Hijacking as a Slow Dance on a Dim and Distant Stage

As media events go, the hijacking of the Kuwaiti jetliner wasn’t much.

Terrorism, by definition, is to some extent propaganda warfare in which the news media--especially television, which speeds on dangerous hairpin curves and operates under brilliant lights--become the staging area for political attacks and extortion.

But this time the stage was dimly lit, the coverage restrained and responsible. If the Muslim hijackers did design this at least partially as a global forum, their message was muffled and it’s hard to see how they succeeded.

Unlike the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, there was no show under the big tent. Even when the bodies of two murdered hostages were tossed from the jet like rag dolls, the pictures had the look of grainy, if grisly, fantasy.

This time the medium was cool, less a tool of the hijackers--who were demanding freedom for 17 men imprisoned in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies--than a distant observer.

Perhaps circumstances helped shape the coverage.

There were no staged interviews, no TV chat with the Kuwaiti jetliner pilot as there had been with TWA pilot John Testrake in his cockpit as a terrorist held a pistol to his head and ultimately put a hand over his mouth. There were no interviews with any of the other prisoners of the hijackers as there had been with Allyn Conwell, controversial spokesman for the TWA hostages.

There were no press conferences for the benefit of ravenous media, no parade of prisoners.

CNN did do an April 13 phone interview with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat, who vowed to help “coordinate” an end to the hijacking. But there was no TV diplomacy as there was in 1985, no Nabih Berri to celebrate or interview live on “Good Morning America.”

There were no U.S. interviews with hostage families that hyped emotions, fed the urge for revenge and intensified pressure on the Algerian negotiators.

There was a remoteness about these TV pictures as they appeared in the United States, mostly in bulletin form, throughout the 16-day ordeal that ended with the release of the 31 remaining hostages in Algiers Wednesday. Even Algerian TV pictures of their liberation (the Algerians controlled the only microwave link for live transmission, although foreign networks were able to tape footage for later airing) were somehow undramatic.

The morning programs were uncharacteristically low-key Wednesday: Some of that Algerian TV footage contained a terse interview with the captain, and then his wife.

“CBS This Morning” addressed the implications of flawed airline security--for the hijackers proved, if nothing else, that they could commandeer a jet--and also discussed the deal the Algerians may have made with the hijackers. Would granting them apparent free passage in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages encourage other hijackings? On the other hand, what had the hijackers gained from this affair beyond their own survival?

One reason for the reduced coverage was competition of other big stories, from the Democratic presidential race to trouble in the Persian Gulf.

Even more significant for the American networks, though, was that the occupants of this hijacked jet were not predominantly American (although one of them held dual Egyptian and U.S. citizenship).

The weary people who emerged from the plane were not Al and Betty from Topeka, but Arabs: two women wearing black veils followed by men, many of them wearing traditional robes and headdresses, the same Arabs who are frequently the objects of nasty stereotyping in entertainment programs.

If the murdered hostages had been American instead of Kuwaiti, or many of the hostages U.S. citizens, there’s no telling how much shriller the coverage might have been. Not much shriller, you would hope.

Although the cameras are a powerful inducement, terrorism didn’t begin with TV and won’t end should TV choose to ignore it. But the question of whether to report or not to report--whether it’s wise to grant terrorists the publicity they seek by covering them as news--lingers.

At the very least, TV can continue to lower the terrorists’ profile by not shaping reality to fit entertainment criteria and by applying only news values to these recurring incidents.

Until next time, then. And, as the hijackers vow, there will be a next time.