That stellar chronicler of the Persian Gulf war, NBC`s ”Saturday Night Live,” opened last week with a Lt. Col. Pierson at a news briefing, saying that the allies were inflicting heavy damage.
Pierson (played by Kevin Nealon) then announced that he`d gladly take questions, though none that could be useful to the enemy.
”When will we start the ground attack?” came the first question from a member of an unruly mini-mob of hand-waving reporters.
”Knowing what you know, when would you say our forces are most vulnerable to attack, and how could the Iraqis best exploit those
weaknesses?” was another query from a member of a cadre that resembled kindergartners on amphetamines.
The sketch continued in a similar vein, concluding with a newsman requesting, ”Is there anything you could tell us that would lower the morale of our fighting men?”
The studio audience laughed heartily and, one suspects, so did many of the 20 million viewers. The skit reflected a perception by many Americans that journalists covering the war are overly aggressive, unpatriotic creeps, threatening a life-and-death operation. CNN`s Peter Arnett, a renowned reporter toiling in Baghdad, is seen as a symbol of virtual treason.
”That scene was on the mark,” says Steve Friedman, executive producer of ”NBC Nightly News.”
”All kinds of journalistic endeavors look stupid, especially if taken in their entireties,” Friedman says.
You can go so far as to wonder how the public would react if allied forces bombed the Baghdad hotel that`s home to reporters and, perhaps, sensitive Iraqi communications gear. ”Tough luck, newsies,” they might say. Friedman`s notion of the surface stupidity of the journalistic process prompts speculation on the low regard for the press. Perhaps press ills relate to both the unusual look that outsiders are getting into a messy process and to distinctly self-inflicted wounds.
Day after day, viewers get, ostensibly through CNN coverage of briefings, a sometimes boring, sometimes combative crux of journalism: the news conference. Such sessions can be illuminating, they can be a black hole; they can involve razor-sharp questioning, they can involve dumb questioning.
It`s what Friedman calls the ”grunt work of journalism” and, these days, it`s not terribly inspiring. Military officials are not forthcoming-yes, they may even lie at times-and the reporters ask the same question 15 ways.
Last week`s bombing of the Baghdad shelter, and the deaths of hundreds of civilians, led to reporters asking, ad nauseam, about the deaths and how we didn`t know so many civilians were there. It became repetitive but, in light of military stonewalling, arguably necessary, too.
Yet the public says enough and may agree with White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater`s slimy press-bashing. He placed requests about civilian casualties in the context of a ”disturbing” propaganda success for Iraq.
The public sees the press as whining, which, of course, it is. There`s the self-inflicted wound, albeit a hard one to avoid.
The press is whining about restrictions in covering the war, littering its news pages and TV screens with reminders of stories going to military censors. It chafes over limited government disclosures, and occasional hypocrisy.
Bomb damage assessment, we were told, often takes many days. That was until last week when the U.S. government, facing a public relations fiasco, did a lot of quick, public assessing about damage at the Baghdad shelter.
”All the whining leads people to wonder, `Why are they whining?` ” says NBC`s Friedman, who agrees with the need for some censorship.
”But people have to understand it`s all about frustration,” he says.
”These guys and ladies didn`t go over there to stand on rooftops. They went to cover the action. If I was them, I`d whine, too.”
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When it comes to bomb damage assessments, one would best fly an AWACS plane over WBBM-Ch. 2, the CBS-owned station here.
Still very profitable, the former king of the hill suffers from uninspired ratings and a big drop in prestige for a once pre-eminent 10 p.m. newscast. No surprise that new general manager William Applegate, an alumnus of ABC-owned stations in Chicago and New York, is shaking things up.
The mix now includes graphics akin to those on celebrity pufferoo shows such as ”Entertainment Tonight”; more ”exclusive” features (”exclusive ACCU weather!”) and stories than Woodward and Bernstein, and tabloid-like promotional spots. They liked one so much-Bill Kurtis intoning, ”Real UFOs and aliens, tonight at 10”-that they used the promo for a second time, at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, but not the story at 10 p.m. (electronic glitch, we`re told).
A personal favorite: anchors Bill Kurtis and Linda MacLennan going
”live” to a ”war desk” manned by Lester Holt, heretofore general assignment reporter and afternoon anchor, now foreign affairs and military expert. He`s proving as dutiful as WLS-Ch. 7`s Jim Rose, who troops the land as journalistic caddy to the Bulls` Michael Jordan.
Admittedly, Rose must have been chagrined that WBBM scooped him with its
”exclusive” three-part series on the ”private side” of Jordan. But the light-as-meringue series did serve a purpose, if unwittingly. It`s interesting to see the Chicago sports media, which once protected Jordan by concealing that the star of Wheaties and McDonald`s ads had a child out of wedlock, now unabashedly giving us Jordan as happy dad and husband.
Applegate may only be stretching the value system that most TV people, especially younger ones, buy into: form over substance; being ”on air,”
rather than breaking stories, and yearning to be a TelePrompTer-reading, six- figure-a-year anchor!
He clearly succeeded at WLS-Ch. 7 and New York`s WABC-TV in bidding adieu to tradition and making money in what is, remember, a business, not a charity run by journalism school professors. It`s why his slash-and-burn attempt to reposition the station is predictable, and why more tension is assured beyond that which may explain the resignation of news director Colleen Dudgeon.
If estimable political reporter Mike Flannery can`t punch up, and shorten, stories about political races the hierarchy probably finds boring, bet a few bucks that many of his stories get buried on early newscasts. Better to have a good-looking female give us the 328th feature on mammography during the precious 10 p.m. slot.
And bet that Pam Zekman and her investigative team get pressured for quicker, ”sexier” investigations, not months-long probes into governmental wrongdoing. In a new culture, MacLennan`s smile will carry more weight than Zekman`s Pulitzers, Peabodys and Emmys.
Applegate`s most interesting challenge could involve Kurtis. Since his return from New York and the ”CBS Morning News,” his allure has descended quicker than some of the birds he has documented on PBS specials. If the boss concluded that Kurtis is part of the problem, would he have the nerve to move on him before a multimillion-dollar contract expires?
Of course, TV being TV, and viewing patterns being what they are, serendipity could make all problems vanish.
Just hypothesize what would happen if Oprah Winfrey, whose morning show is a phenomenal engine behind WLS` success, were to make an unlikely move with her crew to Channel 2. Or consider the CBS network finally stumbling upon some mega-hits in prime time.
Forget the need for snappy graphics, promos and stories that seem culled from the Weekly World News. Either of those developments would draw hordes of viewers to WBBM`s ”exclusive” wind-chill readings and to Wolf Blitzer-oops, we mean Lester Holt-at the WBBM war desk.
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Finally, there`s word that Leon Dusoe Jr., our favorite banker, has been found.
We reported last month that Dusoe, vice president at Granite Bank in Keene, N.H., and a pillar of the community, split town after mailing certain folks, including Keene Sentinel Editor James Rousmaniere, audio tapes confessing to his having embezzled more than $1 million from the bank to cover supposed stock market losses.
Well, he`s returned home and, last week, pleaded guilty to embezzlement. Sentencing is set for May and, until then, he`s at home, wearing an electronic security device around his ankle, abiding by a 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew. But two dandy disclosures have come out.
First, he had split to Las Vegas, armed with seven Visa, two Master and one American Express cards, apparently trying to win back some of the money he owed (it didn`t work). Second, his longtime golf partner at the Keene Country Club, with whom he won last summer`s club tournament, turns out to be an FBI agent-accountant whose specialty is-get this-tracking bank embezzlers.
Rousmaniere says that he recently spoke to Dusoe. ”He informed me that his lawyer urged him not to make any more tapes.”
