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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JANUARY 28, 2013
The bipartisan proposal by a group of senators to break the gridlock over immigration policy was Story of the Day. CBS' Nancy Cordes and NBC's Kelly O'Donnell both covered the announcement from Capitol Hill, with CBS choosing Cordes' package as its lead. ABC gave the story to Cecilia Vega in Los Angeles, where she sat down with an undocumented Peruvian mother and daughter, now glimpsing at last the possible prospect of legal papers. NBC's lead was Saturday night's horrendous nightclub fire in Santa Maria, the Brazilian college town. ABC chose the Boy Scouts of America, which is about to welcome gay members and leaders -- or, at least, to delegate its ban on them to local groups rather than have it enshrined as national policy.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JANUARY 28, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
IMMIGRATION TAKEN SERIOUSLY BY CBS AND THE SENATE The bipartisan proposal by a group of senators to break the gridlock over immigration policy was Story of the Day. CBS' Nancy Cordes and NBC's Kelly O'Donnell both covered the announcement from Capitol Hill, with CBS choosing Cordes' package as its lead. ABC gave the story to Cecilia Vega in Los Angeles, where she sat down with an undocumented Peruvian mother and daughter, now glimpsing at last the possible prospect of legal papers. NBC's lead was Saturday night's horrendous nightclub fire in Santa Maria, the Brazilian college town. ABC chose the Boy Scouts of America, which is about to welcome gay members and leaders -- or, at least, to delegate its ban on them to local groups rather than have it enshrined as national policy.
It is no surprise that CBS should choose immigration as its lead. Over the past couple of years it has covered the controversy as heavily as ABC and NBC combined. John Blackstone filed a follow-up from Los Angeles on so-called maternity tourism. Package trips are organized from China for pregnant women so that they can give birth here: the newborn becomes a citizen of the United States; and the birth is not counted against the People's Republic's one child policy, so it can have siblings. Blackstone is friendlier than his colleague Byron Pitts had been in his notorious anchor baby reporting five years ago.
Check out Chuck Todd's follow-up from the White House to O'Donnell's report from the Senate. Anchor Brian Williams sets Todd up with a question that completely contradicted Todd's reporting. Poor Chuck, recovering from a cold, has to smile and agree, before tying himself in knots in order to say what he means.
MONDAY’S MUSINGS The Brazilian nightclub fire was so awful that both NBC and ABC made the unusual decision to dispatch a reporter to the scene. ABC's Matt Gutman traveled from Miami, NBC's Keir Simmons from London. CBS passed on the expense, conducting an interview with Simon Romero of The New York Times instead.
CBS also decided not to assign a correspondent to gay boy scouts, mentioning it in passing instead. NBC claimed that its Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams had broken the story, but decided not to lead with it. ABC's lead, by David Muir, included hat tips to The Ellen DeGeneres Show and to glaad.org.
CBS Sports has the rights to broadcast the NFL Super Bowl this weekend, which is being played in New Orleans. The network was admirably circumspect in its cross-promotion when it aired Mark Strassmann's feature on the slow pace of rebuilding after the floods of Hurricane Katrina. However discreet, I wager that Strassmann's will not be the last story with a Big Easy dateline on CBS before the game is played.
There is something about wired education that appeals to NBC. Kerry Sanders' Making a Difference feature in praise of Estella's Brilliant Bus, the traveling Florida classroom, follows Lester Holt in South Carolina, Ron Mott in Arkansas and Kevin Tibbles in Colorado.
All three in-house physicians were called in. As usual ABC did not report onthe breast cancer research that both Dr Nancy on NBC and Dr Jon on CBS covered: ABC has covered the disease less than half as much as either of its rivals over the past couple of years. ABC's Dr Richard, instead, used clips from his network's The View to share about the chicken pox, the childhood illness afflicting his colleague Barbara Walters, at the age of 83.
Speaking of age, the breast cancer research that NBC and CBS covered concerned a study of surgical treatments in women aged 50 years and over. So what on earth did NBC's Snyderman think she was doing when she decided to illustrate the story with a 40-year-old patient?
David Wright, on ABC, may be cute, but he is no Colin Firth. He is certainly no Lawrence Olivier. As his sardonic anchor Diane Sawyer commented as he finished his Regency-era fantasy as Mr Darcy: "Come back to earth, David."
It is no surprise that CBS should choose immigration as its lead. Over the past couple of years it has covered the controversy as heavily as ABC and NBC combined. John Blackstone filed a follow-up from Los Angeles on so-called maternity tourism. Package trips are organized from China for pregnant women so that they can give birth here: the newborn becomes a citizen of the United States; and the birth is not counted against the People's Republic's one child policy, so it can have siblings. Blackstone is friendlier than his colleague Byron Pitts had been in his notorious anchor baby reporting five years ago.
Check out Chuck Todd's follow-up from the White House to O'Donnell's report from the Senate. Anchor Brian Williams sets Todd up with a question that completely contradicted Todd's reporting. Poor Chuck, recovering from a cold, has to smile and agree, before tying himself in knots in order to say what he means.
MONDAY’S MUSINGS The Brazilian nightclub fire was so awful that both NBC and ABC made the unusual decision to dispatch a reporter to the scene. ABC's Matt Gutman traveled from Miami, NBC's Keir Simmons from London. CBS passed on the expense, conducting an interview with Simon Romero of The New York Times instead.
CBS also decided not to assign a correspondent to gay boy scouts, mentioning it in passing instead. NBC claimed that its Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams had broken the story, but decided not to lead with it. ABC's lead, by David Muir, included hat tips to The Ellen DeGeneres Show and to glaad.org.
CBS Sports has the rights to broadcast the NFL Super Bowl this weekend, which is being played in New Orleans. The network was admirably circumspect in its cross-promotion when it aired Mark Strassmann's feature on the slow pace of rebuilding after the floods of Hurricane Katrina. However discreet, I wager that Strassmann's will not be the last story with a Big Easy dateline on CBS before the game is played.
There is something about wired education that appeals to NBC. Kerry Sanders' Making a Difference feature in praise of Estella's Brilliant Bus, the traveling Florida classroom, follows Lester Holt in South Carolina, Ron Mott in Arkansas and Kevin Tibbles in Colorado.
All three in-house physicians were called in. As usual ABC did not report onthe breast cancer research that both Dr Nancy on NBC and Dr Jon on CBS covered: ABC has covered the disease less than half as much as either of its rivals over the past couple of years. ABC's Dr Richard, instead, used clips from his network's The View to share about the chicken pox, the childhood illness afflicting his colleague Barbara Walters, at the age of 83.
Speaking of age, the breast cancer research that NBC and CBS covered concerned a study of surgical treatments in women aged 50 years and over. So what on earth did NBC's Snyderman think she was doing when she decided to illustrate the story with a 40-year-old patient?
David Wright, on ABC, may be cute, but he is no Colin Firth. He is certainly no Lawrence Olivier. As his sardonic anchor Diane Sawyer commented as he finished his Regency-era fantasy as Mr Darcy: "Come back to earth, David."
