CNN, C-SPAN and ‘MacNeil/Lehrer’ Topped Coverage

The stopwatch war didn’t start on time. But probably never have TV viewers been so plugged-in to strategies, emotions and propaganda as they mounted in last-ditch maneuvering over the gulf crisis Tuesday.

With CNN clearly leading the way again, PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer News-Hour” offering brilliant discussion and C-SPAN touching the heart of America with hours of live phone-in response, the Big Three networks--ABC, CBS and NBC--were the choice of last resort despite acquitting themselves acceptably as well.

Acceptable, that is, if you thought ABC should have been broadcasting “Roseanne” and CBS the movie “The Presidio” at 9 p.m. Tuesday--the moment that the U.N. deadline for Iraq to get out of Kuwait passed without incident.

NBC managed a lengthy Tom Brokaw report at the deadline, of which its Los Angeles station, KNBC Channel 4, carried only 10 minutes or so, plus a brief local wrap-up with Kelly Lange and John Beard, before switching to “In the Heat of the Night,” which was in progress.

And what was CNN doing? Beating the pants off the Big Three again with a beautifully balanced, one-hour special, “Deadline in the Desert,” that led up to 9 p.m., and then following it with another splendid broadcast, “Crisis in the Gulf,” which included audio interviews with foreign journalists in France, England, Brazil, the Soviet Union, Turkey and Bahrain.

With video hard to come by, particularly during the nervous wait for war--would it come or not?--audio was a major part of the picture medium of TV. And no one excelled more than CNN’s prime anchor, Bernard Shaw, in his vivid telephone reports from Baghdad, in which he sounded amazingly like Edward R. Murrow.

In a fascinating indication of the growing stature of CNN and Shaw even among competitors, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, in New York, engaged in a lengthy, on-air conversation with Shaw Wednesday on CNN, discussing the dangerous war coverage.

With skepticism building on TV Tuesday and early Wednesday over the prospects for peace, Shaw was not afraid to go out on a limb and be one of the few who held out hopes for possible peace. “Hell, yes, I’m hopeful,” he said in response to a question on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also suggested that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might “make some move” for peace or risk destruction. But he added that the United Nations, having set a deadline, had to move within 48 or 72 hours “or face an endless series of deadlines.”

TV’s mood shifts were instructive in a world precariously on edge. On Tuesday night, CNN’s John Holliman, also in Baghdad, said that the Iraqis he met on the street seemed friendly enough. On Wednesday morning, he reported, “It appears that everyone has a gun now, provided by the government.”

CNN also presented live on Wednesday, as it was being broadcast in Baghdad, an Iraq TV news report about Hussein visiting his front-line troops and their pledge of loyalty to him.

Concern about the gulf crisis drew an unusually large audience for Peter Jennings’ Monday prime-time ABC special, “Line in the Sand: War or Peace,” which registered an 18.1 rating and beat all competition, it was reported. (Each rating point represents 931,000 homes.) PBS’ coverage of congressional debate on whether to give President Bush authority to go to war increased the network’s audience by up to 40%.

Emotional moments poured from the home screen and radio. Before Tuesday night’s Lakers telecast on Prime Ticket, fans paused in a moment of silence.

And as the seconds ticked away in the last few minutes before the 9 p.m. Tuesday deadline, radio station KCRW-FM (89.9) played two spirituals by Mahalia Jackson, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” and “Take My Hand, Oh Lord,” which aired precisely at 9.

A KCRW spokesperson said that an 11-year-old girl telephoned a call-in show on the station, expressed fears over the war and began crying.

From downtown Los Angeles, local TV showed activist actor Ed Asner addressing a crowd of anti-war protesters, quoting from a 1967 speech by slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday fell on Tuesday. KCBS Channel 2’s Harvey Levin gave a particularly sharp report on the protest.

KNX-AM Radio (1070) dropped its hour of old-time drama shows Tuesday from 9 to 10 p.m. for a report on the gulf titled “Zero Hour: Balanced on the Brink.” And Susan Block, host of “Match Nite,” a talk-radio dating game on KFOX-FM (93.5), said that she set up about 15 people to go to demonstrations and another group to watch war coverage together on TV.

“When I would go to the anti-war demonstrations during the Vietnam era, they were great places to meet people,” Block said. “They were kind of bigger than singles bars, and if the war goes on, I think that they’ll be really big again.”

If the war didn’t begin like clockwork, TV’s best outlets were operating with uncommon precision. Time and again, Shaw’s voice punctuated CNN’s coverage, giving it a special cadence and lift. “No one we’ve talked to wants war,” he said. Perhaps tactfully, given his location, he said that he hadn’t heard a single Iraqi criticize Saddam Hussein, but then added: “I suppose in this country, they know better.”

On a notable “MacNeil/Lehrer” discussion, retired Army Gen. John Wickham said that if Iraq took the initiative with a preemptive strike, it would cause “a Pearl Harbor effect” that would rally Americans. Former CIA director Richard Helms compared the U.S. position to major surgery, saying that the sooner the government took action and got it over with, the better.

In a field interview from Saudi Arabia, PBS correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault spoke with Col. John McBroom, who said that it was “totally inconceivable” that the United States and its allies would lose any war. Would it be over in a week or two? she asked. “That depends on them, how much damage they’re willing to accept,” said McBroom.

Over at C-SPAN, meanwhile, the phone-in show, combined with inserts of war coverage, began Tuesday afternoon and continued until late at night, anchored at various times by the channel’s founder, Brian Lamb, and Susan Swain in their impressively dignified style.

“Saddam Hussein is a second-rate Hitler” and must be stopped, said a Sacramento caller. A caller from Portland, Ore., agreed. But when Lamb asked a woman caller how long she wanted Bush to wait before acting, she said that she did not want him to “make the first move, no matter how long it takes. I don’t want anyone’s children to die.”

At least in the early going, KCAL Channel 9, with its lengthy prime-time newscast, had an edge over its local independent station competitors, if only because of the opportunities to expand its reports as needed. Clearly aided by having its own correspondents in the Middle East, KCAL shot up sharply in the ratings.

KTLA Channel 5, the independent news leader, did not distinguish itself (a promo by anchor Hal Fishman was typical hype: “War in the Persian Gulf could break out at any moment”). Nor did KTTV Channel 11 or KCOP Channel 13--each sticking mainly with entertainment programming.

Visions ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime remain fixed in memory. The agony of United Nations Secretary Javier Perez de Cuellar as he pleaded with Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait was gut-wrenching. The clowning around of KNBC weatherman Fritz Coleman on the heels of a war report was offensive. C-SPAN’s coverage of the British House of Commons debating the gulf crisis provided a fascinating and different perspective.

And Larry King’s interview with Democratic Rep. Joe Kennedy, nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and Republican Sen. John Warner was incisive. Warner spoke of the late president’s action in facing down the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Yes, said Joe Kennedy, but he didn’t invade Cuba--he set up a blockade that worked.