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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM APRIL 30, 2013
The respite from the domination of the news agenda by the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombs lasted just one day. Boston was back as Story of the Day, selected as their lead by both ABC and CBS. CBS' in-house ex-cop John Miller landed a television version of the scoop that the Boston Globe's Eric Moskowitz won by newspaper: a sitdown with "Danny," the pseudonym for the 26-year-old motorist whose Mercedes SUV was carjacked by the fugitive Brothers Tsarnaev shortly after their faces appeared on FBI Wanted posters. The day's other major news was made by a Barack Obama press conference. NBC led with the President's answer to a CBS question on the still-open detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.
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BOSTON RETURNS, BEATING OUT THE PRESIDENT’S PRESSER The respite from the domination of the news agenda by the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombs lasted just one day. Boston was back as Story of the Day, selected as their lead by both ABC and CBS. CBS' in-house ex-cop John Miller landed a television version of the scoop that the Boston Globe's Eric Moskowitz won by newspaper: a sitdown with "Danny," the pseudonym for the 26-year-old motorist whose Mercedes SUV was carjacked by the fugitive Brothers Tsarnaev shortly after their faces appeared on FBI Wanted posters. The day's other major news was made by a Barack Obama press conference. NBC led with the President's answer to a CBS question on the still-open detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.
The "Danny" interview by CBS' Miller had little new information. It was newsworthy because the story was being told directly by a blacked-out face, albeit in an anonymous voice-altered first person, rather than indirectly, through the retelling of the journalist Moskowitz, that ABC's Linsey Davis brought us on Friday. As for the rest of the Boston coverage, NBC's Pete Williams brought us the bureaucratic response inside-the-Beltway as intelligence agencies double-check their early warning systems; ABC's Brian Ross reiterated the possible link in Dagestan between the late Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a fellow boxer, the Canadian William Plotnikov, that he mentioned on Monday.
This is how Barack Obama's press conference made news:
CBS' Bill Plante covered the President's response to his own question about the hundred hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay and NBC's Andrea Mitchell used that soundbite as the hook for an examination of the military crackdown and medical force-feeding there. About time too: in the previous three years, the three nightly newscasts between them had filed only a puny five packages on that quagmire in Cuba.
ABC's White House correspondent Jonathan Karl covered the President's sarcastic response to his own question about a lack of clout on Capitol Hill: "Put it that way, Jonathan, and maybe I should just pack up and go home. Goll-ee!" Karl tied that quip into a package with an Obama soundbite on Syria.
Syria was the topic that NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd picked up on. As he did last Friday, Todd noted how cautious, caveat-filled and conditional were the President's comments about a military response by the United States to the possible use of chemical weapons by the embattled Baath regime in Damascus.
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS It was not only CBS' John Miller who won airtime for his interview gets. ABC bagged a pair. Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos showcased his Exclusive sitdown with Monday's athlete in the spotlight, the uncloseted Jason Collins. And anchor Diane Sawyer filed part two of her promotion for her primetime special A Murder. A Mystery, which is launching the book tour for Waiting to be Heard by Amanda Knox, the Seattle co-ed who insists she was wrongly convicted of murder by a court in Italy. Monday, the tearful Knox told Sawyer how horrible it is for people to call her a devilish killer; now more tears, as Knox describes how horrible it is to be incarcerated.
As for Knox being sex crazed, she told Sawyer that the entire body count of men she had ever had intercourse with, before she went to prison, was just seven.
In economic news, ABC's Rebecca Jarvis and CBS' Carter Evans both picked up on improvements in the residential real estate market. NBC's John Yang looked at signs of revival in Detroit, a beat that his network has monitored more diligently than its rivals for three years now. Yang gave free publicity to Stik.com, Detroit Electric cars, and Shinola wristwatches, hi-tech start-up firms in the Motor City.
Listen to anchor Diane Sawyer's intro to Rebecca Jarvis' report on ABC. Sawyer asks whether the fact that prices are rising means that now is the best time to buy. Surely she means the best time to sell. Buy low -- Sell high.
You will not learn anything about the public policy issues at stake in Nancy Cordes' report on CBS on the special election in South Carolina's First Congressional District. You will learn that one candidate is famous for the Appalachian Trail and the other for her funny brother. But you knew that already.
Where's the W, doc? Last Friday, CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook told us about laboratory mice making progress in diabetes research, without giving us the W -- where the lab is. Now he tells us about a bioengineering laboratory that has grown a toddler's windpipe for transplant out of stem cells, but not its location.
The trendy new ingredient being added to processed foods is caffeine, creating the so-called energy niche. NBC's Tom Costello and ABC's David Kerley covered the concern at the Food & Drug Administration about children getting jolted. Watch out for caffeine popcorn, caffeine chewing gum, caffeine potato chips, caffeine candy, caffeine cookies.
Monday, Mount Everest made news via ABC's John Donvan with his report on climbers feuding with sherpas. Now, CBS offers a softer tone with Chip Get Off My Lawn Reid's feature on Jim Whittaker, who scaled the peak 50 years ago. Can you believe how cliched Reid's question is, about kids these days?
NBC's Ron Allen did not take sides about the $10m decision facing Atlanta's historic Friendship Baptist Church, the landmark site for worship by Christian slaves, and by Morhouse and Spelman students. But he surely did not present the National Football League's Falcons in a dignified light.
There are plenty of questions that could be asked about the venal incentives for law enforcement that are built into the forfeiture provisions of the War on Drugs. ABC's Pierre Thomas was not moved to ask one of them, filing a gee-whiz publicity stunt for the US Marshals' auction of the ill-gotten luxuries they had seized from the Lifestyles of the Rich & Infamous. "Love this car!"
The "Danny" interview by CBS' Miller had little new information. It was newsworthy because the story was being told directly by a blacked-out face, albeit in an anonymous voice-altered first person, rather than indirectly, through the retelling of the journalist Moskowitz, that ABC's Linsey Davis brought us on Friday. As for the rest of the Boston coverage, NBC's Pete Williams brought us the bureaucratic response inside-the-Beltway as intelligence agencies double-check their early warning systems; ABC's Brian Ross reiterated the possible link in Dagestan between the late Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a fellow boxer, the Canadian William Plotnikov, that he mentioned on Monday.
This is how Barack Obama's press conference made news:
CBS' Bill Plante covered the President's response to his own question about the hundred hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay and NBC's Andrea Mitchell used that soundbite as the hook for an examination of the military crackdown and medical force-feeding there. About time too: in the previous three years, the three nightly newscasts between them had filed only a puny five packages on that quagmire in Cuba.
ABC's White House correspondent Jonathan Karl covered the President's sarcastic response to his own question about a lack of clout on Capitol Hill: "Put it that way, Jonathan, and maybe I should just pack up and go home. Goll-ee!" Karl tied that quip into a package with an Obama soundbite on Syria.
Syria was the topic that NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd picked up on. As he did last Friday, Todd noted how cautious, caveat-filled and conditional were the President's comments about a military response by the United States to the possible use of chemical weapons by the embattled Baath regime in Damascus.
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS It was not only CBS' John Miller who won airtime for his interview gets. ABC bagged a pair. Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos showcased his Exclusive sitdown with Monday's athlete in the spotlight, the uncloseted Jason Collins. And anchor Diane Sawyer filed part two of her promotion for her primetime special A Murder. A Mystery, which is launching the book tour for Waiting to be Heard by Amanda Knox, the Seattle co-ed who insists she was wrongly convicted of murder by a court in Italy. Monday, the tearful Knox told Sawyer how horrible it is for people to call her a devilish killer; now more tears, as Knox describes how horrible it is to be incarcerated.
As for Knox being sex crazed, she told Sawyer that the entire body count of men she had ever had intercourse with, before she went to prison, was just seven.
In economic news, ABC's Rebecca Jarvis and CBS' Carter Evans both picked up on improvements in the residential real estate market. NBC's John Yang looked at signs of revival in Detroit, a beat that his network has monitored more diligently than its rivals for three years now. Yang gave free publicity to Stik.com, Detroit Electric cars, and Shinola wristwatches, hi-tech start-up firms in the Motor City.
Listen to anchor Diane Sawyer's intro to Rebecca Jarvis' report on ABC. Sawyer asks whether the fact that prices are rising means that now is the best time to buy. Surely she means the best time to sell. Buy low -- Sell high.
You will not learn anything about the public policy issues at stake in Nancy Cordes' report on CBS on the special election in South Carolina's First Congressional District. You will learn that one candidate is famous for the Appalachian Trail and the other for her funny brother. But you knew that already.
Where's the W, doc? Last Friday, CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook told us about laboratory mice making progress in diabetes research, without giving us the W -- where the lab is. Now he tells us about a bioengineering laboratory that has grown a toddler's windpipe for transplant out of stem cells, but not its location.
The trendy new ingredient being added to processed foods is caffeine, creating the so-called energy niche. NBC's Tom Costello and ABC's David Kerley covered the concern at the Food & Drug Administration about children getting jolted. Watch out for caffeine popcorn, caffeine chewing gum, caffeine potato chips, caffeine candy, caffeine cookies.
Monday, Mount Everest made news via ABC's John Donvan with his report on climbers feuding with sherpas. Now, CBS offers a softer tone with Chip Get Off My Lawn Reid's feature on Jim Whittaker, who scaled the peak 50 years ago. Can you believe how cliched Reid's question is, about kids these days?
NBC's Ron Allen did not take sides about the $10m decision facing Atlanta's historic Friendship Baptist Church, the landmark site for worship by Christian slaves, and by Morhouse and Spelman students. But he surely did not present the National Football League's Falcons in a dignified light.
There are plenty of questions that could be asked about the venal incentives for law enforcement that are built into the forfeiture provisions of the War on Drugs. ABC's Pierre Thomas was not moved to ask one of them, filing a gee-whiz publicity stunt for the US Marshals' auction of the ill-gotten luxuries they had seized from the Lifestyles of the Rich & Infamous. "Love this car!"
