TV’s Front Line : A New Platoon of Reporters Earning Stripes and Reputations in Gulf War

Once upon a time, they were gods.

Edward R. Murrow. Eric Sevareid. Charles Collingwood. William L. Shirer.

They weren’t born on Olympus. It just seemed that way as their voices crackled over radio, sending back to the United States their dramatic overseas reports of World War II.

In fact, though, they were just a group of talented young people grappling with the new possibilities of radio, and making their reputations as a fascinated public tuned in.

From print to broadcasting, from Ernie Pyle to Murrow, war has long been a breeding ground of media stardom.

The Persian Gulf War is no different.

Names like Arthur Kent of NBC, Wolf Blitzer of CNN, Dean Reynolds of ABC and Tom Fenton of CBS--although known in the past--are now infinitely more familiar as on-the-spot TV messengers of the war’s good and bad tidings.

They may not be incipient Murrows. But as in many a Hollywood movie, the supporting players--those faces you’ve often recognized but couldn’t identify--are stealing the scene. CNN’s Richard Blystone, Christiane Amanpour and Charles Jaco are other examples. So are NBC’s Martin Fletcher and Fred Francis, CBS’ Allen Pizzey and ABC’s Bill Redeker, a former anchor for KTTV Channel 11.

And C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, a longtime cable fixture in Washington, is more prominent than ever as he spends endless hours on the air fielding viewers’ phone calls about the war and media coverage.

With the big-name anchors--Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw--pulling things together in New York, those in the field have had a chance to shine, both in the Middle East and in Washington.

And with CNN’s cadre of correspondents getting tremendous exposure because of the channel’s 24-hour news format, the emerging faces of the young network have suddenly become constant living-room companions to viewers.

If the Gulf War newscasters don’t seem as godlike or Olympian as Murrow and his World War II colleagues, perhaps it is because they don’t have the advantage of radio’s old-time mystique--the unseen voices that invited images of authority.

If we had seen, for instance, just how young Collingwood was when he was sending back his early reports--he was in his 20s--perhaps the imagery and authority might have lessened despite his brilliance.

But not even Rather, Brokaw or Jennings have the extraordinary stature that Walter Cronkite once commanded, because TV now is filled with far more choices, not the least of whom is CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, just back from his historic audio coverage of the start of the war in Baghdad.

Just as Shaw’s place in TV history is assured by his Baghdad coverage--along with Peter Arnett and John Holliman, another CNN reporter who rocketed to fame--so did Rather and Jennings benefit in their own careers from major stories.

Rather’s coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy marked him as a standout. Jennings’ expertise from the Middle East and other foreign locations created an aura of worldliness perhaps unmatched by network anchors.

As for the contingent of upcoming and veteran TV journalists who are the networks’ on-the-scene guides through the Gulf War, a little background:

NBC’s Kent, through no fault of his own, is an example of TV’s tendency to create instant celebrities for all the wrong reasons. Reporting from Saudi Arabia, the handsome Canadian, 37, apparently has become a heartthrob for female viewers. One office wag in New York dubbed him the “Scud stud.”

This should not obscure the fact that his work has taken him to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Soviet Union and China. At 21, he was the youngest person ever named a correspondent by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Blitzer, CNN’s Pentagon reporter, is a longtime Washington journalist. He was Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post and has written two books as well as articles for leading newspapers. “Saturday Night Live” has already taken note of him, saying he has the “worst media name” and that “Obviously, the guy made it up for the war.”

ABC’s Reynolds, son of the network’s late anchor, Frank Reynolds, is a familiar TV face from Tel Aviv. He previously was assigned to London and Washington, and worked for CNN and United Press International.

Fenton, also in Tel Aviv, is a 20-year veteran of CBS and an experienced hand at war coverage and other Middle East crises, including Iran’s taking of American hostages. A former newspaperman with the Baltimore Sun, he was named CBS Senior European Correspondent in 1979.

Blystone, a droll former Associated Press reporter, has been one of CNN’s most valuable assets during the Gulf War, most recently in Tel Aviv. Nothing seems to faze the veteran newsman’s ability to produce clear, literate and authoritative reports, often wearily tinged with black humor and a sardonic sense of the tragedy amid the human comedy.

Amanpour, London-born and a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, is another CNN asset, reporting from Saudi Arabia with a commanding combination of substance and style.

Jaco, a CNN Miami correspondent who’s also been in Saudi Arabia, has been criticized for overly dramatic reporting at times, but he seems to have calmed down. He’s a former NBC Radio correspondent and has written for many newspapers and magazines.

Fletcher, also London-born, is based in Tel Aviv for NBC and has reported from Cambodia, Berlin and China. And NBC’s Francis has been as good as gold for the network in his solid Pentagon coverage; he’s also a specialist on Central America.

Pizzey, another native of Canada whom CBS sent to Saudi Arabia, has been based in Rome for the network. Redeker, who left KTTV for ABC in 1989, is also a familiar face from Saudi Arabia, where he looks much more comfortable than he did in the wilds of the Los Angeles anchor wars.

The list of emerging TV news figures in the Gulf War is endless. And both the print and broadcast journalists who are putting themselves on the line in the conflict, to inform the public, are a special breed of reporter. Not everybody can be, or has to be, Murrow.