How Do the Media Handle Being ‘Used’?

Would you buy this?

When a Ted Koppel, Dan Rather or equivalent, engineers an interview with an official of a nation with whom we are in conflict, say Iraq, start it this way, full screen:

Warning: According to the U.S. Censor General, the following interview contains material that may be injurious to a proper American attitude. If you would not go that far, perhaps you wonder whether the media, TV in particular, are being used to suit the purposes of the other side.

The short answer is: Of course. Everyone uses the media. Or tries to. Iraq, get in line.

The “using” takes dozens of forms, up to and including outright purchase, including the cultivation of favored reporters, the granting of interviews, the leaking of information, true and false. Make your own list. All good reporters know that if they are finding their jobs easy to do and information a cinch to get they must be being used.

In the case of Iraq, the avenues for favorable media use have been almost as restricted as its sea lanes. Its normal channels, none too effective into the Western world at best, are pretty well cut off. After sitting for a while on a pile of requests from Western journalists of all stripes, apparently it was considered advantageous to “use” a limited number of American TV reporters, thus trading a little access, strictly controlled, for potential propaganda and political rewards.

Not surprisingly, the invitee jumped at the chance to get to the heart of the story after reporting so long from the periphery. TV network news divisions are in a perpetual scramble to be first, whether to penetrate the old Iron or the new Iraqi Curtain.

Whether by choice or accident, the early inside-Iraq field was left to ABC and CBS News, with Koppel first off the mark, but Rather shortly on scene and remaining nearly a week, not alone, but with a hefty team, nine people in all. Out of this came Koppel’s initial news-making interview and a scattering of solid information from Rather and staff, including the first word of foreigners being scattered for possible use as human shields, and climaxed by his hourlong interview with the Iraqi dictator, run in prime time.

Needless to say, coverage of a closed society is tricky. Wartime conditions heighten the difficulty, and certainly the danger. Sometimes being “used” may simply be the only way to go. When that happens, it is essential that the viewer be made fully aware of what is, or what may be, going on. If there were preconditions to an interview they must be made public. The presence of censorship or monitoring should be disclosed.

The guiding principle is: Trust viewers. Level with them. Let them know what is going on behind the scenes. The people who watch the news are just as smart as the people who cover the news. Maybe smarter. In this crisis, as far as I have been aware, the networks have been careful to spell out the circumstances of their access in general terms, but in less detail than I would have felt both appropriate and interesting.

A curious new dimension seems gradually to have been added to the ill-defined business of “using” the media. A handful of network stars enjoy prestige of such a nature that their presence and comment at the scene of a story can affect national attitudes.

Heads of government know anchors, or at least their names. PR men in every embassy in the United States know enough about American TV to tell the home office: “If you want to reach Americans, have our man talk to. . . .” Fill in your favorite anchor.

Anchors themselves, always on the lookout for a competitive edge, must of course be aware that they are the prime target for being used.

Used or not, television, and TV’s top news people seem destined to continue to play a widening role on the stage of world events. Perhaps that age started on Nov. 14, 1977, when Walter Cronkite talked alternately to Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin, out of which came their historic meeting. Anchor diplomacy.

Will Barbara Walters get George Bush to sit down with Saddam Hussein?

And who will be using whom?