What About Saana'a?

On last Tuesday's Nightly News, a map of Yemen identified the capital city as "Sanaa". A moment later, a caption below Richard Engel indicated that he was reporting from "Sana'a". The following day, Engel interviewed a man who was identified on screen as the director of the "Saana Institute for Arabic Language". So which is it--Sanaa, Sana'a or Saana? I'll give the Nightly News producers a moment in case they want to call a lifeline. Perhaps the producers just need to calm down a bit and switch to decaf. I'd recommend Sanka'a.

Spellcheck

I sincerely hope that none of the various U.S. intelligence agencies rely on Nightly News for any sensitive information. According to the State Department, the misspelling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's name was one of the security lapses that allowed him to board the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day. Considering the frequency with which spelling errors appear on Nightly News, I can only imagine the mangled names they would provide to the CIA, the NSC and other agencies. Some of the names recently misspelled on Nightly News include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chesley Sullenberger, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barack Obama (spelled as "Barak" on Amy Robach's 12/28/08 blog), Sen. Kay Hagan, Dr. Anne Schuchat and Helen Keller. Brian Williams himself (on his blog) has misspelled the names of Alison Krauss, Paul Volcker, Condoleezza Rice, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal. (These last two are particularly appalling considering Brian's self-appointed status as a military buff.) So let us all hope that Nightly News is not called upon to provide any information to the U.S. government. Our security agencies are in enough of a state of disarray as it is.

The Nightly News Year In Review--Part 2

Here are some of the Nightly News "highlights" from the second half of 2009:

>July 17--In a story about on-line universities, Tom Costello makes prominent mention of the University of Phoenix (as their logo is displayed on-screen). Four days earlier, the University of Phoenix was the sole sponsor of Nightly News. That's called quid pro quo.
>July 23--At the insistence of Brian Williams, Nightly News profiles the "Horizons" charity because "it's a favorite cause in our household."
>July 25--Nightly News devotes two-and-a-half minutes to the YouTube dancing wedding video.
>July 30--Brian reports a story about a seven-year-old boy who took the family car for a drive before informing us that the family will be on the following day's Today show. The same broadcast includes a story about a mother and son who are rescued by two off-duty firemen. After the story, Brian informs us that this family will also be appearing on the Today show.
>Aug. 4--Nightly News presents a story about people who donate kidneys to strangers. Afterward, Brian informs us that one such donor and recipient will be appearing on the next day's Today show.
>Aug. 16--Nightly News presents a story about llamas being used as golf caddies.
>Aug. 17--Ann Curry introduces a story about Sasha and Malia Obama's totally excellent summer vacation. In January, Brian Williams had pledged not to do any stories on Sasha and Malia unless "there is a compelling reason to do so." Also on this broadcast, we saw a three-and-a-half minute story about a Serbian girl who met the members of U2. The meeting was arranged by NBC correspondent Martin Fletcher.
>Aug. 24--In a Nightly News story about CIA torture, the word "humiliation" is spelled as "humilation". That same night, Nightly News starts a special series about education.
>Sept. 6--A story purportedly about internet search engines quickly becomes a story about the advantages of Bing. Bing is made by Microsoft--NBC's partner in MSNBC.
>Sept. 11--A story about the H1N1 virus (which Nightly News is still calling Swine Flu) manages to misspell both names of Anne Schuchat, the Director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (her name was spelled on-screen as "Ann Schuchet" despite the fact that she was wearing a visible name tag).
>Sept. 13--In a story about Serena Williams's U.S. Open meltdown, Lee Cowan tells us she foot faulted on match point to lose the match. She actually foot faulted at 15-30 and was then assessed a penalty point that cost her the match.
>Sept. 15--In a Nightly News story about race in politics, Rep. Steny Hoyer, who is white, is identified as the House Majority Leader. Moments later, Rep. James Clyburn, who is African American, is not identified as House Majority Whip (the third most powerful post in the House) but only as a Democrat from South Carolina.
>Sept. 16--Nightly News does a story about a three-year-old girl that throws back a foul ball at a Phillies game.
>Sept. 17--Brian Williams spends 55 seconds talking about the fact that Nightly News White House Correspondent Chuck Todd sneezed while interviewing President Obama.
>Sept. 20--Correspondent Mike Viqueira tells us that the President will be appearing on "late night television" but refuses to mention David Letterman's name because he doesn't want to hurt Conan's ratings. Also on this broadcast, Matt Lauer spends 2:42 on a story about the new Dallas football stadium. The story airs just before NBC's Sunday Night Football.
>Sept. 21--Brian Williams brags about the high rating for NBC's Sunday night football game.
>Sept. 23--Brian Williams, a supposedly professional news anchor, spends 45 seconds delivering a fawning 60th birthday message to Bruce Springsteen. The message concludes with, "Let's also not forget he's the head of a huge organization--what he calls the heart-stopping pants-dropping house-rocking earth-shaking booty-quaking Viagra-taking love-making E Street Band."
>Sept. 25--In a story about Iran's nuclear production, an Iranian city is spelled variously as both "Qom" and "Qum".
>Sept. 27--A story about airline surcharges shows a Nov. calendar page with 31 days.
>Oct. 2--Nightly News devotes an entire story to profiling a woman who works the overnight shift as a cook at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
>Oct. 7--Helen Keller's name is spelled as "Hellen".
>Oct. 9--In a story about the H1N1 virus, a Sept. calendar page is shown as having 31 days. In a story about the rocket fired into the moon in search of water, a NASA employee is identified as a "principle investigator" instead of a "principal investigator".
>Oct. 23--Brian tells us that, "...an important election is coming up this coming Tuesday..." Actually, the election is the following Tuesday.
>Oct. 27--Brian begins reporting from Afghanistan--just in time for sweeps month. He always appears on-screen in his little helmet and flak jacket ensemble.
>Oct. 30--Brian reports from an Afghan orphanage and then shamelessly begs viewers to donate money. On his Daily Nightly blog, military buff Brian misspells the names of Gen. David Petraeus (as "Patreus") and Gen. Stanley McChrystal (as "McCrystal").
>Nov. 2--Brian informs us that Shakespeare has "been gone for over 400 years" when in fact the Bard has only been gone for 393 years.
>Nov. 3--During a story about high BPA levels in bottles and cans, Nightly News does not identify any specific brands in order to protect their sponsors. Brian does another story about the Afghan orphanage.
>Nov. 5--In a story about the health care bill, a Nightly News graphic tells us that the bill would contain a "public opinion" (it should have read "public option").
>Nov. 9--Nightly News does a week of celebrity stories about Jon Bon Jovi, Alicia Keys, Glenn Close, Halle Berry and Tim Mcgraw & Faith Hill.
>Nov. 15--Lester Holt finds it necessary to inform viewers that at a concert, Bruce Springsteen confused Ohio and Michigan.
>Nov. 16--Brian does a third story about the Afghan orphanage.
>Nov. 20--A story about hospitalized kids who watch a zoo on closed circuit TV is sponsored by the animal torturers at GSK.
>Nov. 21--Nightly News is pre-empted by football.
>Nov. 23--A story about a crib recall shows prominent logos of Target, Wal-Mart, Sears and Kmart.
>Nov. 27--Katie Couric (talking about the White House party crashers) says that the White House security had been lax. The previous night, Brian said the security "couldn't have been tighter".
>Dec. 3--Under the premise of reporting on the potential takeover of NBC by Comcast, David Faber does a three-minute story about how great NBC is.
>Dec. 6--Nightly News reports about an orangutan in an Austrian zoo that takes photos.
>Dec. 7--Brian reports for the second straight night that Bruce Springsteen was honored at the Kennedy Center.
>Dec. 10--A story about Christmas songs spends one third of its time on Barry Manilow--the same night he will appear on The Jay Leno Show.
>Dec. 11--Nightly News does a story about the Robin Hood charity because Brian is on their board.
>Dec. 15--A story about defective window shades includes prominent logo placement for Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Pottery Barn, Ikea and Target. Brian spends 30 seconds talking about the Golden Globe nominations before announcing that they will air live on NBC.
>Dec. 16--Nightly News airs a story about a blind and deaf dachshund.
>Dec. 19--In two separate Nightly News promos for Meet The Press, David Axelrod is identified first as a presidential "adviser" and then as a presidential "advisor".
>Dec. 24--NBC News charters a jet to fly David Goldman and his son Sean home from Brazil. This will bring strong criticism from the Society of Professional Journalists.
>Dec. 26--A story about post-Christmas shopping tells viewers about great deals at Wal-Mart, Kmart and Kohl's.
>Dec. 28--Brian Williams does a 3:45 story about the 50th anniversary of the Second City comedy troupe. Most of the story focuses on Tina Fey and 30 Rock.
>Dec. 31--Brian Williams does a 3:35 story about a 15 year-old jazz singer.

Weekend Wimps

Of the 104 weekend days in 2009, NBC did not air Nightly News on 18 of them (on the East Coast, and perhaps even nationally). Obviously, the NBC executives believe that golf, horse racing, hockey, football and other sports are much more important than the weekend edition of Nightly News. (By more important, of course, I mean more profitable.) The Kentucky Derby (which NBC broadcast on May 2) was a two minute race, yet they allotted it a three-hour block of time. On Aug. 23, the golf match NBC was televising ended before 6:00, but they chose to air an additional half hour of highlights and interviews instead of Nightly News. NBC's commitment to weekend news is so tenuous that they will pre-empt it for virtually any sporting event. An NBC source tells me that in the coming months, NBC will be pre-empting weekend newscasts in order to bring us the U.S. Indoor Tiddlywinks Championships, the National Collegiate Thumb Wrestling Finals, the PBA Underwater Bowling Tour, World Cup Uphill Skiing, the Ironman Backwards Triathlon, Ice Dancing With the Stars, the Sarah Palin Invitational Alaskan Trout Fishing Championships, the Kickball World Cup Finals, the Masters Miniature Golf Tournament, Canadian Junior Curling, Beach Hockey and Penultimate Frisbee. And of course, in a few months, it will be March Madness, so NBC will be airing the sweet sixteen and final four of NCAA Tetherball. Furthermore, if NBC's coverage of the India-Sri Lanka Cricket test match on Saturday, June 5 lasts longer than 19 hours, it will run right into that evening's Nightly News. And that would present the NBC execs with quite a sticky wicket.

The Jazz Singer

I would like to thank Brian Williams for his three-and-a-half minute profile of 15-year-old jazz singer Nikki Yanofsky that aired on Thursday's Nightly News. Meanwhile, that night's broadcast did not even mention the Finnish man who massacred five people at a mall near Helsinki before killing himself. But at least we know that Nikki Yanofsky dedicated a song to her dog.

I would also like to thank Brian for the great stories he presented on Friday: Health updates on Rush Limbaugh and snowboarder Kevin Pearce, new laws that take effect Jan. 1 and the story about the real-life corporate downsizer similar to the character portrayed by George Clooney in "Up In The Air". Of course, Brian did not mention the mudslides near Rio de Janeiro that have killed dozens of people over the past few days. But there's only so much time in a thirty-minute broadcast. At least we got to see some cool clips of George Clooney. Thanks, Brian. Keep up the great work.

The Nightly News Year In Review--Part 1

Here are some of the Nightly News "highlights" from the first half of 2009:

>Jan. 1--Nightly News starts the year off strong by devoting 2:25 to a story about Tyson and Tillman, the skateboarding bulldogs.
>Jan. 2--Nightly News does a story about an organization that saves shelter dogs from being euthanized by flying them to cities where they can be adopted. The story is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's largest utilizers of animal testing.
>Jan. 11--In a story about celebrities who were swindled by Bernie Madoff, Nightly News manages to misspell the names of Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg (as "Stephen" and "Jeffry").
>Jan. 14--Brian Williams forces his producers to air a story about Military Challenge Coins, and then ends the broadcast by displaying his personal collection of Challenge Coins.
>Jan. 18--Brian interviews Bono.
>Jan. 23--In a moment worthy of Claude Rains's Capt. Renault from Casablanca ("I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"), Brian reports that Yo Yo Ma's quartet had been "finger-synching" to pre-recorded music at the Presidential Inauguration three days earlier. Meanwhile, that day's New York Times reported that NBC News producers were aware before the inauguration began that Ma's quartet would be "finger-synching". Brian only reported the story after the Times outed Ma and the NBC News producers.
>Jan. 26--Nightly News misspells Arnold Schwarzenegger's name as "Schwarznegger".
>Jan. 26--Brian titles his Daily Nightly blog "Old Man River At Obama's Inauguration" (a reference to Capt. Chesley Sullenberger attending the inauguration). The song "Old Man River" (as originally written by Oscar Hammerstein II for the 1927 musical Showboat) was extremely racist and contained multiple uses of the vile "N" word to describe African-Americans. A very poor choice of a blog title to describe the inauguration of our country's first African-American president.
>Jan. 28--As Brian announces the death of columnist James Brady, the photo behind him shows former Reagan press secretary James Brady--who is still alive.
>Jan. 31--A Nightly News story purportedly about 3-D ad technology shows multiple clips of a commercial for a beverage called Lifewater--which would be advertising on the following day's Super Bowl (to be broadcast on NBC).
>Feb. 6--Nightly News devotes 2:12 to a story about Spam luncheon meat.
>Feb. 9--A Nightly News on-screen graphic misspells hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger's name as "Chelsey". On the same day, Brian misspells Alison Krauss's name (as "Allison Kraus") on his blog.
>Feb. 22--In a story about the Swine Flu vaccine, calendar pages are flipped to show the passage of time. Seven out of the twelve pages have errors (April is shown having 29 days, Sept. is shown having 31 days).
>Feb. 23--Nightly News devotes 2:45 to a story about how thoroughly United Airlines cleans their planes. United is a frequent NBC advertiser.
>March 4--Brian Williams and David Faber spend two minutes desperately trying to prop up NBC parent company General Electric's stock price by talking about what a solid company it is.
>March 17--U.S. Rep Carolyn McCarthy is mis-identified as Carolyn Maloney.
>March 18--U.S. Rep Barney Frank is mis-identified as Paul Kanjorski.
>March 28--During a story about airline bird strikes, Nightly News misspells the word voluntary (as "volunatry") in an on-screen statement from an FAA spokesperson.
>April 4--Nightly News devotes two-and-a-half minutes to a story about pink dolphins.
>April 8--Jay Leno is profiled as part of a "Making A Difference" segment.
>April 14--Nightly News airs its first Susan Boyle story. Over the next six weeks, they would air a total of seven stories on Boyle. By year's end, Nightly News will have devoted almost 17 minutes of air time to Boyle.
>April 22--Hillary Clinton calls Pakistan a "mortal threat" to the security of the world. Brian Williams reports that she said "moral threat".
>April 24--Dawna Friesen spends two-and-a-half minutes reporting on a London movement imploring people to "slow down" and enjoy life.
>April 27--Maria Menounos reports on Deborah Wilson, a woman who rescues and cares for animals that are unwanted, abused or in danger. The story is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, who test many of their products on animals.
>May 5--Ann Curry introduces a story about the "delicious brew" (her words) sold by McDonald's and Starbucks. The story amounts to a 2:15 commercial for McDonald's and Starbucks coffees.
>May 12--During a story about the veracity of Cheerios' health claims, Robert Bazell spends two minutes offering unqualified praise for Cheerios, a regular Nightly News advertiser.
>May 13--A story about dogs that are trained to assist disabled veterans is sponsored by the animal testers at GlaxoSmithKline.
>May 19--Nightly News devotes 2:45 to a story about Chicago schoolchildren who are learning ballroom dancing.
>May 27--Chris Jansing devotes 2:20 to a report about high school students who like to hug each other.
>June 2--In a story about the auto industry, former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca is identified on screen as "James Bell".
>June 17--During a broadcast that is entirely sponsored by Trilipix (with limited commercial interruptions), Brian Williams says, "That means more time for the news..." He then devotes two and a half minutes to a story about healthy food available at ballparks. Also on this broadcast, Brian introduces Richard Engel as NBC's "Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent" (Andrea Mitchell's job) rather than "Chief Foreign Correspondent" (Engel's actual job).
>June 22--A story about abused dogs who are rescued and taught to surf is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline.
>June 24--Stephanie Gosk spends three minutes reporting on how painful it is to dance while wearing high heeled shoes.

My Friends At Nightly News

It is hilarious (and also quite sad) that of the 22 comments I submitted to the Nightly News Daily Nightly blog in December, only one was published. Apparently, the moderators believe that if my comments are read by a few hundred people, it will spell the end of Nightly News as we know it. This stands in stark contrast to October (when 21 of my 26 comments were published) and November (when 9 of my 13 comments were published). It seems that the moderators have determined that since they don't like me, they're not going to print any of my comments (instead of evaluating my comments on a case-by-case basis). That is quite ironic considering that NBC News thrives as a direct result of the free access to information enjoyed by news organizations in this country. Yet at the same time, they severely censor their viewers' comments. I wonder what David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow would say about a news organization that refuses to print comments simply because they are critical. They would probably say "shame on you". At any rate, I would like to wish a very happy new year to all my friends at Nightly News, and especially to those who moderate the Daily Nightly blog.