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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARCH 05, 2013
There was unusual unanimity among the three newscasts about the day's agenda. All three assigned a Chicago correspondent to the late-season snowstorm blanketing the midwest. All three assigned a correspondent from their DC bureau to cover the relaxation of the TSA's ban on airline passengers' pocket-knives. All three assigned a financial correspondent to the return of stock prices to pre-recession highs. All three assigned a diplomatic correspondent to Secretary of State John Kerry's travels to Qatar. And all three assigned a correspondent to the death of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, succumbing to cancer at age 58. Chavez was the lead on NBC; the stock exchange was the choice on ABC and CBS. Stocks were the Story of the Day.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MARCH 05, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
NETWORKS IN UNUSUAL LOCKSTEP -- LED BY STOX & HUGO There was unusual unanimity among the three newscasts about the day's agenda. All three assigned a Chicago correspondent to the late-season snowstorm blanketing the midwest. All three assigned a correspondent from their DC bureau to cover the relaxation of the TSA's ban on airline passengers' pocket-knives. All three assigned a financial correspondent to the return of stock prices to pre-recession highs. All three assigned a diplomatic correspondent to Secretary of State John Kerry's travels to Qatar. And all three assigned a correspondent to the death of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, succumbing to cancer at age 58. Chavez was the lead on NBC; the stock exchange was the choice on ABC and CBS. Stocks were the Story of the Day.
Both ABC and CBS filed a prepared obituary for President Chavez, a task given to Matt Gutman and Jim Axelrod respectively. Both featured the classic Chavez soundbite -- "You're a donkey, Mr Bush" -- with Gutman adding his bit at the General Assembly podium at the United Nations, when Chavez play-acted the stench of satanic sulfur that W had left behind the day before. ABC's obit included Chavez' one-on-one with Barbara Walters for 20/20. CBS, similarly, included his one-on-one with Steve Kroft for 60 Minutes: "…you are somewhat loco…" Kroft suggested.
NBC did not file an obit. Instead Andrea Mitchell used her State Department byline to summarize the current relations -- or lack of them -- between Venezuela and the United States. Margaret Brennan, Mitchell's counterpart at CBS, focused on her networks' foreign policy specialty, the insurgency in Syria. On ABC, Martha Raddatz surveyed North Korea and Iran and Syria (but not Venezuela) and came up with this blatantly misleading and astonishingly ahistorical conclusion: "The intractable threats facing America have never been more real."
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS All three stock market packages -- by ABC's Linzie Janis, NBC's Tom Costello, CBS' Anthony Mason -- raised the pertinent question: if stock prices have rebounded so completely since 2007, how come the labor market has not too? Easier asked than answered.
The pocket-knife rule was revised so that international airline travelers and domestic ones can fly by the same set of rules. NBC's Pete Williams told us that 35m Americans routinely carry pocket-knives; CBS' Bob Orr and ABC's David Kerley filed the other two reports.
The winter snow packages were interesting to see just how miserably cold the anchors in their cozy studios could make the reporters appear in the field. NBC's John Yang and CBS' Dean Reynolds did indeed look miserable. By contrast, ABC's Alex Perez was having fun with Tim the Snowplower, who was finally in the money.
Only NBC elaborated on Monday's lead story: the refusal of a nurse in Bakersfield to perform CPR first aid on an elderly woman who had collapsed at an independent living facility. In-house physician Nancy Snyderman filed an oblique follow-up on the contents of Do Not Resuscitate orders and the difference between nursing homes and assisted living and independent living. Dr Nancy's report suggested that the dead woman in Bakersfield had contemplated Do Not Resuscitate -- yet she did not address that question directly one way or the other. So we were left none the wiser as to whether or not the Bakersfield nurse is vindicated, and whether or not the EMS 911 dispatcher was bullying her on those audiotapes.
A couple of weeks ago I rapped ABC's Paula Faris for her Real Money report on reducing the cost of pharmaceuticals. It purported to be News You Can Use yet offered no generalizable application. Now Faris tells us that she heard that same complaint from many viewers. In response she turns to Doug Hirsch, who has a pharmacy price-comparison application at goodrx.com. His app found prices of generic Lipitor at neighborhood pharmacies that varied between $147 and $15 for the same prescription. That is no typo: between $147 and $15.
And three weeks ago, CBS' Dean Reynolds visited with Sheriff Thomas Dart of Cook County to publicize the overcrowding of his jail. Now CBS has John Miller to return to Sheriff Dart to get chilling video of his jailers restraining and forcibly medicating mentally-ill inmates. Miller delivered the horrible statistic that mental patients constitute 64% of the population of the nation's jails.
The visual arts -- classical and modern -- found a showcase on CBS. The modern saw John Blackstone marvel at Leo Villareal's LED installation on the Bay Bridge. The classical saw Allen Pizzey checking out the Conclave-ready Sistine Chapel with art historian Arnold Nesselrath, with Michelangelo's rendition of St Peter handing over the Papal keys, and a computer animation of the cardinals' voting procedure.
Yet again (see Manti Te'o), sports stories disregard the truth for the sake of mawkish inspiration. I am sorry but…
…it is inconceivable that the Los Angeles Dodgers offered a legitimate spring training tryout to Daniel Jacobs, as NBC's Miguel Almaguer implied.
…it is inconceivable that Alzheimer's Disease patient Pat Summitt is the author of the new memoir Sum It Up, as ABC's Robin Roberts claimed.
Both ABC and CBS filed a prepared obituary for President Chavez, a task given to Matt Gutman and Jim Axelrod respectively. Both featured the classic Chavez soundbite -- "You're a donkey, Mr Bush" -- with Gutman adding his bit at the General Assembly podium at the United Nations, when Chavez play-acted the stench of satanic sulfur that W had left behind the day before. ABC's obit included Chavez' one-on-one with Barbara Walters for 20/20. CBS, similarly, included his one-on-one with Steve Kroft for 60 Minutes: "…you are somewhat loco…" Kroft suggested.
NBC did not file an obit. Instead Andrea Mitchell used her State Department byline to summarize the current relations -- or lack of them -- between Venezuela and the United States. Margaret Brennan, Mitchell's counterpart at CBS, focused on her networks' foreign policy specialty, the insurgency in Syria. On ABC, Martha Raddatz surveyed North Korea and Iran and Syria (but not Venezuela) and came up with this blatantly misleading and astonishingly ahistorical conclusion: "The intractable threats facing America have never been more real."
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS All three stock market packages -- by ABC's Linzie Janis, NBC's Tom Costello, CBS' Anthony Mason -- raised the pertinent question: if stock prices have rebounded so completely since 2007, how come the labor market has not too? Easier asked than answered.
The pocket-knife rule was revised so that international airline travelers and domestic ones can fly by the same set of rules. NBC's Pete Williams told us that 35m Americans routinely carry pocket-knives; CBS' Bob Orr and ABC's David Kerley filed the other two reports.
The winter snow packages were interesting to see just how miserably cold the anchors in their cozy studios could make the reporters appear in the field. NBC's John Yang and CBS' Dean Reynolds did indeed look miserable. By contrast, ABC's Alex Perez was having fun with Tim the Snowplower, who was finally in the money.
Only NBC elaborated on Monday's lead story: the refusal of a nurse in Bakersfield to perform CPR first aid on an elderly woman who had collapsed at an independent living facility. In-house physician Nancy Snyderman filed an oblique follow-up on the contents of Do Not Resuscitate orders and the difference between nursing homes and assisted living and independent living. Dr Nancy's report suggested that the dead woman in Bakersfield had contemplated Do Not Resuscitate -- yet she did not address that question directly one way or the other. So we were left none the wiser as to whether or not the Bakersfield nurse is vindicated, and whether or not the EMS 911 dispatcher was bullying her on those audiotapes.
A couple of weeks ago I rapped ABC's Paula Faris for her Real Money report on reducing the cost of pharmaceuticals. It purported to be News You Can Use yet offered no generalizable application. Now Faris tells us that she heard that same complaint from many viewers. In response she turns to Doug Hirsch, who has a pharmacy price-comparison application at goodrx.com. His app found prices of generic Lipitor at neighborhood pharmacies that varied between $147 and $15 for the same prescription. That is no typo: between $147 and $15.
And three weeks ago, CBS' Dean Reynolds visited with Sheriff Thomas Dart of Cook County to publicize the overcrowding of his jail. Now CBS has John Miller to return to Sheriff Dart to get chilling video of his jailers restraining and forcibly medicating mentally-ill inmates. Miller delivered the horrible statistic that mental patients constitute 64% of the population of the nation's jails.
The visual arts -- classical and modern -- found a showcase on CBS. The modern saw John Blackstone marvel at Leo Villareal's LED installation on the Bay Bridge. The classical saw Allen Pizzey checking out the Conclave-ready Sistine Chapel with art historian Arnold Nesselrath, with Michelangelo's rendition of St Peter handing over the Papal keys, and a computer animation of the cardinals' voting procedure.
Yet again (see Manti Te'o), sports stories disregard the truth for the sake of mawkish inspiration. I am sorry but…
…it is inconceivable that the Los Angeles Dodgers offered a legitimate spring training tryout to Daniel Jacobs, as NBC's Miguel Almaguer implied.
…it is inconceivable that Alzheimer's Disease patient Pat Summitt is the author of the new memoir Sum It Up, as ABC's Robin Roberts claimed.
