Go away for a week of vacation and not only do Magic Johnson and Ron Schueler not get fired, but neither does Peter Arnett.
Arnett is the CNN correspondent who grew famous for not flinching as the rockets’ red glare surrounded him on a Baghdad rooftop while colleague Bernard Shaw, indoors, was diving under his anchor desk.
More recently, of course, Arnett has gained renown for becoming, in effect, a celebrity endorser of his colleagues’ reporting: Hi, I’m not necessarily the reporter of this piece, but in exchange for my handsome salary I’m willing to play one on TV and in the pages of Time magazine.
That, at least, was his reported defense as he successfully maneuvered last week to not get sacked for the CNN/Time reportorial assertion that sarin nerve gas was used by American soldiers in a 1970 Vietnam War attack on American defectors. That assertion, since withdrawn, after its accuracy was called into question by a wide spectrum of folk, grew largely out of the repressed-then-allegedly recovered memory of one of the men involved in the attack.
In convincing his bosses to let him off with a reprimand, Arnett claimed minimal knowledge of the material he “reported” on the first “NewsStand: CNN and Time” newsmagazine show in early June. The report was followed up by a piece in Time, another Time Warner sibling.
This is a defense strategy made famous by another TV personality known for doing standup reports from battle scenes, albeit in mint-colored skirt-suits rather than an authentically aged photojournalist’s vest: Chicago’s own Jenny Jones. Jones, you may recall, took the stand in the murder trial prompted by her show’s habit of humiliating guests with unpleasant surprise information and claimed that she knew next to nothing about how the program bearing her name was produced.
CNN fired the two producers most directly responsible for the sarin report, and another quit, but in letting Arnett off the hook, it demonstrated yet again that television practices an almost pagan worship of its stars, even at the expense of credibility. For this and other reasons, the incident serves as a valuable reminder to consumers of news that they should never let their eyes grow too wide in response to something they watch, hear or read.
Arnett, mind you, was in a difficult position. He could take the level of responsibility for the piece that his on-screen appearance and Time magazine joint byline implied and find himself out of work. Or he could take the equivalent of a dive under the desk by blaming his underlings, thereby risking what has occurred: censorship in the journalistic community in part for taking credit where it was not due but also for revealing a convenient little near-secret of the trade.
The fact is that the high-paid and well-known faces who front the material presented as news–on newsmagazines and local newscasts alike–often do little more than read from the TelePrompTer.
Standards vary from program to program, but virtually all of the initial reportage is by field producers with varying degrees of journalistic training. Some of them are so gullible or inexperienced, apparently–or so desperate for an attention-grabbing scoop–as to ignore caution flags.
Too often to give viewers comfort, the second- and third-stage reportage is done by the producers too, with the journalism star making a cameo appearance. That was the case with Arnett, who admitted that in his on-camera interviews he conducted for the sarin piece, he was only reading scripted questions.
Most viewers come to understand that there is support staff involved. It begins to sink in that there is a reason “60 Minutes” story credits always include the producers. They begin to grasp that an on-camera interview that does not frequently show the correspondent’s head or face is one that has been conducted by a producer. And many reports, it must be said, are fairly frank about including and even identifying that producer as he or she asks questions.
Television is certainly not alone in practicing conventional, or just convenient, deceptions in the presentation of news. Radio news is often cribbed from that day’s newspapers without proper credit. Newspaper columnists routinely pass off interviews conducted by an assistant as a conversation the columnist had. And magazine and newspaper bylines suggest a solo effort when the story may involve editors, researchers and others.
There is a line to be drawn, though, between receiving primary credit because you are the primary hand guiding material, some of which may have been brought to you by others, and merely fronting the information, like an actor pretending to be flying by wearing a parachute while standing in front of a movie screen displaying passing clouds.
Arnett blew much of the trust he has earned over the years by proving himself willing to cross to the wrong side of that line. CNN, too, sacrificed some of the power of its brand name by revealing that what goes onto the labels of its product does not always accurately reflect the contents.
But the controversy, overall, is a needed slap for television news, which, through its virtually-no-corrections policy, often acts as though its information is more of a means to fill airtime and earn profits than a real report on real people and events.
And viewers, in all of this, were issued a couple of worthy reminders: Beware the Jenny Joneses, and always try to detect the movie screen in the background.
