 |           |
TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARCH 01, 2013
If it had not been for Pope Benedict, the weekending headlines would have been the climax of a day-by-day countdown to the dreaded sequester. But the Vatican has topped the agenda most of the week. The implementation of $85bn in automatic federal spending cuts was, indeed, the lead item on all three newscasts and Story of the Day -- but the expected build-up of pressure on politicians to arrive at an alternative compromise had not been exerted via news coverage. Only twice previously in the entire month of February (this Tuesday and the Tuesday before) had the looming sequester also qualified as Story of the Day.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MARCH 01, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
AUTOMATIC SPENDING CUTS TURN OUT TO BE NO APOCALYPSE If it had not been for Pope Benedict, the weekending headlines would have been the climax of a day-by-day countdown to the dreaded sequester. But the Vatican has topped the agenda most of the week. The implementation of $85bn in automatic federal spending cuts was, indeed, the lead item on all three newscasts and Story of the Day -- but the expected build-up of pressure on politicians to arrive at an alternative compromise had not been exerted via news coverage. Only twice previously in the entire month of February (this Tuesday and the Tuesday before) had the looming sequester also qualified as Story of the Day.
As it was, all three newscasts led from the White House where Barack Obama struck a surprisingly reassuring tone about that automatic ax: its effect would be neither apocalyptic nor sudden. ABC relied on Jonathan Karl alone for its coverage. NBC had David Gregory, anchor of Meet the Press, follow Chuck Todd's lead report: Gregory introduced reassuring soundbites from his Sunday interview with Speaker John Boehner that there would be no total shutdown of the federal government at the end of the month. CBS, as it has all month long, covered the budget fight in most detail: Major Garrett from the White House; Nancy Cordes from the corridors of the Capitol; and anchor Scott Pelley, who edited together previous soundbites from both President and Speaker.
FRIDAY’S FINDINGS Now we are in the second decade of C21st, the Supreme Court has decided to join, on time-delay at least, the first half of C20th. Radio! NBC's Pete Williams played the audiotape from Wednesday's Voting Rights Act hearing, the one in which Justice Antonin Scalia speculated that the renewal of that legislation amounted to a "perpetuation of racial entitlement." Neither CBS nor ABC played the audio. ABC has not mentioned the case all week.
Both ABC and NBC had fun with foreign bętes noires. In Boston, NBC's Ron Mott had Joe, the Kennedy scion, justify his praise for Hugo Chavez for his subsidized CITGO exports of home heating oil for poor families in the northeast. At the State Department, ABC's Martha Raddatz hinted that pin-stripers might take Dennis Rodman's debriefing telephone call on what it feels like to get stinking drunk with Kim Jong Un. Raddatz could not resist the delivery style of North Korean news anchors, accompanied by blaring trumpets.
After detailed coverage earlier in the year of the street violence in Chicago, all three newscasts should have followed up with February's improved homicide statistics. CBS' John Miller did, profiling the policing efforts of Superintendent Garry McCarthy. ABC's Alex Perez did, profiling the community activism of Father Michael Pfleger. NBC passed.
Both ABC's Matt Gutman and NBC's Gabe Guttierrez gave us a brief geology primer after a Florida man fell out of bed to his death in the middle of the night. Sinkholes are caused by erosion from subterranean rivers flowing through limestone caverns.
On Tuesday I noted that ABC is the newscast that showcases sharks. Well, Mark Strassmann on CBS now sets out to contradict me. Did you know what is the color of blood in sea water? Watch Strassmann's story on West Palm Beach biologists dental-flossing sets of jaws to find out.
Last week's headliner was the topic of Amy Robach's hourlong primetime documentary on ABC, The Fast Times of Oscar Pistorius. Robach aired a preview, including a replica of the legless sprinter's bedroom, built in order to reenact his account of the night he shot his girlfriend. Michael Sokolove, the magazine writer for The New York Times, who was quoted last week by ABC's Bazi Kanani and NBC's Michelle Kosinski about Pistorius' gun-loving adrenaline, appears again.
As for the three newscasts' weekending closing features…
"Get in there and learn, baby, 'cos you ain't gonna learn in that pine box," were the words of wisdom from 89-year-old Ed Bray for Steve Hartman in CBS' On the Road series.
NBC's Kate Snow tipped her hat, in passing, to Lady GaGa and Taylor Swift and Adele, while plugging the vocal stylings of Willy Mason and the retro vinyl press of Nashville's United Records.
I did not understand why it is better for working women to Lean In than to Lean Out -- yet Diane Sawyer has a track record of admiration for the worldviews of Facebook's bosses. So Sawyer recycled clips from a previous sitdown that aired last May and designated the inward-leaning author and social-networking executive Sheryl Sandberg as ABC's Person of the Week.
As it was, all three newscasts led from the White House where Barack Obama struck a surprisingly reassuring tone about that automatic ax: its effect would be neither apocalyptic nor sudden. ABC relied on Jonathan Karl alone for its coverage. NBC had David Gregory, anchor of Meet the Press, follow Chuck Todd's lead report: Gregory introduced reassuring soundbites from his Sunday interview with Speaker John Boehner that there would be no total shutdown of the federal government at the end of the month. CBS, as it has all month long, covered the budget fight in most detail: Major Garrett from the White House; Nancy Cordes from the corridors of the Capitol; and anchor Scott Pelley, who edited together previous soundbites from both President and Speaker.
FRIDAY’S FINDINGS Now we are in the second decade of C21st, the Supreme Court has decided to join, on time-delay at least, the first half of C20th. Radio! NBC's Pete Williams played the audiotape from Wednesday's Voting Rights Act hearing, the one in which Justice Antonin Scalia speculated that the renewal of that legislation amounted to a "perpetuation of racial entitlement." Neither CBS nor ABC played the audio. ABC has not mentioned the case all week.
Both ABC and NBC had fun with foreign bętes noires. In Boston, NBC's Ron Mott had Joe, the Kennedy scion, justify his praise for Hugo Chavez for his subsidized CITGO exports of home heating oil for poor families in the northeast. At the State Department, ABC's Martha Raddatz hinted that pin-stripers might take Dennis Rodman's debriefing telephone call on what it feels like to get stinking drunk with Kim Jong Un. Raddatz could not resist the delivery style of North Korean news anchors, accompanied by blaring trumpets.
After detailed coverage earlier in the year of the street violence in Chicago, all three newscasts should have followed up with February's improved homicide statistics. CBS' John Miller did, profiling the policing efforts of Superintendent Garry McCarthy. ABC's Alex Perez did, profiling the community activism of Father Michael Pfleger. NBC passed.
Both ABC's Matt Gutman and NBC's Gabe Guttierrez gave us a brief geology primer after a Florida man fell out of bed to his death in the middle of the night. Sinkholes are caused by erosion from subterranean rivers flowing through limestone caverns.
On Tuesday I noted that ABC is the newscast that showcases sharks. Well, Mark Strassmann on CBS now sets out to contradict me. Did you know what is the color of blood in sea water? Watch Strassmann's story on West Palm Beach biologists dental-flossing sets of jaws to find out.
Last week's headliner was the topic of Amy Robach's hourlong primetime documentary on ABC, The Fast Times of Oscar Pistorius. Robach aired a preview, including a replica of the legless sprinter's bedroom, built in order to reenact his account of the night he shot his girlfriend. Michael Sokolove, the magazine writer for The New York Times, who was quoted last week by ABC's Bazi Kanani and NBC's Michelle Kosinski about Pistorius' gun-loving adrenaline, appears again.
As for the three newscasts' weekending closing features…
"Get in there and learn, baby, 'cos you ain't gonna learn in that pine box," were the words of wisdom from 89-year-old Ed Bray for Steve Hartman in CBS' On the Road series.
NBC's Kate Snow tipped her hat, in passing, to Lady GaGa and Taylor Swift and Adele, while plugging the vocal stylings of Willy Mason and the retro vinyl press of Nashville's United Records.
I did not understand why it is better for working women to Lean In than to Lean Out -- yet Diane Sawyer has a track record of admiration for the worldviews of Facebook's bosses. So Sawyer recycled clips from a previous sitdown that aired last May and designated the inward-leaning author and social-networking executive Sheryl Sandberg as ABC's Person of the Week.
