NBC Denies Favoring GE in Pentagon Stories
General Electric, which owns NBC, did not receive special treatment in the network’s news reports on GE’s indictment on charges of trying to defraud the Pentagon, a senior NBC News executive said Wednesday.
“No way, absolutely no way,” said Tim Russert, an NBC News vice president. “Never would we ever do that, nor would they (GE officials) expect it.”
The “NBC Nightly News,” like its rivals at CBS and ABC, reported the General Electric indictment on its Tuesday broadcast. The report was aired again Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show.
GE, the nation’s third-largest defense contractor, has denied charges that it and a Pennsylvania subsidiary tried to defraud the Defense Department of $10 million in connection with a battlefield computer system.
In 1985, when GE said it was buying NBC, consumer activist Ralph Nader and others voiced concern that the connection could affect the way the network reported news involving its new owner. Top NBC executives, among them then-NBC News President Lawrence Grossman, were emphatic in saying that the news division would remain independent in its reporting.
The current NBC News president, Michael Gartner, was in Las Vegas at a news directors’ convention Wednesday and was unavailable for comment. But Russert, his second-in-command, reiterated NBC News’ independence.
“This is just one of many stories we’ve had about GE,” he said. “Any time it’s a news story, whether about GE or any other large corporation, we put it on.
“For example, we did a story on taxes--about large corporations and the taxes they pay. We selected five companies, and one of them happened to be GE.”
“NBC News is an independent news-gathering organization,” Russert said. “If GE--or Loews (which owns 24.9% of CBS) or Capital Cities (ABC’s parent company)--encounters difficulties, we report that. Or if they happen to be the benefactors of good news, we also report it, if it warrants being broadcast on the network news.”
NBC News had no advance knowledge that General Electric would be indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia, Russert said.
“We had no inside information on it. We saw the story move on the (Associated Press) business wire, we called up our affiliate in Philadelphia and got more information,” he said. “And then we called the public relations office of GE for a response. And they faxed us the statement they issued to all news outlets.”
Asked if there would be a follow-up story on the indictment, Russert said, “If it warrants it. We’ll see what develops.”
