TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121790/1217220.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.5 KB | 128 lines

                                                                                PRESS, Page 77

More Programs, Less News


Are the networks offsetting budget woes by stinting on coverage?

By RICHARD ZOGLIN -- Reported by Ann Blackman/Washington,
Elizabeth Taylor/Chicago and William Tynan/New York


    Chicago, City of the Big Shoulders, has always had to
shoulder a big share of the network news load. A few years ago,
each of the three broadcast networks had thriving bureaus there
-- nearly a dozen reporters among them, all scrambling to cover
most of mid-America between the Alleghenies and the Rockies.

    If it was a hard job then, it is all but impossible now. Two
weeks ago, CBS confirmed that it was shutting down its Chicago
bureau, leaving a single reporter to handle the entire region
from an office at the network's local affiliate. ABC is cutting
its Chicago office from eight people to two by the end of the
year. Only NBC's bureau is remaining intact -- with one
correspondent, down from five in 1984.

    The cold winds of Chicago are spreading across the network
landscape. ABC has closed its Dallas bureau, scaled back its
office in Boston and reduced its presence in Central America.
NBC is laying off 20 news people by the end of the year. CBS,
which is making the severest cuts, has axed at least 60 members
of its news staff.

    Much of this, of course, is a continuation of a trim-down
trend that has been going on for years and has been accelerated
by the economy's recent nose dive and the drying up of ad
revenues. But the crunch has become more urgent because of the
budget-busting Persian Gulf crisis, which has cost the networks
as much as $3 million combined per week (though less than half
that in recent weeks). "What it means is no budget or people
for anything else," says one CBS correspondent. "God help us
if another big story breaks."

    The latest round of belt tightening, however, has an odd new
twist: network news, by some measures, is booming. Because news
shows are cheaper to produce than entertainment fare, they are
in demand at the networks. Four hours of news programming is
now seen weekly in prime time. NBC will add another hour in
January -- a half-hour version of Real Life with Jane Pauley
and the investigative series Expose -- as well as an afternoon
show hosted by Faith Daniels. CBS's America Tonight has joined
the late-night schedule (though it will leave the air, at least
temporarily, in late January), and ABC has talked about doing
all-night news.

    The irony is that while news programming is proliferating,
news gathering is drying up. The networks have become adept at
devising new and fancier ways of packaging the news, finding
the human-interest angle and the life-style feature, gathering
experts for Ted Koppel or Lesley Stahl to interview at night.
What they are doing less and less of, however, is day-to-day
coverage.

    To a great extent, this is a response to both economic and
journalistic realities. The three networks are no longer the
only source of TV news; by the time the evening news rolls
around, most viewers have seen footage of the day's big events,
either on CNN or on their local stations. Network executives
argue that their newscasts must go beyond simply recapping the
day's news and provide more analysis and background. The most
radical move in this direction is coming from NBC Nightly News,
which has instituted a round robin of daily features with catchy
umbrella titles ("What Works," "Vital Signs") and on some
nights has scrapped the news-of-the-day approach entirely and
devoted the broadcast to one topic, such as the Persian Gulf
crisis.

    Reporters in the field are being stretched to the limit.
CBS's Denver correspondent, Bob McNamara, whose producer was
just laid off, fears he will have little time to look for
stories beyond the obvious ones. "I don't want to turn out
Wal-Mart news," he says. When bureaus are closed down, says
Robert Murphy, ABC's vice president for news coverage, "you
lose the ability to respond to breaking stories before they
become apparent to a national audience." The networks are
relying more and more on their local affiliates to fill the gap
with footage of stories like last week's airplane crash in
Detroit. Meanwhile, the seasoned network foreign correspondent
is becoming an endangered species. With fewer reporters and
crews overseas, the networks are depending increasingly on
foreign satellite services -- except, of course, when President
Bush comes calling.

    Network executives insist that the cutbacks have eliminated
fat, not journalistic muscle. "We have more reporters at NBC
now than when I came," says Michael Gartner, president of NBC
News since August 1988. "We have far fewer managers and straw
bosses and accountants and support people." The networks are
also saving money by pooling their resources on more stories.
For President Bush's trip to South America last week, each of
the three networks sent only about one-third as many people as
usual, and they shared camera crews for many of his
appearances. "It's crazy for us to spend a lot of money to get
the same generic shot of George Bush on a podium," says NBC
Washington bureau chief Tim Russert.

    The question is where that saved money and manpower will go.
Ideally, it could allow more reporters to dig up more stories.
More likely, it will just mean more people analyzing, recycling
and repackaging less and less news.