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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 22, 2013
The aftermath of last week's bombing of the Boston Marathon was Story of the Day again. CBS and NBC both led with the filing of federal charges against 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his hospital room, accusing him of setting off the explosions at the race's finish line last week with his dead brother Tamerlan. NBC's Pete Williams and CBS' Bob Orr summarized the highlights of the prosecutor's affidavit from their DC bureaus. ABC had Dan Harris file from the front of the hospital itself, even though its lead happened to originate with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police instead. The Mounties notwithstanding, continuing coverage of last week's megastory still hogged the day's agenda, accounting for 62% of the three-network newshole.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR APRIL 22, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
YOUTH IN HOSPITAL CHARGED AS BOSTON BOMBER The aftermath of last week's bombing of the Boston Marathon was Story of the Day again. CBS and NBC both led with the filing of federal charges against 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his hospital room, accusing him of setting off the explosions at the race's finish line last week with his dead brother Tamerlan. NBC's Pete Williams and CBS' Bob Orr summarized the highlights of the prosecutor's affidavit from their DC bureaus. ABC had Dan Harris file from the front of the hospital itself, even though its lead happened to originate with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police instead. The Mounties notwithstanding, continuing coverage of last week's megastory still hogged the day's agenda, accounting for 62% of the three-network newshole.
Boston's mix of mourning and recovery was rendered by NBC's Katy Tur and CBS' Elaine Quijano: the afternoon's memorial silence exactly one week later was followed by the reopening of Boylston Street to the public.
The personality of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in his Cambridge home was scrutinized: CBS anchor Scott Pelley aired clips from his 60 Minutes sitdown with Al Ammon, Tsarnaev's neighbor, recounting their disputations over theology and imperialism; ABC's Brian Ross told us about Tamerlan's Rhode Island wife, converting from Christianity to Islam, changing her name from Katherine to Karima. Ross also told us that three Cambridge men, including Tamerlan's roommate, had been found brutally murdered, covered in marijuana and cash.
Brother Tamerlan had visited his parents in Dagestan on the Caspian Sea for six months last year. NBC's Adrienne Mong enjoyed the rare experience of filing a nightly news package with a Makhachkala dateline. CBS' Charlie d'Agata also looked into the trip: his reporting, from the far-less-exotic bureau in Moscow, found a disavowal of the Brothers Tsarnaev's alleged actions by local Islamist radicals, who style themselves Caucasus Emirate Dagestan. As for ABC, reporter Kirit Radia also found himself on the streets of Makhachkala, but he found too little for his own package, and his soundbite was folded into Brian Ross' report.
Rounding out the Boston survey, all three newscasts closed with a vignette of recovery and rehabilitation. CBS' Dan Dahler brought us Steve Byrne, deafened in one ear and riddled with shrapnel, who was a guest of the Red Sox at Fenway Park. NBC's Anne Thompson introduced us to a new pair of fast friends, Ron Brassard, aged 51, and Rob Wheeler, aged 23: Rob was the just-finished marathoner who tore of his shirt to serve as a tourniquet for Ron's blasted foot. On ABC, we met Adrianne Haslet-Davis, the teacher of ballroom dancing at Arthur Murray, who will now have to cha-cha on one foot. Rio Benitez' feature was marred by his inability to resist the urge to pander to his anchor.
Did you know that Diane Sawyer, too, once met an amputee, one who runs legless down a beach in her bikini, one who has nothing whatsoever to do with Boston?
MONDAY’S MUSINGS ABC's Pierre Thomas darkly told us that it had been Osama bin Laden's ambition to sabotage a passenger train inside the United States when he reported on the arrest of a pair of unidentified alleged derailment plotters. Only two problems: the theoretical derailment was targeted for the undesired side of the border, in Ontario; and prosecutors assured us that the suspected plot was not operational.
Spring floods are rising in the Mississippi River basin. CBS' Dean Reynolds watched the Illinois River in Spring Bay; ABC's Alex Perez saw sandbagging along the Missouri River in Clarksville.
NBC anchor Brian Williams wanted us to catch up on all the news we had missed last week because of that saturation coverage of the Boston bombings. He reminded us how quickly his network forgot about North Korea even after its drumbeat of headlines. He mentioned that the fertilizer explosion, the gun control debate, and the ricin-laced letters had all been overlooked, when in fact they were not.
Williams was correct to state that last week's bombings in Baghdad were more lethal than those in Boston by an order of magnitude. And he was correct to state that the nightly newscasts paid them absolutely no mind.
Boston's mix of mourning and recovery was rendered by NBC's Katy Tur and CBS' Elaine Quijano: the afternoon's memorial silence exactly one week later was followed by the reopening of Boylston Street to the public.
The personality of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in his Cambridge home was scrutinized: CBS anchor Scott Pelley aired clips from his 60 Minutes sitdown with Al Ammon, Tsarnaev's neighbor, recounting their disputations over theology and imperialism; ABC's Brian Ross told us about Tamerlan's Rhode Island wife, converting from Christianity to Islam, changing her name from Katherine to Karima. Ross also told us that three Cambridge men, including Tamerlan's roommate, had been found brutally murdered, covered in marijuana and cash.
Brother Tamerlan had visited his parents in Dagestan on the Caspian Sea for six months last year. NBC's Adrienne Mong enjoyed the rare experience of filing a nightly news package with a Makhachkala dateline. CBS' Charlie d'Agata also looked into the trip: his reporting, from the far-less-exotic bureau in Moscow, found a disavowal of the Brothers Tsarnaev's alleged actions by local Islamist radicals, who style themselves Caucasus Emirate Dagestan. As for ABC, reporter Kirit Radia also found himself on the streets of Makhachkala, but he found too little for his own package, and his soundbite was folded into Brian Ross' report.
Rounding out the Boston survey, all three newscasts closed with a vignette of recovery and rehabilitation. CBS' Dan Dahler brought us Steve Byrne, deafened in one ear and riddled with shrapnel, who was a guest of the Red Sox at Fenway Park. NBC's Anne Thompson introduced us to a new pair of fast friends, Ron Brassard, aged 51, and Rob Wheeler, aged 23: Rob was the just-finished marathoner who tore of his shirt to serve as a tourniquet for Ron's blasted foot. On ABC, we met Adrianne Haslet-Davis, the teacher of ballroom dancing at Arthur Murray, who will now have to cha-cha on one foot. Rio Benitez' feature was marred by his inability to resist the urge to pander to his anchor.
Did you know that Diane Sawyer, too, once met an amputee, one who runs legless down a beach in her bikini, one who has nothing whatsoever to do with Boston?
MONDAY’S MUSINGS ABC's Pierre Thomas darkly told us that it had been Osama bin Laden's ambition to sabotage a passenger train inside the United States when he reported on the arrest of a pair of unidentified alleged derailment plotters. Only two problems: the theoretical derailment was targeted for the undesired side of the border, in Ontario; and prosecutors assured us that the suspected plot was not operational.
Spring floods are rising in the Mississippi River basin. CBS' Dean Reynolds watched the Illinois River in Spring Bay; ABC's Alex Perez saw sandbagging along the Missouri River in Clarksville.
NBC anchor Brian Williams wanted us to catch up on all the news we had missed last week because of that saturation coverage of the Boston bombings. He reminded us how quickly his network forgot about North Korea even after its drumbeat of headlines. He mentioned that the fertilizer explosion, the gun control debate, and the ricin-laced letters had all been overlooked, when in fact they were not.
Williams was correct to state that last week's bombings in Baghdad were more lethal than those in Boston by an order of magnitude. And he was correct to state that the nightly newscasts paid them absolutely no mind.
