WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DELIVERS, TV COVERS LIVE

How easily are the media manipulated? This easily.

You’re the White House, and your boss, President Reagan, is getting a lot of heat from Congress about his vague Persian Gulf policy. Obviously, the President and his policy need an upper, a great big hypodermic injection of image glossing, stature-building public confidence.

So you arrange for him to look good.

You do that by having him make a short statement in the White House press room Friday morning. You suggest to reporters that he will have something important to say. And media wise, from the White House’s perspective, everything works perfectly. The press room is naturally jammed.

Cable’s CNN covers Reagan live, which is not unusual, because CNN covers everything live. But ABC, CBS and NBC, thinking something big is up, also rush in to cover the President live, interrupting their regular programming to bring America his momentous words immediately as he speaks them.

Well, not so momentous, actually.

The President’s brief appearance turns out to be essentially an echo, a ditto, merely his restated resolve for the United States to maintain a military presence and protect Kuwaiti oil tankers in the gulf.

Afterward, he takes no questions.

What did the White House achieve from this expanded photo opportunity? Although Reagan’s statement was basically a rerun of what he previously said about the Persian Gulf, he was able to appear presidential and incisive at a time when his leadership qualities are again being challenged. The live TV pictures showed the President behind a podium looking very much the authority figure, a strong, commanding, uncontested chief whose words were significant enough to be dutifully recorded by the swarm of media inside the room, shown on camera scribbling in their pads. And no questions from pesky reporters to gum things up.

The live coverage itself helped feed the White House imagery by giving false weight and import to Reagan’s remarks. If the President weren’t saying something new or profound, a viewer could ask, would the networks be beaming him to America-- live ?

Uh, yes.

Although not significant in itself, this little episode demonstrates anew the potential of the White House--no matter who is President--to steer the media and create self-serving illusions that may help shape public opinion.

Excerpts of Reagan’s appearance made the Friday evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC only as part of wider stories about the President’s controversial gulf policy. The coverage included some details of plans for the Navy to protect those Kuwaiti tankers from attack by Iran while they’re in the gulf.

But the pictures of Reagan delivering his statement in the press room may have been the most potent.

The President wanted to persuade the public that “nothing less than peace is at stake” regarding U.S. military involvement in the gulf, ABC’s Sam Donaldson reported.

Cut to Reagan: “Peace is at stake. Our national interest is at stake.”

Click.

“White House officials decided that the President needed to explain U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, partly because of confusion created by the administration itself this week,” Andrea Mitchell reported on NBC. “Mr. Reagan tried to show his resolve by recalling the oil shortages of the ‘70s.”

In fact, about the only remotely fresh element in the President’s statement was indeed his citing of the last decade’s oil crisis in the U.S. as justification for his gulf policy. Unfortunately, what no one on TV attempted to do was fill in the gaps by explaining why America’s oil future would be tied to a region from which it now gets only about 7% of its oil.

What was clear from Friday, though, was that a President can appear to make news merely by stepping in front of the camera, as Reagan did in the White House press room. The headlines spoke for themselves.

“President Reagan makes a pledge to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf,” Hal Fishman announced at the top of the KTLA news Friday night. “The President vows to keep the Persian Gulf open,” Wendy Gordon reported on KHJ-TV.

All true, of course, just as it was when Reagan said it previously.