‘Nightline’ in South Africa a Triumph for TV News : Television: The show illustrates the power of the medium to illuminate.

Someone complained to me the other day about Nelson Mandela.

Not Mandela the man. Not Mandela the leader. Not Mandela the political figure. Not Mandela the symbol. No, none of these. On the contrary, the person who complained was as supportive of Mandela’s goal to repeal South Africa’s apartheid as any clear-thinking person would be.

The complaint, voiced earlier this week, was about Mandela the speaker.

According to this person, Mandela gave a bad speech on the evening of his release from prison last Sunday. The criticism was twofold: that Mandela was not a dynamic speaker and that, instead of memorizing his speech, he had read it, the pages of text flapping in the stiff breeze as he addressed supporters in Cape Town. Borrrrrring.

Whew.

Researchers are continually speculating about television’s impact on our attitudes and behavior. Just as important: How does this medium--one providing Disney cartoons, slapstick home videos and Nelson Mandela on the same evening--shape our expectations?

Do we now expect everything reaching us via television to be entertainment? A show?

Must newscasts be titillating, amusing or diverting, instead of merely newsy? Must specific events be sold to viewers with Hollywood-style titles like “Dark Days in Moscow,” as “The CBS Evening News” one night bannered its coverage of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s struggles within the Communist Party? Must political candidates be captivating on TV to get our vote? Must President Bush continually emote for the cameras to avoid being criticized as unfeeling or passive? Must news be moving or dramatic in order to hold our interest?

On the podium, must Nelson Mandela be Jesse Jackson?

Only rarely do news programs fuse illumination and conflict or high drama in a way that legitimately serves viewers. Such was the case Wednesday night, however, when ABC’s Nightline” held a “town meeting” at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, joining South Africans “of all races and all ideologies” in a sometimes spirited discussion of their nation’s future.

The program crept deeper and deeper into early morning, lasting two hours and 20 minutes.

“Nightline” did something similar almost two years ago in Jerusalem, providing a single, boisterous forum for clashing views on the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The catalyst this time--and the reason Ted Koppel and “Nightline” have joined the crush of media this week in South Africa--was the release of Mandela.

Although he wasn’t at Wednesday night’s gathering (that began 6:30 a.m. Johannesburg time), his presence hovered over the proceedings just as surely as if he’d been there in person.

Of all the network coverage originating from South Africa this week, this program was arguably the smartest and the most revealing, not only because of its perceptive background pieces, but because of the spontaneous interaction of some of its participants.

They included South African Education Minister Stoffel van der Merwe, black anti-apartheid leader Rev. Allan Boesak, white anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman and Koos van der Merwe, a South African parliament member and spokesman for the minority Conservative Party that adamantly opposes negotiations between the white-minority government and Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC).

We’ve all seen the ugly, easily identifiable side of apartheid. In Koos van der Merwe, “Nightline” showed America another, perhaps even more dangerous side. He was charming. He was amusing. He was somehow even likable in arguing for retention of some of the basics of apartheid. However, his affable demeanor cloaked an anti-black rigidity that he revealed by walking out when Koppel prepared to extend the conversation to ANC leader Thabo Mbeki in Zambia via satellite.

Van der Merwe was a more astute version of American television’s likable bigot, Archie Bunker, and even his exit line was a funny joke that had the audience in the hall laughing.

Before he did leave, however, something very raw and highly charged occurred when a man in the audience rose to support Van der Merwe’s refusal to converse with the ANC’s Mbeki, angrily adding: “Don’t leave, Mr. Van der Merwe. Just don’t talk to the sons of bitches!”

After letting the man go on for a while, Koppel finally cut him off. Later, when the man calmly walked to the front of the hall, placed a brown attache case on the stage where Koppel and the panelists were, and then began to open it, you suddenly feared he was about to produce a gun. Fortunately, nothing happened, and the man was persuaded to return to his seat.

Much of the program was quite civil. And although Education Minister Stoffel van der Merwe caused rumblings by refusing to publicly commit to integrated education in South Africa, much of the dialogue consisted of the kind of righteous rhetoric that sounds good but quickly evaporates once everyone goes home.

Yet the fearful moment with the man and his briefcase captured something frighteningly primal, becoming a sort of metaphor for South Africa’s continued volatility.

On the positive side, the “Nightline” show itself symbolically captured some of the changes occurring inside South Africa. It was five years ago that “Nightline” aired a number of compelling programs from South Africa that created a rare dialogue between forces for apartheid and those against. But it was a dialogue by satellite.

This time both sides shared the same stage and the same hall.

Through the miracle of videotape, meanwhile, Koppel simultaneously appeared on NBC Wednesday night as a guest on “Later With Bob Costas,” which for laughs replayed an earlier Koppel appearance on “Late Night With David Letterman.”

There on the screen, somehow symbolizing the infinite facets of television, was the usually reserved Ted Koppel--balancing a dog biscuit on his nose and doing impressions of William F. Buckley and Richard Nixon. It was funny.

But the real show was on “Nightline.”