Propaganda Machine Signs Media Enlistees

Meeting the press on TV last week was President Bush’s national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice.

“The important thing is to complete the mission,” said Rice, deploying “mission” again and again in answering questions from reporters about America’s anti-terrorism campaign. What is that mission regarding television’s teeming, throbbing bazaar of doctrines and personalities?

Operation Enduring Promotion.

As the U.S. economy sags, merchandising through TV has rarely been as vigorous, ironically. That takes in not only the usual sponsor-paid ads, including those new 30-second spots boosting terrorism-scarred New York as again a swell place to visit, but especially the unpaid, unidentified ones that have always been ground zero for newscasts and talk shows.

Propaganda of all kinds, from newscasters saluting themselves to national leaders lobbying the public, is the furniture of TV. Commercials start at the top these days, notably Bush’s nationally televised speech Thursday that many commentators correctly labeled a “pep talk” by a president understandably selling wartime confidence and his economic stimulus package.

It was a masterfully designed sales pitch before a boisterous and supportive Atlanta audience of uniformed military, law-enforcement officers, firefighters, postal workers and health-care workers who spent as much time on their feet applauding as in their seats.

“Let’s roll!” Bush ended with a bang, shrewdly adopting the reported last words of Todd Beamer, one of the passengers said to have heroically fought terrorist hijackers on the jet that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11.

It’s not only the White House that’s adopting the war effort as an emblem, though. On Friday, ABC’s “Good Morning America” and hosts Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson ran themselves up the flagpole when telecasting from the returning aircraft carrier Enterprise, which launched the first air strikes against Afghanistan.

“This is the first time an entire U.S. broadcast has come from a U.S. carrier at sea,” someone said. A nice idea were it not for Adm. Gibson being decked out in Navy threads.

Meanwhile, CNN keeps running thunderous promos that sell its war coverage as “Saving Private Ryan II.” And what juxtapositions. One day, anchor Kyra Phillips was selling CNN’s extended live coverage of police chasing a flaming lumber truck in Dallas as significant news--expressing dismay that the driver was endangering other motorists (duh)--and the next crouching on one of those floor maps while reviewing U.S. battle military strategy in Afghanistan.

Violence and mayhem inevitably wallpaper newscasts during November and other ratings sweeps months. Not to be left out is the lethal conflict bloodying Jews and Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Dispatched to that region to prepare ratings sweeps series were KCBS-TV reporter Drew Griffith and KABC-TV reporter David Jackson (“Eyewitness News returns to Israel”).

Although their presence appears to have yielded nothing bigger than their expense accounts, at least they made a stab at actual reporting. Jetting to Pakistan last week, on the other hand, was KNBC-TV’s junior foreign correspondent Conan Nolan, whose first live report from Islamabad (“Word here today ... “) earned a “caught on tape” intro. Fact is, Nolan has been standing in front of a generic Pakistan backdrop delivering little beyond live intros and narrations for footage prepared by others, even though his work is being touted to viewers as special.

Speaking of selling, Bush administration advisors were to have met with Hollywood leaders here Sunday, reportedly to lobby for TV and movies that rallied around the war effort in ways inoffensive to the fragile international coalition assembled by the U.S.

“You might see Julia Roberts speaking Farsi,” a straight-faced Bryce Zabel, chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, told a TV reporter. Yes, Iran would love her.

The naive faith in good old American know-how turning every tide was alive also in the administration’s decision recently to hire legendary advertising executive Charlotte Beers to counteract Osama bin Laden’s anti-U.S. propaganda said to be influencing Arabs and Muslims abroad.

Madison Avenue or Middle East, what’s the difference, right? “I’m not as awed by the Bin Laden propaganda machine as the world is at this point,” Beers told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell last week. “She got me to buy Uncle Ben’s rice ... ,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told Mitchell.

That’s the ticket. Instead of leaflets, the U.S. should be dropping boxes of Uncle Ben’s.

Maybe what’s needed is more of a hard sell. Take Bill O’Reilly’s biggest fan, Bill O’Reilly. If you tuned in the host of Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” one night last week, you would have heard him cap one of his patented harangues with another pitch for viewers to buy his best-selling book, “No Spin Zone.” He also found time to mention his Web site and a special Internet deal for an autographed copy of the book with a free bumper sticker and three-month trial subscription to a magazine that carries a column he writes--an incredible offer--for a single low price.

Two nights later, he ended his show with another infomercial, this one advertising his coming appearances on other shows, including NBC’s “Today,” where on Friday he renewed his attack on the Sept. 11 Fund, which he bitterly charges has mishandled money collected for families of those who died in the terrorist attacks.

O’Reilly reacted badly when co-host Matt Lauer suggested that he may be less interested in going on shows to talk about that issue than in promoting his book. Lauer said that O’Reilly’s publicist told “Today” that “Bill will not appear unless you show the book.”

“That’s publicists,” O’Reilly tossed it off.

If O’Reilly was selling his book, another cable news star--Geraldo Rivera--was selling himself as a serious war correspondent. Rivera is about to leave his CNBC show to cover the war in Afghanistan for the Fox News Channel. Looking terrific, the war-bound Rivera talked about it on Friday’s syndicated “Live With Regis and Kelly.”

Rivera, a loud advocate for more heat and passion in news reporting, spoke of his anger following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “I couldn’t sit at my comfortable anchor desk and watch as younger men and women went off to protect us,” he said.

He added that he would leave this week for the former Soviet republics in the north and “work my way down.” He said he anticipated about a six-week gig. “I’m a war correspondent now,” he said.

Although the U.S. military can’t locate Bin Laden, it was a given on this show that a personal showdown with Osama was in Geraldo’s future. “If anyone can find Osama bin Laden, Geraldo can,” promised Kelly. “What would you do if you found him?” she wanted to know.

Instead of interviewing him, Rivera said, “I would want to tear his beard off. I deputize myself to be part of the posse that brings him in.” He said he would contact the U.S. military and “call in the artillery, call in the big planes.”

It won’t be easy, with all those caves for Rivera to search.

Regis: “Take care of yourself.” And, above all, keep on looking great. As for all you other journalists thinking of heading for Afghanistan with an itch to take out Bin Laden?

Let’s roll.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.