Posted on 10/04/2001 10:19:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Steve Harrigan is getting an on-air workout, and with good reason. Fox News Channel is squeezing everything it can out of its newest foreign correspondent after signing him away from CNN while he was on assignment in northern Afghanistan.
For Fox News it was a cheap, quick way to try to catch up on a massive news story -- America's likely upcoming fight in remote Afghanistan. But stealing Harrigan from its chief rival doesn't mean Fox News is planning to build its own massive cadre of foreign correspondents to rival CNN.
"Right now, sitting here today, we are content where we have people deployed," said John Stack, Fox News' vice president of newsgathering.
Until it landed Harrigan, Fox News had no one in Afghanistan. The network instead relied on reports from a reporter with the Sky network, controlled by parent company News Corp.
CNN, on the other hand, had three correspondents in Afghanistan and quickly replaced Harrigan after he switched sides. If Fox News needs to air more international stories, Stack said, "the ideal situation" would be to rely on sister media outlets and on-air analysis from reporters with the company's newspapers, he said.
"The challenge is to remain competitive in ratings and also to be competitive in managing resources," said Stack, a former director of foreign news for NBC.
Fox News' strength has been punditry -- a banquet of feisty, U.S.-focused commentary in prime time. The approach served it well when the issues of the day were the presidential election and Chandra Levy. It tied CNN in ratings in recent months and sometimes beat the news veteran. But when big news broke with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, far more viewers scrambled to watch CNN than Fox News.
Now, with the story shifting overseas, Atlanta-based CNN may get its biggest advantage while Fox News faces its weakest link: coverage on the international stage.
Of CNN's 120 correspondents, about 40 are based outside the United States in 30 international bureaus. Before the Sept. 11 attack, New York-based Fox News had four of its 41 correspondents in other countries.
"When the news breaks, you want to be where the news is," said Eason Jordan, CNN's president of newsgathering. "CNN is far more likely to be there than any of its competitors because we are in more places with more people."
On Sept. 11, CNN already had a correspondent stationed in Afghanistan. It also had a bureau in Pakistan.
Beefing up international coverage is expensive, which is particularly painful with the U.S. advertising market in a deep slump.
CNN is spending an extra $100,000 a day for its expanded Middle East coverage, which includes pricey satellite uplinks and costs for drivers, interpreters, hotel rooms and transportation.
CNN has stationed 12 on-air correspondents and more than 60 other staffers in the Middle East. Fox News -- bolstered by the presence of Harrigan, a veteran foreign correspondent who has a doctorate in comparative literature and is fluent in Russian -- has six on-air correspondents in the region.
When he jumped from CNN to Fox News -- literally in one day -- Harrigan knew he was going to a network that hasn't put as much into international resources as his former employer.
His agent, Steve Herz of If Management, said Harrigan received a "significant" pay increase with the move and the opportunity for more exposure. At CNN, he "hadn't been their A player," Herz said.
For Fox News, the hire was smart, said Ellen Mickiewicz, who directs the DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism at Duke University. "This is a temporary fix for them because attention is focused on Afghanistan."
CNN is like cotton candy that rots the brain, a lot of fluff but no substance.
Except that Paula was still under contract when she left Fox but Harrigan's contract with CNN expired several months ago.
Not exactly. CNN had Harrigan out there without a contract (he was still paid), something that is a better deal for the company than the employee, unless something like this happens. CNN was saying, we don't need no steenkin safety net. They should have had something worked out before they sent Harrigan over there. FOX did nothing wrong legaly, but that can't be said for CNN handling of the Zahn deal.
But the funny part is that she was fired for courting CNN while under contract to FOX. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, it seems that FOX had few misgivings about stealing away a CNN field op.! "Nothing personal. It's bizness."
Birds of a feather....
Castro likes CNN so much, he's given them one of those propaganda mills, what CNN calls a news bureau, in Havana.
But their days wearing the crown are numbered.
Go FOX News!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.