Category: Media Mastery Tips

By George Merlis

Several recent news stories have spawned good soundbites and pull quotes. Here is a selection:

The clouds of ash from the April 14 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier volcano shut down many European airports, cancelled as many as 100,000 flights and forced more than a million people to take what the New York Times called a “volcation.” The volcano also inspired a lot of good quotes, including one from a wag who said, “This volcano’s name looks like it was created when someone dropped a large book on his computer keyboard.”

I’ve seen the name spelled Eyjafjallajokull and Eyjalfjallaj”kul. I have no idea how to pronounce the quotation mark in the middle of the word, but then I have no idea how to pronounce the more conventional spelling. And neither, it appears, do broadcasters; I’ve heard it rendered several different -- sometimes within the same broadcast.


The cloud that ate Europe’s economy. A startling slide show of volcano stills was gathered by the Boston Globe and can be seen by clicking here.

Here are some good Eyjafjallajokul quotes:

Karel De Gucht, European Union trade commissioner, when asked to assess the damage to the Euro Zone economy: "What makes me a little bit afraid is that there is no timer on this volcano."

There apparently was a timer on the European governments -- and it was operating in slo-mo. Here’s Giovanni Bisignani, head of the International Air Transport Association: "It's embarrassing, a European mess. It took five days to organize a conference call with the ministers of transport."

Vanessa Rossi of the London research institute Chatham House suggested that the air traffic logjam could wipe out one to two percent of European gross domestic product. "That basically means we've got a continued recession... This is absolutely bad news at the wrong time. But nobody chooses a volcano to erupt."

Tim Clark, president of the Dubai-based Emirates airlines, said “You simply can't afford to shut down something the size of Europe."

And, Speaking of The Economy....

In terms of GDP, Goldman Sachs may not be as big as Europe, but the the Security and Exchange Commission's filing of a civil fraud lawsuit against the financial giant stimulated a good number of noteworthy quotes.


Goldman Sachs headquarters in Jersey City, New Jersey when it was under construction. The iconic Colgate factory, with its venerable octagon-shaped clock, was demolished to make way for the Goldman tower. Critics are saying Goldman’s practices may have contributed to the demolition of the world economy as well.

James Post professor of corporate governance at Boston University School of Management: “I’m pretty sure that the board at Goldman is having a bad weekend. They may be praying for some news out of the Vatican or a new volcano to get them off the front pages.”

Adam C. Pritchard, a law professor at the University of Michigan: “The basic idea that an undisclosed conflict of interest could be misleading is pretty much as old as stockbrokers.”

Matt McCormick, an analyst at Bahl & Gaynor Inc. in Cincinnati, which manages about $2.8 billion: “Goldman Sachs will now become the bogey man for all financial ills.”

Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co. which oversees more than $4 billion in investments: “The lynch-mob mentality that is prevailing right now against Goldman is such that you don’t know where this thing could go. The board actually has to pay attention not only to the legal niceties of this thing but also to the franchise viability as well.” (Mr. Holland clearly missed the political science class when the professor explained the difference between a case brought in a duly-constituted court and a lynch mob, which forms specifically to avoid that time-consuming legal nicety.)

Death, Taxes & the “Death Tax”

National Public Radio’s Marketplace program ran a piece about a quirk in the federal estate tax law. It seems that in an effort to steadily decrease the tax to zero, the last Congress built in a preview of coming attractions: 2010 is a year with no estate tax. Then the tax reverts and is gradually lowered. Unless Congress re-imposes the tax. If it does that, it could retroactively apply the tax to the estates of people who die in 2010.

Now the whole estate tax controversy is something of a tempest in an economic teapot. Here’s why: despite the brilliance of its opponents in labeling it a “death tax,” thereby giving the impression that it is owed by everyone who dies, the estate tax is levied on only the very wealthiest. In fact in 2008 -- the latest year for which there are statistics -- only 6,000 of the two million-plus people who died had estates large enough to qualify for the tax. And collections from those 6,000 estates made up less than one percent of the net tax revenue collected by the IRS.

Uncertainty about what Congress will do led trust and estates attorney Sanford Schlesinger to give NPR this soundbite: “If we come down to November and there's no estate tax, if I were grandma, I would not show up for Thanksgiving dinner without a food taster."

Fact Meets TV Fiction


X-ray shows undetonated explosive shell lodged in the skull of Afghan soldier

Several media outlets carried the compelling story of Air Force surgeon Maj. John Bini who operated to successfully remove an undetonated explosive round from the skull of an Afghan soldier at the Bagram Air Base hospital. After recounting the story Maj. Bini was told that there had been similar plot lines in the TV shows MASH (an unexploded grenade) and Grey’s Anatomy (an unexploded bomb). Dr. Bini responded: “None of that stuff you see on TV approximates reality.” How true.

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