Posted on 10/11/2002 10:34:24 AM PDT by ifhult45
Baghdad revisited
By MATT KEMPNER Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
CNN news-gathering chief Eason Jordan is pointing to a recent satellite image of downtown Baghdad and the faint outline of the Al Rashid Hotel, where his reporters may again be broadcasting news of war.
It's been 11 years since CNN's "Baghdad Boys" huddled in the hotel by candlelight, holding a microphone out a window to pick up the sounds of U.S. bombs and Iraqi anti-aircraft guns. The trio of Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett and John Holliman made the Atlanta-based network the media star of the Gulf War and an icon of the rising promise of cable TV.
"No news story has done more to put CNN on the map," Jordan says.
But this time around, as CNN gears up for a possible second Gulf War, the media landscape is starkly different.
Many more TV outlets both in the United States and around the world are looking to cover the sequel. Exclusives are likely to be harder to come by and of shorter duration. For the U.S. journalists who make it into Iraq, the health risks may be much greater. Possible targets for U.S. bombs are the antiaircraft guns and state TV uplinks on the roof of the Iraqi information ministry, where non-Arabic news outlets are required to put their offices.
War generally isn't good business for TV news. While ratings might soar, at least initially, so will expenses. The networks may limit or eliminate advertising initially in favor of wall-to-wall coverage. Networks that do accept advertising are likely to find advertisers wary of buying commercial time in the midst of tragedy.
All this comes as media companies have been cutting costs in response to an overall advertising recession that has slashed revenue and profits.
"They are already strapped for cash, and it's not something you cannot go cover," says Ellen Mickiewicz, who directs Duke University's DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism. "It will be tremendously costly at a time when they can ill afford it."
The first Gulf War cost CNN $20 million to $25 million. The network has created a $36 million contingency fund for a possible rerun.
CNN attempted to charge cable systems an extra fee per subscriber to help offset the costs of the Gulf War, but no cable or advertising rates will be raised this time, according to AOL Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System, which includes CNN.
Besides the money pressures, the stakes are different for CNN this time around.
Before the Gulf War, CNN was relatively small. It had access to only about 60 percent of U.S. homes and was still seeking respect in a media world ruled by ABC, CBS and NBC.
But in the first month of the U.S. response to the Gulf War, CNN pulled in an audience eight times bigger than normal. Network affiliates around the nation switched to CNN's coverage.
Within a month of the first bombs landing in Iraq, CNN International was launched. For the first time, people in other countries were getting a dedicated foreign network instead of just a feed of what CNN was airing in the United States.
Now CNN is available in more homes overseas than it is in the United States.
Like a movie
Most of CNN's ratings gains in the United States were short-lived, but not the bump to its image.
"Thereafter, the Chicken Noodle Network was taken seriously by everyone," says Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is affiliated with Columbia University's graduate school of journalism. "Thereafter, cable and CNN were on in every newsroom around the country."
Sound like a movie? On Dec. 7, HBO is due to air "Live From Baghdad" starring Michael Keaton -- the story of CNN's coverage of the Gulf War. Like CNN, HBO is part of AOL Time Warner.
Today, CNN is in an even tighter race for viewers than it was before the Gulf War, when there were fewer TV channels and CNN had a news staff half as large as now.
This year, Fox News Channel unseated CNN as the most watched U.S. news network. (A spokeswoman for Fox News declined to comment on the network's war preparations.)
A second Gulf War would test not only Fox News' dominance but also CNN's boast that it is America's favorite cable network for hard news.
One thing is already clear: Not even CNN executives think their network will have a repeat of the extended on-air exclusivity it had with the "Baghdad Boys."
"That was another era," says CNN's Jordan. "It won't happen. Not to that degree."
But CNN will have advantages over other U.S. networks, Jordan predicts. The network has kept its office in Baghdad since the Gulf War, making contacts and maintaining a bureau that is bigger than that of any other English-speaking outlet, he says.
In recent weeks the network installed a new satellite uplink and added staffers to the bureau. With the arrival of correspondent Nic Robertson from London this week, CNN will have three on-air correspondents there.
But CNN is certain to face fierce competition in a second Gulf War, including pan-Arabic networks that Jordan says are likely to get preferential treatment and access from Saddam Hussein. The networks -- Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV and Middle East Broadcasting -- are largely staffed by Iraqis, whom Jordan contends will have difficulty reporting objectively if they or their families are pressured by Saddam's government.
"Arabic stations will be there, come hell or high water," Jordan says. "Their reporting, for the most part, meets with the approval of the Iraqi government."
Soon after the Gulf War started, Saddam's government began censoring CNN's reports from Iraq. CNN faced complaints that it was being used by the Iraqis.
Paul Slavin, the executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight With Peter Jennings," says Iraq may give special access to select news organizations this time around.
"They are very clever, very savvy," says Slavin, who moved one correspondent into Baghdad this week. "If it suits their interest, they will make sure it happens."
U.S. media outlets also don't know what to expect from their own government. Many complained that the U.S. military severely limited access to cover the fighting in Afghanistan and think it's likely to happen again in Iraq.
Seven-second scoops
If any network does get exclusivity in Iraq, it probably won't last long, several industry observers say. Images quickly pop up on the Internet or are snatched by competing TV networks, as happened with Al Jazeera's early footage of last year's U.S. attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"A scoop in the modern media culture is a scoop for about seven seconds, so it doesn't mean as much," says Rosenstiel.
One of the biggest worries of news executives is how they will keep their crews safe, particularly those that go inside Iraq. CBS News will outfit staffers with special suits to protect them from biological and chemical attacks, says Marcy McGinnis, the network's senior vice president for news coverage.
CNN's Jordan is concerned about journalists being taken as hostages, although he says a top Iraqi official assured him that wouldn't happen.
There are other risks. The first Gulf War focused on driving Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, not directly overthrowing Saddam's government. The current situation increases the liklihood of fighting in Baghdad.
Jordan said that if the Iraqi information ministry looks like it will come under attack, CNN crews will make the 10-minute walk to the Al Rashid Hotel, where the "Baghdad Boys" made their famous broadcast.
But Jordan says he is contemplating other positions far from the hotel.
CNN staffers who volunteer for war zone duty are being required to undergo special safety training.
"Our goal is for our people to survive the war,'' Jordan says, "if there is a war."
Old Maps.
If I had to guess, Geraldo Rivera, and possibly Shepard Smith.
The only reason that was is because the only competition that CNN had was NBC, CBS and ABC. There were no other cable news networks around. Also when it was happening, Bernie Shaw just happened to be in a hotel room downtown, hiding like a little coward under his bed. Real brave.
I remember that so well, the poor fellow was never quite the same, I don't think he traveled much afterwards.
I wonder if Shepo will leave the makeup kit at home, he wears more than a 49 year old french hooker.
Here's the problem. All reports from European and Arabic news sources will bill this as a tragedy with the big bad US bullies killing civilians and blowing up nothing but schools and mosques. Cnn would probaly slant it the same way.
Fox has to get in there at any and all costs to cover this war from the USA-should-win perspective...they might even interview a wounded American, for heaven's sake, when all other networks would ONLY chat it up with bloody Iraqis. The NYT is not beyond bringing their own ketsup.
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