Brokaw in Beijing: Better Late Than Never?

The fundamental things apply as Tom goes by.

These opportunities don’t present themselves very often. So it’s a little surprising that Tom Brokaw wasn’t parachuted into Beijing and videotaped floating earthward, mike in hand, analyzing Sino-American relations.

Not that NBC, in dispatching its star anchorman to China last week, was caught with its promos down.

Hardly. If you watched the screen, you saw him, walking or standing tall, amid multitudes of Chinese, as a voice declared: “He’s met with the Chinese leaders, covered the people’s way of life. Now at a time when the country is on the verge of civil war and Americans are fleeing for their own safety, Tom Brokaw is back inside communist China.”

Very high concept, and the “civil war” reference was a nice dramatic flourish, although a little out ot touch with the latest assessments.

Also available was the version touting Brokaw as “the only network anchor reporting from inside China.”

The big question is: Why?

The best possible answer is hype--the fundamental, driving compulsion of networks and their news divisions to toot their horns and tout their stars while covering stories. For “NBC Nightly News”--running third in the ratings behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” and “The CBS Evening News”--the instinct for one-upmanship must now be especially strong.

Last month, as tensions built toward the recent Beijing massacre of demonstrators demanding democratic reforms, Brokaw and ABC’s Peter Jennings were the only network anchors reporting from inside the United States.

It was Dan Rather of CBS and Bernard Shaw of CNN who were inside China, anchoring newscasts there in conjunction with Beijing’s Sino-Soviet summit, then staying on to chronicle China’s chaos amid those massive demonstrations and the government’s attempts to repress media coverage.

Thus, it was CBS and CNN that deservedly got all the publicity when--in remarkable scenes reminiscent of the Titanic orchestra still playing as the great ship sank--they tenaciously continued to transmit live even as the Chinese attempted to shut them down.

Particularly humbling for ABC and NBC was the reporting coup by CBS and Rather.

So now--after a brutal crackdown against protesters that may have left thousands dead, but at a time when China remains dangerously turbulent--Brokaw began his own Beijing tour, starring in NBC newscasts, and in NBC promos implying that he was the only network anchor macho enough for this assignment.

NBC to CBS: Nyeh nyeh nyeh-nyeh nyeh.

Stow that, for given the way NBC has been advertising Brokaw, this is mostly celebrity journalism, the fusion of message and messenger.

Not that an experienced journalist like Brokaw can’t report a story and isn’t pulling his weight in a nation he’s visited six times previously, only that the nature of his present China appearance seems essentially promotional, especially as he was a last-minute substitute for Garrick Utley.

Utley said he was recalled while en route to New York’s Kennedy airport. Was it a case of NBC News bumping him for an even bigger celebrity?

NBC spokeswoman Peggy Hubble originally said Brokaw went to China because Utley couldn’t secure an entry visa from the Chinese consulate in New York, and Brokaw had a still-current one.

On Monday, however, she conceded that Utley probably could have obtained a visa in Hong Kong, as many other journalists have done. The decision to send Brokaw “wasn’t based on visas, publicity or competing with Dan Rather,” Hubble said from New York. “Mainly it was Tom’s interest in going,” and NBC News President Michael Gartner and executive news director Donald Browne thinking it was a good idea, she said. “Tom has contacts in the reform movement and the government that no one around here has.”

Including NBC’s Hong Kong bureau (Keith Miller, who has been there three years, and Leonard Pratt, who has been there longer, according to Hubble)? If so, that makes you wonder.

It’s one thing for Rather and Shaw to front newscasts from China on the occasion of historic Sino-Soviet meetings and for ABC’s Ted Koppel to be there now, as he is, essentially to prepare a special. It’s another for Brokaw to fly in for day-to-day coverage of a story--one that seemed to have been adequately covered by those on the scene--and then be billed in promos as Our Man in Peril.

Can the NBC News staff be this thin? If so, help has arrived, for among the NBC contingent in China now is KNBC-TV Channel 4 weekend anchor Bill Lagattuta. You may wonder why Channel 4 would send Lagattuta to China.

Fritz Coleman wasn’t available? Wrong.

“He’s a logical choice because he’s had lots of reporting experience,” said a Channel 4 spokeswoman, who added that Lagattuta was essentially a replacement for Channel 4 anchorman Keith Morrison, who recently returned from China duty. Like Morrison, the spokeswoman said, Lagattuta is filing stories for both Channel 4 and NBC, with the station and network sharing his expenses.

The big difference is that Morrison, who did a credible job in Beijing, is also a reporter with the NBC News bureau here, whereas Lagattuta would appear somewhat less qualified for the complex and volatile China beat.

“We can use reinforcements,” Hubble said of Lagattuta, adding, however, that he was not considered a replacement for Morrison on the network level. Morrison also filed stories for Channel 4.

“KNBC came to us and asked for the same (financial) arrangement we had with Morrison,” she said. “Lagattuta was their choice.”

That NBC would contemplate using Lagattuta in China at all does not bode well for its reporting depth on a story it deems so important that it says Tom Brokaw Himself must be dispatched to cover it. On the other hand, if Lagattuta is there primarily for image, you have to wonder about China--one of the biggest international stories in years--being used to showcase locals.

As for Channel 4 selecting Lagattuta, surely any face would do, the idea being that anyone from KNBC in China these days is a prestige builder for the station, regardless of performance. This is the station, after all, that originated its newscasts from Seoul during last year’s Summer Olympics in South Korea for no visible reason other than self-promotion.

Predictably, Lagattuta’s frequent telephone reports on Channel 4 to date have been on the thin side, largely aping what others--including Brokaw--have reported. Because Lagattuta is reporting nothing that is locally oriented, you can infer only that Channel 4 prefers hearing about China from him than from Brokaw and the other NBC regulars.

Substitute anchor David Garcia to the freshly arrived Lagattuta on Sunday: “Is there any doubt now that (senior Chinese leader) Deng Xiaoping has come out on top?” No doubt, Lagattuta said. He hadn’t spent three days in China for nothing.

On Monday, Lagattuta paused for reflection: “Not too long ago, before the crackdown, you could walk on the streets and people would approach you. . . .”

Uh, wait a minute. Lagattuta wasn’t in China before the crackdown. Oh well, there are some stories that you just feel.

Brokaw and Lagattuta--together on the threshold of history.