A TOWER OF BABEL ON COMMISSION REPORT

Bad news sometimes makes worse TV.

Thursday morning’s long-awaited release of the Tower Commission report on the Iran- contra arms affair triggered a Washington media frenzy that showed TV reporting at its chaotic, hip-shooting worst.

At 7 a.m., CNN loudly advertised “The Tower Commission Report,” to air an hour later, as if promoting a prime-time TV show.

It turned out to be a show, at that. ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN itself refused to await the Tower Commission’s press conference, which was to follow a brief statement by President Reagan at 8 a.m.

Shortly after 7, CNN showed live pictures of a confused scene: reporters crowding in to get their copies of the blue-bound Tower report, then swiftly striding off. Someone else was flipping copies to reporters like a trainer tossing fish to seals.

Within minutes, network correspondents were on the screen, attempting to summarize the 300-plus page report that they had had time only to scan.

You could have picked your metaphor:

--An old movie. Reporters rush from a sensational murder trial to telephones and immediately begin dictating stories off the tops of their heads.

--A bargain-basement sale. The doors open and customers run to a table piled high with merchandise, grab handfuls of 99-cent panties and race to the cash register.

--Piranha feeding on a carcass.

That the White House correspondents were largely uninformed about the report was understandable: They hadn’t had time to read it. That they were asked to comment on camera anyway, however, was astonishing.

The parade began. First Bill Plante on CBS, then Sam Donaldson on ABC and Andrea Mitchell on NBC were on TV live, reading almost cold from the report only minutes after receiving it.

Even Dan Rather admitted at one point that he was confused by Plante’s rushed analysis and asked him to go over it again. Afterward, Rather still sounded unsure. “Despite the fact--if it is a fact--that President Reagan gave approval for an arms deal,” he began.

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“I have not really read or scanned many pertinent sections,” Donaldson told Peter Jennings after commenting on the report on ABC. Jennings thanked Donaldson for giving his opinion anyway “only eight minutes” after receiving the document. “Anything else you may want to add before you go off and read it more seriously?” he asked, earnestly.

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“I haven’t gotten to that section yet, Jane,” Mitchell, the Tower report open in her hands, replied to a question from “Today” co-host Jane Pauley.

Once again, TV’s driving force here was competitive madness. The often-clashing media’s rush-to-report and the public’s need-to-know had become tangled and confused.

Reagan himself seemed to have the media in mind when he later cautioned against “instant analysis” of the report. That was ironic, because the Tower document was reported to have accused the President himself of not bothering even with instant analysis of some of the details of his Administration’s operations.

Reagan’s statement and the commission press conference were carried live by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and PBS.

The event was bizarre TV: first Reagan thanking the commission he had appointed for a report whose conclusions were being interpreted as damaging to him and his Administration, and then the commission facing the media.

Before the three dark-suited commission members sat the press corps, asking questions about a lengthy report that they were still thumbing through.

One reporter asked if there were “any heroes” in the report. “Is there anything good in here?”

The coverage had come to this.

Meanwhile, the euphemisms hit the fan, especially repeated references to Reagan’s “management style”--as if the subject were an industry mogul, not the President. It remained for NBC’s Tom Brokaw to sharpen the focus later by characterizing the report as depicting a President who created problems because he “didn’t pay any attention to detail.”

As the Tower press conference was wearing down, meanwhile, CBS broke in with Rather calling the report “thoughtfully dense” and acknowledging that it was “too early for anyone to rush to any judgment and reach any conclusions” about it. Then he asked Bruce Morton to comment on the report “in that spirit.”

Rather might as well have said: “I want to emphasize that I am wearing no clothes. Having said that, how do you like my argyle socks?”

The report is “tough on people in the Administration . . . not tough on process,” Morton told Rather.

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Jennings said the report gave the impression that ousted National Security Council aide Oliver L. North “was using the President, is that not right?”

Correspondent Robert Zelnick disagreed, but added something to the effect that only time would tell.

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CBS had switched back to “The CBS Morning Program,” where Mariette Hartley was giggling about disposable towels. Most of the morning’s Tower report analysis was a disposable towel.

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Jennings noted that only two hours earlier, Donaldson had said that the report came down hardest on former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, but now seemed to be saying that Donald Regan, the President’s embattled chief of staff, was the prime target. Donaldson disagreed with Jennings.

The haphazard reporting process was there for all to see. Wire services and some newspapers face the same deadline pressures as television, but at least have the benefit of a little more lead time and several layers of editors.

NBC stayed on the longest and did the most thorough and concise job of putting the Tower report in context. Later in the morning, though, there was Brokaw, the report open before him, sharing its revelations seemingly as he discovered them, saying, “There is some remarkable material in here.”

Just how remarkable and exactly what it all meant for the presidency and the nation would have to await later, more studied judgments. In the words of the networks, only time would tell. And Thursday morning, time--and judgment--was something most of television didn’t have.