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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JUNE 18, 2013
The National Security Agency was Story of the Day for the second day in a row, and for the seventh weekday out of the last nine. This time it was not Edward Snowden, the confessed leaker, making headlines, but Keith Alexander, the NSA's director. Last Wednesday when he testified before a Senate committee, Alexander did not elaborate when he testified that his spies had helped prevent dozens of terrorist events. Now, before a House panel, he specifies what he means by "dozens:" ten domestic attacks, and 40-or-so overseas. CBS estimated that the NSA's secret operations cost around $10bn annually. All three newscasts led with Alexander's testimony. ABC used George Stephanopoulos as its substitute anchor.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR JUNE 18, 2013: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
NSA SURVEILLANCE HELPED MAKE US SAFER TEN TIMES The National Security Agency was Story of the Day for the second day in a row, and for the seventh weekday out of the last nine. This time it was not Edward Snowden, the confessed leaker, making headlines, but Keith Alexander, the NSA's director. Last Wednesday when he testified before a Senate committee, Alexander did not elaborate when he testified that his spies had helped prevent dozens of terrorist events. Now, before a House panel, he specifies what he means by "dozens:" ten domestic attacks, and 40-or-so overseas. CBS estimated that the NSA's secret operations cost around $10bn annually. All three newscasts led with Alexander's testimony. ABC used George Stephanopoulos as its substitute anchor.
Among the terrorism that the NSA claimed credit for helping to prevent, there was Najibullah Zazi's scheme to blow up subway trains in New York City, David Headley's plan to attack a newspaper office in Copenhagen (CBS' John Miller provided details), a Yemeni-inspired tourist trip by Khalid Ouazzani from Kansas City in order to case the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 2008 (ABC's Gio Benitez filed a follow-up), and a plan to wire funds from San Diego to militias in Somalia. CBS' Miller reminded us that, before the Danish plot, Headley (aka Daoud Gilani) had helped plan the Pakistani-based raid by Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrillas on luxury hotels in Mumbai. The NSA's eavesdropping had been unable to prevent that attack, which killed about 120 people in November 2008.
The Alexander hearings were covered by ABC's Brian Ross, CBS' Bob Orr, and NBC's Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell, as she likes to do, used her own lunchtime Reports program on MSNBC to gather soundbites, and used two of them in her coverage. A major piece of television newsgathering was Charlie Rose's (see UPDATE) interview on NSA surveillance and on the civil war in Syria with President Barack Obama. Both ABC's Ross and NBC's Mitchell aired Obama soundbites, giving credit to Rose on PBS. Rose is also an anchor in the mornings for CBS, and that network aired almost five minutes of excerpts from the PBS interview in its newscast.
The NSA hearings eclipsed dual landmarks in Afghanistan. On the military side, leadership of NATO operations was handed over to national commanders. On the diplomatic side, the State Department announced that it was holding direct talks with the Taliban at its newly-opened offices in Qatar. In return, the Taliban pledged to discontinue all military operations outside the borders of Afghanistan proper. NBC had Dustin Golestani cover both developments from Kabul. ABC's Muhammad Lila observed the handover of power on the unit level in the eastern village of Paktika. The diplomatic demarche was covered in brief stand-ups by a pair of White House correspondents traveling with the President in Berlin: CBS' Major Garrett and ABC's Jonathan Karl (at the tail of the Lila videostream).
UPDATE: the excerpt includes the portion of the interview in which the President called the FISA court "transparent" -- a claim that Rose did not challenge at the time, but that Politifact subsequently rated a Pants on Fire lie.
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS None of the networks had a correspondent in Brazil to cover the street protests in a dozen cities over economic inequality and political corruption. Yet, with the World Cup and the Olympic Games looming, at least NBC found them newsworthy enough for Mark Potter to narrate the video with a voiceover. Potter found Brazil quite Mediterranean, putting it in the same category as Egypt, Greece and Turkey.
Back in March, CBS' Dean Reynolds filed stunning visuals on the deck of the Stewart J Cort, the iron ore freighter. Similar inspiration struck Anne Thompson at NBC. How tiny she seems on the decks of the Interlake Steamship Company's Mesabi Miner. The water is so low on the Saint Mary's River that the massive ship has a mere nine inches of clearance -- too little precipitation, too much evaporation. NBC's Thompson called Superior the largest lake in the world. Yet when it comes to size, compared with Lake Baikal, Superior is Inferior.
The gun control debate has been CBS' specialty ever since the massacre at the elementary school in Connecticut six months ago. In that period, CBS has aired more reports on the topic than NBC and ABC put together. The latest comes from Barry Petersen in Denver, where John Morse, the President of Colorado's State Senate, faces a recall petition from self-styled pro-choice activists. The "choice" in this case, Laura Carno explains, is whether or not to arm oneself.
Raytheon, the hi-tech Pentagon contractor, gets a free plug from Anthony Mason on CBS for its sponsorship of science education in middle schools: see its virtual reality 3-D cave. The USNavy SEALs get a plug from Jim Miklaszewski, NBC's man at the Pentagon, who runs video of their muddy, manly, training sessions in order to speculate about how many women would make the commando grade.
The prospects of fuel tank fires in rear-end collisions in Sports Utility Vehicles built by Jeep has exercised Lisa Stark at ABC for three years now. Her network's computer animators imagined a Virtual View of the danger. Chrysler has now relented, and agreed to a recall of the vehicles in order to add a trailer hitch as protection. Stark was skeptical that the hitch would do the trick.
Only yesterday, I ticked off examples of ABC's peculiar habit of covering alarming events in airline travel that turn out to be inconsequential. The distraught passenger who was subdued, the emergency exit door that was not opened, the engine fire that was extinguished safely, the debris that fell off a wing harming nobody. Now Clayton Sandell tells us about the scare at Denver International Airport that was relieved when a tornado passed without incident.
ABC gave us an airline twofer, with its latest installment of travelers' tips. Here is Linsey Davis on the vast variability of fares; here is Paula Faris on flexible bargain hunting; here is Brian Ross on the lookout for TSA left luggage thieves; here is Matt Gutman on wearing seatbelts. Now Linsey Davis again, consulting AirFareWatchDog.com on how to protect checked baggage.
By coincidence, both ABC and NBC closed the newscast with non-medicinal therapies for hospital patients. NBC's Stephanie Gosk brought us the Faithful Friends of the University of Maryland Medical Center: a patient's pet is allowed bedside visits -- as long as it is a dog or cat; hamsters need not apply. ABC's in-house physician Richard Besser brought us the lullabies of Rebecca Loveszy at New York Presbyterian's neo-natal unit -- music really does soothe the savage preemie's breast.
Among the terrorism that the NSA claimed credit for helping to prevent, there was Najibullah Zazi's scheme to blow up subway trains in New York City, David Headley's plan to attack a newspaper office in Copenhagen (CBS' John Miller provided details), a Yemeni-inspired tourist trip by Khalid Ouazzani from Kansas City in order to case the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 2008 (ABC's Gio Benitez filed a follow-up), and a plan to wire funds from San Diego to militias in Somalia. CBS' Miller reminded us that, before the Danish plot, Headley (aka Daoud Gilani) had helped plan the Pakistani-based raid by Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrillas on luxury hotels in Mumbai. The NSA's eavesdropping had been unable to prevent that attack, which killed about 120 people in November 2008.
The Alexander hearings were covered by ABC's Brian Ross, CBS' Bob Orr, and NBC's Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell, as she likes to do, used her own lunchtime Reports program on MSNBC to gather soundbites, and used two of them in her coverage. A major piece of television newsgathering was Charlie Rose's (see UPDATE) interview on NSA surveillance and on the civil war in Syria with President Barack Obama. Both ABC's Ross and NBC's Mitchell aired Obama soundbites, giving credit to Rose on PBS. Rose is also an anchor in the mornings for CBS, and that network aired almost five minutes of excerpts from the PBS interview in its newscast.
The NSA hearings eclipsed dual landmarks in Afghanistan. On the military side, leadership of NATO operations was handed over to national commanders. On the diplomatic side, the State Department announced that it was holding direct talks with the Taliban at its newly-opened offices in Qatar. In return, the Taliban pledged to discontinue all military operations outside the borders of Afghanistan proper. NBC had Dustin Golestani cover both developments from Kabul. ABC's Muhammad Lila observed the handover of power on the unit level in the eastern village of Paktika. The diplomatic demarche was covered in brief stand-ups by a pair of White House correspondents traveling with the President in Berlin: CBS' Major Garrett and ABC's Jonathan Karl (at the tail of the Lila videostream).
UPDATE: the excerpt includes the portion of the interview in which the President called the FISA court "transparent" -- a claim that Rose did not challenge at the time, but that Politifact subsequently rated a Pants on Fire lie.
TUESDAY’S TIDBITS None of the networks had a correspondent in Brazil to cover the street protests in a dozen cities over economic inequality and political corruption. Yet, with the World Cup and the Olympic Games looming, at least NBC found them newsworthy enough for Mark Potter to narrate the video with a voiceover. Potter found Brazil quite Mediterranean, putting it in the same category as Egypt, Greece and Turkey.
Back in March, CBS' Dean Reynolds filed stunning visuals on the deck of the Stewart J Cort, the iron ore freighter. Similar inspiration struck Anne Thompson at NBC. How tiny she seems on the decks of the Interlake Steamship Company's Mesabi Miner. The water is so low on the Saint Mary's River that the massive ship has a mere nine inches of clearance -- too little precipitation, too much evaporation. NBC's Thompson called Superior the largest lake in the world. Yet when it comes to size, compared with Lake Baikal, Superior is Inferior.
The gun control debate has been CBS' specialty ever since the massacre at the elementary school in Connecticut six months ago. In that period, CBS has aired more reports on the topic than NBC and ABC put together. The latest comes from Barry Petersen in Denver, where John Morse, the President of Colorado's State Senate, faces a recall petition from self-styled pro-choice activists. The "choice" in this case, Laura Carno explains, is whether or not to arm oneself.
Raytheon, the hi-tech Pentagon contractor, gets a free plug from Anthony Mason on CBS for its sponsorship of science education in middle schools: see its virtual reality 3-D cave. The USNavy SEALs get a plug from Jim Miklaszewski, NBC's man at the Pentagon, who runs video of their muddy, manly, training sessions in order to speculate about how many women would make the commando grade.
The prospects of fuel tank fires in rear-end collisions in Sports Utility Vehicles built by Jeep has exercised Lisa Stark at ABC for three years now. Her network's computer animators imagined a Virtual View of the danger. Chrysler has now relented, and agreed to a recall of the vehicles in order to add a trailer hitch as protection. Stark was skeptical that the hitch would do the trick.
Only yesterday, I ticked off examples of ABC's peculiar habit of covering alarming events in airline travel that turn out to be inconsequential. The distraught passenger who was subdued, the emergency exit door that was not opened, the engine fire that was extinguished safely, the debris that fell off a wing harming nobody. Now Clayton Sandell tells us about the scare at Denver International Airport that was relieved when a tornado passed without incident.
ABC gave us an airline twofer, with its latest installment of travelers' tips. Here is Linsey Davis on the vast variability of fares; here is Paula Faris on flexible bargain hunting; here is Brian Ross on the lookout for TSA left luggage thieves; here is Matt Gutman on wearing seatbelts. Now Linsey Davis again, consulting AirFareWatchDog.com on how to protect checked baggage.
By coincidence, both ABC and NBC closed the newscast with non-medicinal therapies for hospital patients. NBC's Stephanie Gosk brought us the Faithful Friends of the University of Maryland Medical Center: a patient's pet is allowed bedside visits -- as long as it is a dog or cat; hamsters need not apply. ABC's in-house physician Richard Besser brought us the lullabies of Rebecca Loveszy at New York Presbyterian's neo-natal unit -- music really does soothe the savage preemie's breast.
