NBC News Won’t Send Anchor to Madrid

NBC is the only major TV news organization that will not be sending an anchor to cover the Middle East peace conference in Madrid next week, but network executives say the decision was not dictated by cost cutbacks.

Steve Friedman, executive producer of “NBC Nightly News,” said that the decision to keep Tom Brokaw in New York was based solely on editorial considerations.

“It is actually going to cost us more to report the story the way we’re doing it than it would if we’d sent Tom to anchor from Madrid,” Friedman said Friday. “Our feeling was that Madrid is going to be basically a ‘photo-op’ for a first meeting, with the real story in Damascus, Tel Aviv and other sites. It’s an editorial judgment that we’re making.”

NBC’s coverage of the historic conference will be provided by John Cochran, Bob Abernathy and other correspondents, with reports from Martin Fletcher in Israel and other NBC correspondents in the Middle East.

The Madrid meeting, which has met with reluctant approval by the conservative government of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, has been promoted by the United States and the Soviet Union. President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev will be present to begin the first phase of the peace effort on Tuesday.

Peter Jennings will anchor ABC’s top-rated “World News Tonight” from Madrid on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Jennings, who reported from the Middle East for many years as an ABC correspondent, is traveling in the region this weekend to report background stories. One of his reports will air during Monday night’s edition of “World News Tonight,” which will be anchored by Diane Sawyer.

Dan Rather will anchor the “CBS Evening News” from Madrid, starting on Monday night. Rather was in Los Angeles on Friday, where he was scheduled to appear on the Arsenio Hall show to promote his new book about his childhood in Texas.

Cable News Network is sending its Washington anchors, Bernard Shaw and Frank Sesno, to Madrid. Shaw will be the anchor for CNN’s live coverage of speeches and other events during the conference, while Sesno will anchor the network’s “International Hour” and “World Today” newscasts from Madrid.