TV AND THE GULF WAR : Who Won, Who Lost in Media Coverage of Conflict

No one knows how history will judge the Persian Gulf War.

Assessing media coverage of the war is easier. Envelopes, please.

Winner: Television news. After a wild start in which the controversy over error-prone instant coverage of the war eclipsed the war itself, and another period in which empty punditry prevailed, TV finally redeemed itself.

Some of the TV crews that circumvented the pool system by setting out on their own produced some of the most memorable coverage of the war, beaming back footage that captured at once the pitifulness of Iraqi forces in the desert and the euphoria of a Kuwaiti people being liberated.

Loser: Television news . The costs of covering the war will reverberate, shaking the networks and their news divisions to their toes.

Winner: CNN . If there was a doubt that CNN was not the news network of record--and the most influential news presence on the globe--it was removed by the Gulf conflict.

The catalyst was the team of Bernard Shaw, John Holliman and Peter Arnett relaying live reports from Baghdad during the opening bombardment there. Thereafter, it was Arnett’s controversial censored reports from a besieged Baghdad that helped keep CNN in the public eye and dramatized its uniqueness as a two-way mirror through which enemies at war could view each other.

Loser: CNN . The more the network stayed in the spotlight, the more exposed were its flaws-- one of which was a thin, uneven and in some respects inexperienced staff. Undeterred by its reporting errors, moreover, CNN continued stomping across the minefields of live TV, at times perpetuating nearly as much misinformation as news.

Winner: ABC News . Although it wasn’t first with every story, ABC got its share of scoops, while night after night demonstrating its general superiority in coverage and analysis.

Winner: Peter Jennings . While NBC’s Tom Brokaw and CBS’ Dan Rather seemed awkward and out of the loop on their war stage in Dhahran before rushing to Kuwait city, ABC could not have made a better decision than to keep Jennings in New York. He was the picture of sage stability, his Gulf anchoring and interaction with the network’s talented pundits rippling with confidence and intelligence.

Loser: Brokaw . Although appearing benign, Brokaw can be a reckless anchor when fast-breaking events demand that he process information swiftly. Proof came in the Gulf crisis.

It was Brokaw, reacting to sketchy early reports, who turned an initial Scud launching against Israel into a “chemical attack” that he insisted would force the Israelis to respond. It was Brokaw who would jump to conclusions in the ensuing weeks the way a circus dog jumps through a flaming hoop.

Loser: Rather . Although much more skeptical than Brokaw, the drum-tight Rather seems driven to be the omnipresent Major Dan of war news, leaving his boot print on just about every story. Or his tears.

As often emotional and melodramatic as eloquent, Rather really outdid himself in Kuwait city Thursday morning when his voice broke and he began crying, first while describing “Old Glory flapping” in the wind and again while lauding the efforts of U.S. troops.

There’s support in some circles for anchors expressing emotion on camera, and there’s no question about the intense feeling associated with the Gulf conflict. But tears? Well, maybe he needs a good night’s sleep.

Winner: Arnett . Once a relatively obscure Pulitzer Prize winner, Arnett now may be the best-known reporter in the United States. Also the most notorious.

No need at this late stage to reprise Arnett’s familiar reporting in Baghdad during the war. Suffice to say that charges that he was a toady for the Iraqis, and that he reported nothing of benefit to U.S. viewers, are founded in ignorance.

Arnett’s performance may be in dispute, but not his financial value. Even though he may not have planned it, he can get a big book out of this experience, and an even bigger movie.

Loser: Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) Simpson is the guy who, less than a year after personally assuring Saddam Hussein that his problem was the U.S. media, not the U.S. government, publicly characterized Arnett as an Iraqi “sympathizer.” Enough said.

Winner: ABC correspondent Forrest Sawyer . Striking out on their own in the desert, Sawyer and his crew scored beat after beat, all calmly and coolly reported under trying conditions.

Winner: CBS correspondent Bob McKeown . Sawyer and his crew were the first with live video from Kuwait, but the relatively unknown McKeown, and his crew, were the first with live video from Kuwait city, making him a candidate for a future trivia question.

Who liberated Kuwait city?

Bob McKeown.