Going for a ‘Spin’ Behind the Scenes

En route to a commercial break, Larry King likes to tell his talk-show viewers: “Don’t go away!” Brian Springer doesn’t.

As a result, King, the VIP-schmoozing golden orb of CNN, joins other election-season notables as unwitting stars of “Spin,” a 76-minute video showing unguarded moments in front of the camera--some of them devastating--that Springer intercepted with his Buffalo, N.Y., rooftop satellite dish in 1992.

There are lots of unwary moments here in addition to King’s, among them separate chats featuring Vice President Al Gore (when he was still a U.S. senator) and televangelizing powerbroker Pat Robertson, and both men’s heard-but-unseen political handlers. These and other dialogues in “Spin” expose an interlocking of politics and media that is often detrimental to the public.

Springer is seeking ways to market “Spin,” which cannot be seen on TV or purchased in video stores. But good news: It is being shown free at 7:30 tonight at the LACE/Filmforum in Hollywood as part of a two-day program on media spin in the United States and Eastern Europe.

Merely the tip of Springer’s 500-hour library of satellite-delivered footage, “Spin” is not the handiwork of deep-dish paparazzi invading the privacy of celebrities. Springer, 35, an independent video producer, is no peeper; lots of ordinary people can do what he has done.

There are an estimated several million satellite dishes in the United States capable of receiving unscrambled TV signals being bounced off satellites thousands of miles above Earth. The technology enables dish owners to see pictures and hear chatter unavailable to the rest of us, because the feeds continue even though the programs themselves cut away for commercials.

Narrated by Springer and made on a small budget, some of “Spin” lacks focus and cohesion, and some of its candid moments are the benign small talk that TV folk and their guests engage in as they prepare for the camera or wait out commercial breaks. That’s the kind of amusing satellite footage Springer supplied to the makers of “Feed,” a documentary chronicling the 1992 New Hampshire primary.

But other portions of “Spin” are extremely revealing, a mosaic of behind-the-scenes gab reflecting what Springer sees as “contempt by politicians and media personalities for public debate and discussion.” After watching his video, you may agree.

Crucial here is whether Springer has edited his material fairly. What is his spin? What, if anything, has he omitted or taken out of context to make a point? We don’t know, but draw your own conclusions, for example, from King’s self-serving chumminess with his guests who, in one segment of “Spin,” happen to be the three major presidential candidates of 1992. It was an election year in which King and his show played a significant role, but apparently not significant enough to satisfy him.

It wasn’t for lack of self-promotion on King’s part, “Spin” suggests, that he was not picked to moderate any of that year’s three televised presidential debates. Seen here toadying up to his powerful guests seemingly for personal reasons, King can’t be expected to be tough on those from whom he wants favors.

There he is during a commercial break with his guests, then-candidate Bill Clinton and his running mate, Gore, who has just told King that the Democrats had proposed that King moderate one of the debates. King tells them he’d like the job. “I think I’d be a fair moderator.”

When Clinton agrees, King adds: “I’m the fairest person I know . . . right, Al?”

On another telecast of his show, King chats with then-President Bush during a commercial break. “You’re doin’ great,” he tells the President. “I will tell you. I will be the first to tell you.” There’s a pause, then King asks whether reporters for a coming debate have been named. “No, not yet,” Bush replies. “Oh,” King says. “I did what I told you I would do,” says Bush, cryptically. “Thanks,” says King.

Later King is shown speaking privately to H. Ross Perot just before Perot’s re-entry into the presidential race. King tells Perot: “You’re the best in the debates ‘cause you don’t come with any baggage. You could elevate it. Every time they talk about something silly, you could say, ‘Come on. What are we wasting time (for)?’ To me, you sit very effective. You could affect, have a great effect on this election.”

And of course, some more great effect on “Larry King Live,” the show on which Perot initially pronounced himself a candidate.

“Spin” is a keyhole view of public figures wearing their off-camera faces, seemingly unaware that they are being scrutinized by outsiders as, in some cases, they strategize to manipulate TV and fool the public. You sometimes hear and read about such duplicitous behavior, but rarely do you get to witness it for yourself.

Just the other day, Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network ran the following promo for its extensive news operation: “For news that touches your life, we get it fast and we get it straight.” But only as straight as Robertson wants it, based on “Spin” satellite footage of him ordering an unseen producer to quash and manipulate news at the 1992 Republican National Convention, where he spoke from the podium.

Outside the Houston convention hall that day, anti-abortion demonstrators from controversial Operation Rescue had broken through a security line and blockaded an abortion clinic before being hauled away by police. This raucous event, which some observers saw as an embarrassment to the GOP, was captured by CBN and other TV cameras at the convention site.

Inside the hall, Robertson is steaming: “I have sent word to keep that Operation Rescue--I don’t want one word about Operation Rescue on this program, not one.”

When the producer argues that the abortion clinic episode is news, Robertson barks: “I don’t want it covered. I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t cover the abortion debates any longer because it doesn’t matter. They (the GOP) passed the platform, and we need to get the cameras covering our rally.” He adds: “You need cameras shooting Dede (his wife) or me sitting in the vice president’s box.”

Robertson also shows up in “Spin” as a post-election participant on “Larry King Live” from his Virginia Beach, Va., headquarters. A caller has just attacked him for asserting in his convention speech that “the carrier of this plague (AIDS) is the Democratic Party.” During a commercial break, Robertson whispers to someone off-camera: “That guy was a homo as sure as you’re alive.”

He also identifies three other callers as homosexuals and gets advice from an unseen handler on how to “slide off” of any question King asks about controversial Republican Pat Buchanan. Concerning other unwelcome questions, he’s advised: “Take the sentence and turn it around and go on to another issue. Remember, you’re answering the questions. You can talk about anything you want.”

Elsewhere in “Spin,” then-candidate Gore listens intently during a commercial break as an off-camera handler with him in Tennessee urges him to finesse and “turn” the tough questions he’s been getting via satellite from Sam Donaldson on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

And under the same news management category on “Spin” is the Clinton campaign’s own satellite feed surveying an audience just before one of his campaign rallies. We hear a frantic exchange about an anti-abortion sign between someone at the candidate’s Little Rock headquarters--which has been monitoring the feed--and a campaign worker on the scene.

First voice: “Get somebody to rip that . . . sign out of there. If they’re going to get into a fist-fight, do it. That abortion sign is gonna kill us.”

Second voice: “We can’t block everything.”

Yet watching politicians and others try is exactly what makes “Spin” so instructive and fascinating.

* “Spin” screens at 7:30 tonight as part of “Spinning the Media, Making the News: Media Analysis and Opposition in the U.S. and Eastern Europe,” a series of three video presentations and a panel discussion that continues with sessions at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday. It’s sponsored by the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities and the Los Angeles Filmforum in collaboration with The 90’s Channel and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. All events are free, at LACE/Filmforum, 6522 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood.