TV And the Gulf War : Print Reporters in Spotlight’s Glare : Media: ‘Who <i> are </i> these people?’ exasperated viewers wonder when the yutzes of journalism dare to ask grating questions at press briefings.

One of the worst things about being a newspaper reporter, in contrast to TV work, is that you’re anonymous. You’re faceless and homogenized, a tiny grain of sand in a sprawling print desert. You’re not famous. You’re not a star. Mr. Blackwell couldn’t care less what you wear, and no one wants your autograph.

One of the best things is that the public doesn’t see you at your worst. You’re judged not by the way you gather information for your stories--including the seemingly inane questions you may ask along the way--but by your stories. If you’re a bozo on the beat, not to worry. You’re a closet bozo, an idiot incognito.

Until now.

Yes, the game is up, the mask down, the truth revealed, the myth shattered. The Persian Gulf press skirmishes are taking care of that.

A caller to C-SPAN: “Who are these people?”

These people are the reporters asking questions at daily televised press briefings by the military in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and at the Pentagon in Washington.

The bulk are print reporters, the nerdy yutzes and klutzes who in peaceful times would be the UFOs of America’s airwaves, but who now are on CNN and occasionally other networks daily, getting briefed about the war and interrogating their briefers. And in doing so, in pressing military and government spokesmen for information, they’re exposing themselves to criticism from home.

Perhaps because some Americans still blame press coverage for the U.S. debacle in Vietnam, these televised briefings are stirring a fuss far out of proportion to the size of their TV audience, and tomatoes are flying.

On “CBS This Morning” on Thursday, no less a student of journalism than Charlton Heston noted, among other criticisms, “the curious problem” of reporters in briefings “asking questions that cannot be answered.”

However, most of the angry blasts come on C-SPAN and those radio talk shows where debate about the war still rages. Callers “don’t understand why reporters continue to bat away when they know there can be no other response than the one that’s given,” said KGIL talk show host Carole Hemingway.

Well, asking questions is a dirty business, and dumb questions don’t necessarily equal dumb stories. I can’t count the times I’ve transcribed a taped interview only to be shocked at how bumbling I was. TV interviewers often fix that with a bit of tape trickery called “reversals,” whereby the camera is turned around after the interview to allow the reporter to re-ask the questions. The tidied-up ones are edited into the interview, letting the reporter sound like Ted Koppel.

Not so the Gulf briefings. And many viewers, apparently not aware they’re peeping in on what is a raw news-gathering process, despise what they’re seeing.

For example, a recent Hemingway caller saw “betrayal” of the United States in the aggressive questioning by some reporters. About one particular reporter, the caller suggested, “They should give that guy the hook and yank him out of the briefing so that he flies above the crowd.” Ugly!

Hemingway said she also gets calls supporting media behavior at the briefings and urging them to press the briefers even more. But obviously, these calls are from the mothers of reporters.

As I am writing this, Lt. Gen. Peter de la Billiere, commander of British troops in the Gulf, is facing the press in Riyadh, answering a question he had already answered: “Well, once again. . . .”

And then it’s Saudi Col. Ahmed Robayan, responding to a question: “As I mentioned yesterday. . . .”

Finally in Riyadh, it’s U.S. Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal answering: “As we’ve said, night after night. . . .”

And just look at this creature now asking a question: glasses, chubby, balding, and not wearing a bush or flak jacket, but a suit and tie. If this isn’t a print guy. . . .

“Obviously, I can’t go into deployment of forces,” Neal answers him. Obvious to everyone but Mr. Suit.

Illustrating the dearth of information coming from these briefings, the morning’s headline becomes the British and U.S. generals seeming to disagree on whether a ground war is inevitable, a to-do about very little, it seems.

“Can we conclude . . . ?” a reporter presses on, redundantly, as in your mind, you’re begging for the hook.