gao, but they cannot make the music stop. CBS' Elizabeth Palmer proves it.
Just like ABC's David Kerley did on Thursday, Pierre Thomas did on Friday. Both peppered their packages with real-life smash-and-grab crime footage, via retail security cameras. Kerley showed us pharmacies; Thomas' Investigation showed us gun shops. Thomas estimated that more than a quarter of a million firearms are stolen each year, about 10% from stores, about 90% in home burglaries. His anchor Diane Sawyer translated this statistic thus in her misleading introduction: "A huge percentage of the guns out on the street are stolen." Thomas was more circumspect: "many," he said.
Remember that this week started with Inauguration Day? ABC reminded us with Jason Wu, its Person of the Week, who designed the First Lady's red Inaugural Ball gown. Of the seven stories filed this week by ABC on the inauguration, Diane Sawyer told us about the gown, David Wright about Beyonce, Cecilia Vega about the First Family. Only one, by Jonathan Karl was about the politics of the President's speech.
NBC, with its Rockefeller Center location and its Today show plaza, likes to style itself as a Big Apple tourist destination in its own right -- check out this Erica Hill package last month. So NBC's love for Broadway comes as no surprise: it aired 12 of the 24 features on the Great White Way in our database. Kristen Dahlgren on The Phantom of the Opera is the latest entrant. Yet it is a surprise that ABC, with its Good Morning America studio right on Times Square, is not just as boosterish.
How pathetic was the day's news agenda? CBS cross-promoted two separate segments on Sunday's 60 Minutes: Steve Kroft on Barack Obama and Scott Pelley on Lance Armstrong. They even roped in Bob Schieffer to try to justify the decision to publicize Kroft's profile as newsworthy.
