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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAY 24, 2013
The collapse of a section of the 1155-foot-long Skagit River highway bridge between Seattle and Vancouver should have been Story of the Day. It was the lead item on all three newscasts, after an oversized tractor-trailer truck wiped out part of its outmoded 1950s-era design. Shades of the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007! Except it wasn't. Only two cars plummeted into the Skagit and all three of the people in them survived; back in 2007 the I-35 collapse killed 13. CBS did not even send its own correspondent to the scene, relying instead on KIRO-TV, its local affiliate. On the eve of a long holiday weekend, with all three anchors leaving early (substitutes were David Muir at ABC, Ann Curry at NBC, and Jeff Glor at CBS), there was not enough hard news from the bridge to exceed the continuing volume of human-interest from the Oklahoma tornado. So the feature-heavy aftermath of the Moore twister was Story of the Day for the fifth straight day, giving it a clean sweep of the week.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR MAY 24, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
BRIDGE COLLAPSE NO BIGGIE: 3 WET, ALL SURVIVED The collapse of a section of the 1155-foot-long Skagit River highway bridge between Seattle and Vancouver should have been Story of the Day. It was the lead item on all three newscasts, after an oversized tractor-trailer truck wiped out part of its outmoded 1950s-era design. Shades of the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007! Except it wasn't. Only two cars plummeted into the Skagit and all three of the people in them survived; back in 2007 the I-35 collapse killed 13. CBS did not even send its own correspondent to the scene, relying instead on KIRO-TV, its local affiliate. On the eve of a long holiday weekend, with all three anchors leaving early (substitutes were David Muir at ABC, Ann Curry at NBC, and Jeff Glor at CBS), there was not enough hard news from the bridge to exceed the continuing volume of human-interest from the Oklahoma tornado. So the feature-heavy aftermath of the Moore twister was Story of the Day for the fifth straight day, giving it a clean sweep of the week.
That is not to say the Skagit story did not have its appeal. The cool-under-pressure of 20-year-old Bryce Kenning, one of the drenched motorists, won him a soundbite from both ABC's Neal Karlinsky and KIRO-TV's Henry Rosoff on CBS. The other wet motorist, Dan Sligh, was quoted by ABC's Karlinsky and NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin, although Karlinsky included the better detail, about the shoulder dislocation. Karlinsky had his network's in-house computer animators working overtime: Virtual View imagined both Kenning's nosedive and the tractor-trailer's vandalism.
Commenting on Tuesday's saturation coverage, I speculated that it might have been the prospects of a Newtown-sized tragedy at the two destroyed elementary schools that drove Moore to maximum levels. In retrospect it was an over-reaction -- yet even for their end-of-the week features, the networks could not shake that schoolchildren angle.
NBC's Ann Curry closed with saved toddlers at a daycare center. Her colleague Kate Snow sat down with the staff at Plaza Towers Elementary School for a preview of her primetime Rock Center segment. ABC's substitute anchor David Muir decided to praise Moore's teachers as his network's Persons of the Week, allowing him to recycle the Exclusive video of Briarwood Elementary that he obtained from schoolma'am Robin Dziedzic on Wednesday. Muir came oh-so-close to spelling it out that he had traveled to Moore expecting a greater toll of dead children: he called its absence "a mystery, a miracle."
For CBS' closing On The Road segment, Steve Hartman caught up with the siblings of the Brown family, Caleb, Colby and Courtney, the same Courtney covered by CBS' Norah O'Donnell on Tuesday. Guess what? The Browns' dog's name starts with a "C" too. Hartman relied on the cheapest of tricks, waiting to introduce us to Charlie to make sure his report had a happy ending.
Alone CBS' Mark Strassmann came up with tornado human-interest that concerned adults -- although even Strassmann was family-oriented.
FRIDAY’S FINDINGS Wherein Bob Orr of CBS explains that when you are placed in the Terrorist Screening Center's database of 520,000 names, called its "watchlist," you are not under surveillance. That is right: being watched means not being surveilled.
NBC's White House correspondent Kristen Welker subscribed to lazy inside-the-Beltway thinking when she lumped together that trifecta of stories -- the IRS Tea Party, the AP-DoJ, the Benghazi Consulate -- as "roiling Washington." There was no reason why the pandemic of military rapes under Barack Obama's commandership-in-chief should not qualify as a fourth element of this congeries. But no. When the President denounced sexual violence in uniform at his commencement address at the Naval Academy, Welker contrasted that scandal to the other three controversies, rather than equating it with them.
The other two White House correspondents covered Obama's Annapolis address: CBS' Major Garrett in a full report, ABC's Jonathan Karl in a brief mention. ABC has always paid less attention to military rape than the other two newscasts. Earlier this week, NBC slapped an Exclusive label on Maria Shriver's sitdown with a trio of female legislators, determined to change the Pentagon's procedures.
It is time for plenty of 50th anniversary histories looking back at the climax to the Civil Rights movement. CBS' Bill Plante files one on Sarah Collins Rudolph, who was blinded as a girl 50 years ago in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed her sister Addie Mae. Of course, CBS aired the profile. In the past three years, of all of the 50-years-on Civil Rights packages on the network nightly newscasts, 14 of the 20 have been filed by CBS.
Thursday, ABC's Steve Osunsami told us about a China Airlines cargo jet with debris falling off its wing. Nobody was harmed. Earlier this month, ABC's David Kerley told us about Scandinavian Airlines jet clipping wings on a Newark Airport runway. Nobody was harmed. Now, ABC's Nick Schifrin tells about a British Airways jet whose engine catches fire. Nobody was harmed. That's all right then.
You could tell from a hint of giddiness in story selection that the Memorial Day weekend was at hand. Both ABC's Ginger Zee and the Weather Channel's Chris Warren on NBC offered a weekend forecast for the getaway. ABC's David Kerley worried about toddler safety at the swimming pool on Wednesday; now his colleague Amy Robach fretted about kiddie rides at the fun fare. CBS sent Michelle Miller down to the Jersey Shore to check on boardwalk renovations post Sandy.
A woman! Filing a Superstorm Sandy follow-up! Check this playlist of Sandy clean-up stories since the New Year and you will find two astonishing characteristics: first, the number of ABC packages (1 out of 23); second, the number of packages filed by a man (3 out of 23).
If he did not happen to be a billionaire and Sandy-related philanthropist (backing the Robin Hood Foundation), his asinine, sexist ramblings would have no news value whatsoever. Yet, Paul Tudor Jones happens to be both rich and civic, so NBC's Andrea Mitchell offered a hat tip to Washington Post for his observations about the relative pleasures of breast feeding and financial speculation. Still, Mitchell's outrage had a tired quality, so her report degenerated into mere cross-promotion for other NBC News outlets -- MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNBC, and Today -- plus token publicity to female executives who have no need of same: Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg, of Yahoo! and Facebook respectively.
In March, ABC's David Kerley tried to add some pizzazz to a vacuous airline travel story by inserting an oh-so-tenuously-related Hollywood clip from Catch Me If You Can. Last week, ABC's Lama Hasan tarted up a mundane jewelry heist story with red-carpet glamour from the Cannes Film Festival. So how does their colleague David Wright look forward to Virgin Galactic's space tourism venture? By telling us that Leonardo DiCaprio will be a passenger (allowing for a CMiYC clip, plus one from The Great Gatsby) and showing us scenes from the amfAR charity fundraiser, where the seat next to the star was auctioned off. Where? At the Cannes Film Festival, naturally.
That is not to say the Skagit story did not have its appeal. The cool-under-pressure of 20-year-old Bryce Kenning, one of the drenched motorists, won him a soundbite from both ABC's Neal Karlinsky and KIRO-TV's Henry Rosoff on CBS. The other wet motorist, Dan Sligh, was quoted by ABC's Karlinsky and NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin, although Karlinsky included the better detail, about the shoulder dislocation. Karlinsky had his network's in-house computer animators working overtime: Virtual View imagined both Kenning's nosedive and the tractor-trailer's vandalism.
Commenting on Tuesday's saturation coverage, I speculated that it might have been the prospects of a Newtown-sized tragedy at the two destroyed elementary schools that drove Moore to maximum levels. In retrospect it was an over-reaction -- yet even for their end-of-the week features, the networks could not shake that schoolchildren angle.
NBC's Ann Curry closed with saved toddlers at a daycare center. Her colleague Kate Snow sat down with the staff at Plaza Towers Elementary School for a preview of her primetime Rock Center segment. ABC's substitute anchor David Muir decided to praise Moore's teachers as his network's Persons of the Week, allowing him to recycle the Exclusive video of Briarwood Elementary that he obtained from schoolma'am Robin Dziedzic on Wednesday. Muir came oh-so-close to spelling it out that he had traveled to Moore expecting a greater toll of dead children: he called its absence "a mystery, a miracle."
For CBS' closing On The Road segment, Steve Hartman caught up with the siblings of the Brown family, Caleb, Colby and Courtney, the same Courtney covered by CBS' Norah O'Donnell on Tuesday. Guess what? The Browns' dog's name starts with a "C" too. Hartman relied on the cheapest of tricks, waiting to introduce us to Charlie to make sure his report had a happy ending.
Alone CBS' Mark Strassmann came up with tornado human-interest that concerned adults -- although even Strassmann was family-oriented.
FRIDAY’S FINDINGS Wherein Bob Orr of CBS explains that when you are placed in the Terrorist Screening Center's database of 520,000 names, called its "watchlist," you are not under surveillance. That is right: being watched means not being surveilled.
NBC's White House correspondent Kristen Welker subscribed to lazy inside-the-Beltway thinking when she lumped together that trifecta of stories -- the IRS Tea Party, the AP-DoJ, the Benghazi Consulate -- as "roiling Washington." There was no reason why the pandemic of military rapes under Barack Obama's commandership-in-chief should not qualify as a fourth element of this congeries. But no. When the President denounced sexual violence in uniform at his commencement address at the Naval Academy, Welker contrasted that scandal to the other three controversies, rather than equating it with them.
The other two White House correspondents covered Obama's Annapolis address: CBS' Major Garrett in a full report, ABC's Jonathan Karl in a brief mention. ABC has always paid less attention to military rape than the other two newscasts. Earlier this week, NBC slapped an Exclusive label on Maria Shriver's sitdown with a trio of female legislators, determined to change the Pentagon's procedures.
It is time for plenty of 50th anniversary histories looking back at the climax to the Civil Rights movement. CBS' Bill Plante files one on Sarah Collins Rudolph, who was blinded as a girl 50 years ago in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed her sister Addie Mae. Of course, CBS aired the profile. In the past three years, of all of the 50-years-on Civil Rights packages on the network nightly newscasts, 14 of the 20 have been filed by CBS.
Thursday, ABC's Steve Osunsami told us about a China Airlines cargo jet with debris falling off its wing. Nobody was harmed. Earlier this month, ABC's David Kerley told us about Scandinavian Airlines jet clipping wings on a Newark Airport runway. Nobody was harmed. Now, ABC's Nick Schifrin tells about a British Airways jet whose engine catches fire. Nobody was harmed. That's all right then.
You could tell from a hint of giddiness in story selection that the Memorial Day weekend was at hand. Both ABC's Ginger Zee and the Weather Channel's Chris Warren on NBC offered a weekend forecast for the getaway. ABC's David Kerley worried about toddler safety at the swimming pool on Wednesday; now his colleague Amy Robach fretted about kiddie rides at the fun fare. CBS sent Michelle Miller down to the Jersey Shore to check on boardwalk renovations post Sandy.
A woman! Filing a Superstorm Sandy follow-up! Check this playlist of Sandy clean-up stories since the New Year and you will find two astonishing characteristics: first, the number of ABC packages (1 out of 23); second, the number of packages filed by a man (3 out of 23).
If he did not happen to be a billionaire and Sandy-related philanthropist (backing the Robin Hood Foundation), his asinine, sexist ramblings would have no news value whatsoever. Yet, Paul Tudor Jones happens to be both rich and civic, so NBC's Andrea Mitchell offered a hat tip to Washington Post for his observations about the relative pleasures of breast feeding and financial speculation. Still, Mitchell's outrage had a tired quality, so her report degenerated into mere cross-promotion for other NBC News outlets -- MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNBC, and Today -- plus token publicity to female executives who have no need of same: Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg, of Yahoo! and Facebook respectively.
In March, ABC's David Kerley tried to add some pizzazz to a vacuous airline travel story by inserting an oh-so-tenuously-related Hollywood clip from Catch Me If You Can. Last week, ABC's Lama Hasan tarted up a mundane jewelry heist story with red-carpet glamour from the Cannes Film Festival. So how does their colleague David Wright look forward to Virgin Galactic's space tourism venture? By telling us that Leonardo DiCaprio will be a passenger (allowing for a CMiYC clip, plus one from The Great Gatsby) and showing us scenes from the amfAR charity fundraiser, where the seat next to the star was auctioned off. Where? At the Cannes Film Festival, naturally.
