Scapegoat or Villain of News on TV?

From the highly publicized retraction by CNN of a recent “NewsStand” story charging that the U.S. military dropped nerve gas on American defectors during the Vietnam War to the infamous rigging of a truck with explosives for a story on NBC’s “Dateline” in 1992, it is TV newsmagazines that have created the most controversy for network news divisions.

Is there something inherent in the form that generates this controversy, including periodic errors and lawsuits? Or do newsmagazines simply become inviting targets because they are the place where networks do their high-profile investigative reporting?

A bit of both.

Critics charge that because newsmagazines air in prime time, where they must vie for viewers with comedies and dramas, it puts pressure on producers to do flashy, “promotable” stories at the expense of nuanced journalism.

“Newsmagazines have to compete in the entertainment milieu, and because of that, they have acquired many aspects of entertainment programs,” says Ed Turner, a former CNN executive vice president who is now senior fellow at the Freedom Forum media studies center in Arlington, Va. “They have the glitz of production, with newspeople as the stars, hidden cameras and hyped-up on-air promotions. There’s pressure to produce stories--with good guys and bad guys--to the very edge of the truth. That’s where newsmagazines get into trouble: Real-life stories don’t always play out like movies-of-the-week.”

Network news executives acknowledge the pressure of prime time but say it has not caused them to change their journalistic standards.

“There’s always a need to draw a rating in prime time,” says ABC News Vice President Dick Wald. “But our newsmagazine pieces are solid stories, and the investigative pieces are vetted by the same attorneys who vet any story at ABC News.”

In recent years the reporting methods on some newsmagazine stories have drawn the ire of juries. The supermarket chain Food Lion won a jury verdict against ABC News last year over a “PrimeTime Live” story in which producers gave false information on job applications to get footage of food-handling procedures. (An appeal is pending.)

Earlier this month, a jury ruled that NBC had defamed a truck driver in two stories about safety on cross-country trips on “Dateline.” The trucker maintained that the producers had misled him into believing the story would be positive and had left out information about his cross-country driving. NBC says the story is accurate and that it is considering an appeal.

“Newsmagazines have been a target for some lawsuits because we live in a more litigious society, and newsmagazines are where we do long-form investigations,” says NBC News Vice President David Corvo.

Still, several producers who work on network newsmagazines say they are under pressure to hype and simplify stories.

“There are too many newsmagazines chasing too few stories,” says one producer, who requested anonymity, “and everybody’s under pressure to have ‘high-impact’ stories that will keep prime-time viewers tuned in. So the language in promos is always purple--everything is always someone’s ‘worst nightmare.’ ”

The “Dateline NBC” story on trucking called America’s highways “a trucker’s killing fields.”

“If you look at many newsmagazine stories, you’ll see that they usually have ‘black hats’ and ‘white hats,’ heroes and villains,” says another producer who, like three others interviewed, spoke on condition that their names not be used. “We’re told to find the most ‘bright-line’ examples possible, and there’s pressure to leave out information that gets in the way of the ‘good guy/bad guy’ scenario.”

Producers say the competition for the big “get” also can distort reporting.

“With a big-name client, lawyers and publicists get involved in choosing the interviewer and even setting ‘ground rules’ for questions,” says another producer. “Such stories too often only tell the subject’s side of the story, whether it’s Amy Grossberg [the teenager who recently pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of her newborn child] interviewed on ‘20/20,’ or ’60 Minutes’ failing to ask Kathleen Willey [who accused President Clinton of groping her] about subsequent correspondence with Clinton or pursuing a possible book deal.”

Another problem is that the proliferation of newsmagazines, coupled with the added competition from all-news outlets such as Fox News Channel and MSNBC, has created opportunities for people to move into positions of responsibility perhaps before they are ready.

“There are a number of young producers at newsmagazines who haven’t grown up in traditional TV journalism,” explains a fourth newsmagazine producer. “They may be more susceptible to entertainment values in news” than some old-timers.

Some network executives get minute-by-minute ratings on newsmagazines, according to sources, so it is immediately known which stories “spike” for viewers. This, critics say, has led to more crime and personal drama stories, and to small-scale consumer stories on topics such as cellulite or pets.

“Some of the reporting on newsmagazines is like shooting ducks in a barrel,” says Joan Konner, an award-winning documentary producer who is publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. “There’s very little international reporting, for example, because that doesn’t fit the networks’ market-driven values.”

CNN cannot be accused of aiming low with its investigation of alleged nerve gas use by the American military on its own people. The story--the result of an eight-month investigation--was the lead on the premiere edition June 7 of “NewsStand,” a joint venture between CNN and three Time Warner magazines that had been promoted by CNN/USA President Rick Kaplan, who hoped the newsmagazine would create “appointment viewing” to increase the ratings for the 24-hour news channel.

April Oliver, who reported the story for CNN but then was fired after an internal investigation concluded that the piece was not supported by evidence, continues to maintain that the story was accurate and says she would have been able to tell it better in an hourlong broadcast, as she had requested, rather than in the newsmagazine format. “If we’d had more time, I would have been able to include more viewpoints,” Oliver said in an interview.

CNN executives, who have instituted procedures to include the network’s “beat reporters” on any future investigations by the magazine unit, declined to comment further on the case. But in an internal memo, CNN’s military affairs correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, criticized Oliver’s defense, saying, “CNN bent over backwards to give [Oliver and veteran producer Jack Smith, who also was fired] a chance to substantiate their story. . . . For April to suggest that if she had been given a full hour, she could have made her case, I find personally offensive.”

Despite the difficulties of doing serious investigative work on newsmagazines, one veteran producer says it can be done, as “60 Minutes” has demonstrated over the years. “Certainly, there are pressures to hype and simplify stories. But it’s up to the producer to stand up and say, ‘You can’t say that--it’s not accurate.’ ”