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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM JUNE 27, 2013
The focus of the news agenda shifted inside the Beltway. After three days of Supreme Court coverage, the baton was passed to the United States Senate, which voted 68-32 to approve immigration legislation. The vote was the lead item on CBS and ABC and qualified as Story of the Day. NBC led with an exclusive: Michael Isikoff Investigates General James Cartwright. The retired marine may be the one who spilled cyberwarfare secrets to The New York Times. Isikoff did not reveal who leaked the fact that the general is under suspicion of leaking.
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ISIKOFF SCOOP UNDERCUTS IMMIGRATION LANDMARK The focus of the news agenda shifted inside the Beltway. After three days of Supreme Court coverage, the baton was passed to the United States Senate, which voted 68-32 to approve immigration legislation. The vote was the lead item on CBS and ABC and qualified as Story of the Day. NBC led with an exclusive: Michael Isikoff Investigates General James Cartwright. The retired marine may be the one who spilled cyberwarfare secrets to The New York Times. Isikoff did not reveal who leaked the fact that the general is under suspicion of leaking.
NBC and CBS handled the immigration vote in the Senate the traditional way. Congressional correspondents Kelly O'Donnell and Nancy Cordes covered the vote and outlined the provisions of the legislation: legal working papers for currently undocumented residents; a 13-year process for them to apply for citizenship; extra resources to be spent on patroling the border with Mexico; new guestworker visa quotas for hi-tech and agribusiness. They both noted that the bill is unlikely to become law due to opposition in the House of Representatives
On ABC, Jim Avila focused on the immigrants not on the lawmakers. Since February, when the Hispanic Avila was reassigned to the White House beat for the ABC-Univision joint venture, six out of his 15 reports on World News have been immigration or border related. This time Avila covered the Senate vote from the point of view of deportation-fearing undocumented residents. He did not mention the border patrol or the guestworker visa aspects of the bill. He did not even mention the 68-32 vote count. Jose Antonio Vargas was a major source in Avila's report, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, who is undocumented himself. In his enthusiasm to describe the potential benefits of the bill for the nation's 11m residents without legal papers, Avila gave the misleading impression that the Senate's provisions are closer to becoming law than the House may permit.
In Isikoff's scoop, he delivered the reassuring tidbit that the criminal targeting of General Cartwright did not arise from questionable snooping around The New York Times. No sub-poena had been served on the newspaper. The Times' exclusive had concerned Operation Olympic Games, the cyberattack, in cooperation with Israeli spooks, against Iran's nuclear-enrichment centrifuges. The Pentagon deployed a computer virus dubbed Stuxnet, Isikoff reminded us, and Cartwright was the general in charge, before he retired in 2011.
Meanwhile the Presidential photo-op that would normally have made headlines was buried. Sure enough, all three White House correspondents accompanied Barack Obama to Senegal's Goree Island, where he posed at the Door of No Return, to honor the countless slaves, shipped from Africa in bondage to the Americas. NBC's Chuck Todd and ABC's Jonathan Karl chose the historical angle. On CBS, Major Garrett dragged the President back to the present. What was Obama going to do about Edward Snowden, the confessed leaker of National Security Agency secrets, now holed up in the Moscow Airport? Nothing, came the answer: no wheeling, no dealing, no trading; no scrambling of fighter jets to capture a 29-year-old hacker.
THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS CBS' Holly Williams followed up on the pair of investigative features (here and here) she filed on apparel sweatshops in Bangladesh five weeks ago. She targeted Monde Apparels, supplier to Asics, Walmart, and Wrangler, for child labor law violations and fire hazards. The upshot of her report is that Monde has had its safety certification stripped and that Williams' sources in the workforce have been fired. Williams found an NGO, the Institute for Global Labor & Human Rights, which is helping Monde's laid-off under-age girls get an education.
The day's only other foreign story came from the Tasman Sea, although it was filed from New York by ABC's Dan Harris. The Nina, an 85-year-old schooner, skippered by David Dyche, with seven on board, has gone missing in a storm, amid 26-foot waves. It is not clear why the boat's fate warranted network news coverage.
Someone should do a study of weathercasters who are named for meteorological phenomena. ABC's Clayton Sandell, reporting on the sweltering heatwave that is gripping the southwest, included a soundbite from KABC-TV's Dallas Raines. Los Angeles needs Raines. Geddit?
Trialwatch updates: ABC and NBC are keeping closer tabs on the George Zimmerman murder trial in Florida than CBS is. Matt Gutman and Ron Mott each made it four reports in four days (Mark Strassmann, by contrast, has skipped two). ABC's Gutman found the cross-examination of Rachel Jeantel -- forced to confess her illiteracy -- "heartbreaking" and it was. CBS finds the racketeering trial of James Bulger in Boston more interesting. Dan Dahler's report on John Morris, the corrupt former FBI agent, was the network's fourth since the trial began. Also in Boston, a death penalty case was brought against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by federal prosecutors for those pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line. CBS' Bob Orr and ABC's Pierre Thomas summarized the charges from their networks' DC bureaus. Thomas mentioned that Tsarnaev may have killed his own brother, running over his body with his car as he made his getaway from a police shootout.
Gay marriage and the abortion filibuster both deserved a follow-up. ABC's David Kerley told us pink tennis shoes have gone viral online in tribute the filibuster footwear worn by State Senator Wendy Davis. CBS' Bill Whitaker landed a twofer in his profile of Jennifer Post and Teri Kinne. Ms Kinne gets the benefits of California's new law twice, once as Ms Post's bride, and again in her business as a wedding planner.
ABC's Steve Osunsami paid tribute to Sheriff CT Woody of Richmond Va for converting his jail into a ballroom, to allow his inmates to dance, all dressed up, with their daughters. A small quibble: this is the city jail not the state penitentiary, so Osunsami cannot fairly say the doting fathers are serving "hard time." For that, you are sent up the river.
The wounds of war are a regular human interest topic on the nightly newscasts -- at least on NBC and CBS. Of the 15 such features filed in the last year, only one appeared on ABC. It was NBC's turn to pay tribute to Operation Mend for Making a Difference: while cosmetic surgeons at UCLA perform multiple operations, disfigured veterans have to find somewhere to live between procedures. Mike Taibbi shows us the Schwimmers, opening their home to Sergeant Israel del Toro.
NBC and CBS handled the immigration vote in the Senate the traditional way. Congressional correspondents Kelly O'Donnell and Nancy Cordes covered the vote and outlined the provisions of the legislation: legal working papers for currently undocumented residents; a 13-year process for them to apply for citizenship; extra resources to be spent on patroling the border with Mexico; new guestworker visa quotas for hi-tech and agribusiness. They both noted that the bill is unlikely to become law due to opposition in the House of Representatives
On ABC, Jim Avila focused on the immigrants not on the lawmakers. Since February, when the Hispanic Avila was reassigned to the White House beat for the ABC-Univision joint venture, six out of his 15 reports on World News have been immigration or border related. This time Avila covered the Senate vote from the point of view of deportation-fearing undocumented residents. He did not mention the border patrol or the guestworker visa aspects of the bill. He did not even mention the 68-32 vote count. Jose Antonio Vargas was a major source in Avila's report, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, who is undocumented himself. In his enthusiasm to describe the potential benefits of the bill for the nation's 11m residents without legal papers, Avila gave the misleading impression that the Senate's provisions are closer to becoming law than the House may permit.
In Isikoff's scoop, he delivered the reassuring tidbit that the criminal targeting of General Cartwright did not arise from questionable snooping around The New York Times. No sub-poena had been served on the newspaper. The Times' exclusive had concerned Operation Olympic Games, the cyberattack, in cooperation with Israeli spooks, against Iran's nuclear-enrichment centrifuges. The Pentagon deployed a computer virus dubbed Stuxnet, Isikoff reminded us, and Cartwright was the general in charge, before he retired in 2011.
Meanwhile the Presidential photo-op that would normally have made headlines was buried. Sure enough, all three White House correspondents accompanied Barack Obama to Senegal's Goree Island, where he posed at the Door of No Return, to honor the countless slaves, shipped from Africa in bondage to the Americas. NBC's Chuck Todd and ABC's Jonathan Karl chose the historical angle. On CBS, Major Garrett dragged the President back to the present. What was Obama going to do about Edward Snowden, the confessed leaker of National Security Agency secrets, now holed up in the Moscow Airport? Nothing, came the answer: no wheeling, no dealing, no trading; no scrambling of fighter jets to capture a 29-year-old hacker.
THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS CBS' Holly Williams followed up on the pair of investigative features (here and here) she filed on apparel sweatshops in Bangladesh five weeks ago. She targeted Monde Apparels, supplier to Asics, Walmart, and Wrangler, for child labor law violations and fire hazards. The upshot of her report is that Monde has had its safety certification stripped and that Williams' sources in the workforce have been fired. Williams found an NGO, the Institute for Global Labor & Human Rights, which is helping Monde's laid-off under-age girls get an education.
The day's only other foreign story came from the Tasman Sea, although it was filed from New York by ABC's Dan Harris. The Nina, an 85-year-old schooner, skippered by David Dyche, with seven on board, has gone missing in a storm, amid 26-foot waves. It is not clear why the boat's fate warranted network news coverage.
Someone should do a study of weathercasters who are named for meteorological phenomena. ABC's Clayton Sandell, reporting on the sweltering heatwave that is gripping the southwest, included a soundbite from KABC-TV's Dallas Raines. Los Angeles needs Raines. Geddit?
Trialwatch updates: ABC and NBC are keeping closer tabs on the George Zimmerman murder trial in Florida than CBS is. Matt Gutman and Ron Mott each made it four reports in four days (Mark Strassmann, by contrast, has skipped two). ABC's Gutman found the cross-examination of Rachel Jeantel -- forced to confess her illiteracy -- "heartbreaking" and it was. CBS finds the racketeering trial of James Bulger in Boston more interesting. Dan Dahler's report on John Morris, the corrupt former FBI agent, was the network's fourth since the trial began. Also in Boston, a death penalty case was brought against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by federal prosecutors for those pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line. CBS' Bob Orr and ABC's Pierre Thomas summarized the charges from their networks' DC bureaus. Thomas mentioned that Tsarnaev may have killed his own brother, running over his body with his car as he made his getaway from a police shootout.
Gay marriage and the abortion filibuster both deserved a follow-up. ABC's David Kerley told us pink tennis shoes have gone viral online in tribute the filibuster footwear worn by State Senator Wendy Davis. CBS' Bill Whitaker landed a twofer in his profile of Jennifer Post and Teri Kinne. Ms Kinne gets the benefits of California's new law twice, once as Ms Post's bride, and again in her business as a wedding planner.
ABC's Steve Osunsami paid tribute to Sheriff CT Woody of Richmond Va for converting his jail into a ballroom, to allow his inmates to dance, all dressed up, with their daughters. A small quibble: this is the city jail not the state penitentiary, so Osunsami cannot fairly say the doting fathers are serving "hard time." For that, you are sent up the river.
The wounds of war are a regular human interest topic on the nightly newscasts -- at least on NBC and CBS. Of the 15 such features filed in the last year, only one appeared on ABC. It was NBC's turn to pay tribute to Operation Mend for Making a Difference: while cosmetic surgeons at UCLA perform multiple operations, disfigured veterans have to find somewhere to live between procedures. Mike Taibbi shows us the Schwimmers, opening their home to Sergeant Israel del Toro.
