HOSTAGES STILL PAWNS ON MEDIA CHESSBOARDS

Good news/bad news. The confinement of 39 Americans held hostage in Beirut has ended. Their ordeal has just begun.

In Beirut, their captors were Shia Muslims. Now they face new, more fearsome captors.

The news media.

The loud grunts, squeals and curses that you hear are the networks and local TV stations pushing and stepping on each other to get first crack at the returning former hostages.

“We have the networks competing madly for the time of the hostages,” Terry Smith reported from Wiesbaden, West Germany, Monday on “The CBS Morning News,” adding that one network even posted a guard outside the hotel room of one hostage in an attempt to gain a competitive edge. He didn’t identify the network.

“There’s nothing to be proud of today, because a lot of personal privacy was invaded,” ABC reporter Charles Glass said in a telephone interview from Frankfurt after covering the hostages’ stay in nearby Wiesbaden.

“While I was glad to see some of the hostages again,” said Glass, who was ABC’s chief correspondent in Beirut during the 17-day hostage saga, “I didn’t want to confront them with TV cameras when they were with their wives or family. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying that.”

The former hostages are becoming media trophies. And family reunions are TV’s hottest ticket.

The freed Americans have been playing musical chairs on the morning news programs, with NBC News hitting the flattest note by paying air fares to West Germany for the families of some of the former hostages. In that way, NBC virtually assured their appearance on “Today” via satellite before they were grabbed by other morning programs.

That smacked of pay-as-you-go checkbook journalism, which, if widely practiced and carried to its extreme, could have disastrous effects on news gathering, evolving into a sort of news theater that would ultimately cost the public:

Those with the bucks would get the stories and those receiving the bucks would feel obligated to give performances for their fees.

NBC News paid the air fares and hotel bills for families of four of the former hostages. “This is not checkbook journalism as far as I’m concerned,” Steve Friedman, executive producer of the “Today” show, said by phone from New York.

Friedman argued that paying the expenses for some of the former hostages’ families was no different than the practice of all network morning shows in offering to fly out-of-town guests to New York and put them up while they’re there.

“Every year we do this for our guests,” Friedman said. “We do it for competitive reasons and to protect ourselves.

“There was no exclusivity involved in flying over the famlilies. All the people we flew over were available to the other shows.”

That meant that “Today” gained an edge of only a few minutes over the other morning shows, the kind of meaningless advantage that the public ignores but which networks usually promote heavily and consider a badge of honor.

Friedman charged ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “The CBS Morning News” with sour grapes over “Today” winning the race to some of the hostages and their families.

“I heard the whining in this building when ABC was beating the hell out of us in Beirut,” he said. “I heard the whining at CBS when ABC was beating them. And now I’m hearing the whining about us. As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “the losers are the ones looking for excuses and saying, ‘Deal the cards again.’ ”

The losers this time, Friedman insisted, were “Good Morning America” and “The CBS Morning News.” And he accused both of double standards.

He claimed that CBS News chartered a plane to fly a former hostage’s wife to New York from Vermont for an appearance on “The CBS Morning News.”

“But that was different, huh?” Friedman said.

A CBS spokeswoman issued a denial, saying that the show had established a policy of not paying air fares for the former hostages or their families, although one family member accepted the network’s offer to pay for her hotel in Frankfurt this week.

Friedman also noted that “Good Morning America” (which is produced by ABC’s entertainment division, unlike its two competitors, which are produced by the news division) chartered a plane to fly the wife of former hostage Allyn Conwell to Cyprus from her home in Corfu, Greece, for a satellite interview with David Hartman.

“But that was different, huh?” Friedman said.

An ABC spokeswoman said that “Good Morning America” is not paying transportation or hotel costs for any of the participants in the hostage story, but an exception was made with Olga Conwell because no TV facilities were available in Corfu.

She also denied Friedman’s charge that “Good Morning America” had prevented Conwell from being interviewed by other morning shows after her interview on ABC. “After she went back to Corfu, NBC flew her from there to Frankfurt,” the ABC spokeswoman said.

Friedman said that the alleged sentry outside a hostage’s door was not NBC’s, and added: “We did not hide anybody unless they wanted to be hidden.”

Hide anybody?

Friedman: “One of the couples said, ‘We do not want to talk to any newspapers, magazines or other networks. If you protect us from them, we’ll go on your show.’ So we booked them into a hotel under our name.”

Friedman would not reveal the names of the families who accepted air fare from NBC. “Hey, these people were going over anyway,” he said. Then why did NBC pay their way?

“We hoped they would be grateful, and we made sure they did come on our show,” Friedman said. “After all, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”