Media : 2 Network Anchors China-Bound

NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw is on his way to Beijing today to report on the unrest in China and ABC’s Ted Koppel will fly there during the weekend, the two networks announced today.

CBS has no immediate plans to send back Dan Rather, who made news two weeks ago by being the only network anchor, other than CNN’s Bernard Shaw, to be on the scene covering the student occupation of Tian An Men Square.

Brokaw and ABC’s Peter Jennings, while praising their own correspondents’ coverage in China, both expressed disappointment that they had not been there themselves for one of the biggest stories of the year.

CBS had sent Rather to Beijing to cover the visit of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, but ended up with the larger story of the student uprising. Rather returned from China after a week, long before the military began firing on Beijing citizens last weekend.

Brokaw and Koppel are going into the fray as most Americans are leaving on the advice of the State Department, because of the threat of continued violence.