News Is Where TV Anchor Is, Study Shows

Where network news divisions choose to send their anchormen has become a crucial factor in deciding television’s news agenda, a new study of television coverage of the crisis in China reveals.

In the month between May 14 and June 14 this year--during which CBS and NBC had anchors in China--the three network evening news programs aired more stories about China than they had in the entire period between 1972 and 1981, the study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found this week.

Indeed, anchor location is so decisive a factor that CBS, which sent Dan Rather to China, aired nearly 90 minutes more footage on China--in excess of three full broadcasts--than ABC, which did not send Peter Jennings to the country. CBS aired 6 hours and 45 minutes of China stories between January and June, though the bulk came in May and June. NBC was next with 6 hours and 25 minutes. ABC carried 5 hours and 16 minutes.

While the events in May and June were historic--including the visit of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the student protests in Tian An Men Square--the decade between 1972 and 1981 encompassed the visit of President Richard Nixon, the deaths of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, the arrest and jailing of the Gang of Four, the rise to power of Deng Xiaoping, the U.S. restoration of diplomatic relations and China’s abandonment of rural communes, its launch of economic reforms and its establishment of a one-child-per-family birth-control program.

The findings, said Robert Lichter, director of the center, suggest that television journalism makes political events seem transitory and thus somehow less connected to real life. “It’s the old boom and bust of foreign coverage, a movable feast of anchors dropping in somewhere, saturating TV and then leaving.”

The study, which examined all 577 stories on the three evening newscasts from January through June, also found that:

--Television loves to contemplate its own navel. Despite all that was occuring in China, from President Bush’s visit in February, to violence in Tibet to Gorbachev’s visit in May to the massacre in Tian An Men Square, China’s relations with the media were chronicled more often (in 73 stories) than its relations with either the American (42) or Soviet governments (45).

--In contrast to the theory that television loves violence--or what some producers call “bang-bang” footage--violent demonstrations, including those in Tibet, made up only 32 of the 577 stories broadcast. Indeed, the most popular story was peaceful demonstrations, which may have accurately reflected the tenor of events occuring in China at the time. These were followed by stories about official Chinese activities, Chinese politics, media manipulation, American response and public reaction.

--In contrast to the theory popularized by the image manipulators in the Reagan Administration that only the visuals matter (and what journalists say over the pictures does not), in China the pictures as often as not depicted the students as the aggressor, though the lasting impression of China was the students as victims. Among the 127 scenes of one-sided violence portrayed, the demonstrators accounted for roughly half, 47%, while government security forces accounted for slightly more.

--And the television networks seemed to adhere to a belief that a more democratic China would ultimately emerge, even in the face of extraordinary uncertainty. Having put labels such as “The New Faces of Communism” (CBS) on their reports of Gorbachev’s visit, the networks even after the crackdown in China still generally predicted a collapse or easing of totalitarianism in China.

More than half of the predictions by network journalists after the crackdown, for instance, foresaw a resumption of economic reforms, the study found. Not one predicted economic retrenchment. And only one network journalist predicted that the government would become more hard line over the long term, while 25% predicted that communism would collapse and half said the future was unclear.

Even when offered bleak predictions, network personnel seemed to cling to a sense of hope for democracy in China. On May 26, for instance, Peter Jennings said that “we heard a young girl say, ‘If Li Peng has more power than the students, we’ll be killed.’ ” But to that Jennings added: “No American analyst can believe that Li Peng would be so stupid or unfeeling as to resolve the crisis this way.”

“What has (television) journalism really told us about China?” Lichter asked. “That is unclear, but it has told us a lot about television. Television journalism values great television above great journalism. Pictures, atmosphere, drama instead of cool analysis.”

The center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that conducts an ongoing study of the three evening network newscasts. The center concentrates on the networks’ evening programs because they remain the dominant means by which Americans get their news.

Officials from the networks, who had not seen the center’s study yet, could not immediately be reached for comment.