TV AND THE GULF WAR : TV Syndrome: Jumping to Conclusions

Give television a tiny pea--any breaking news story--and it sees a football that it can dash off with toward the goal line. Any goal line. Sometimes even the wrong goal line.

No exception was the TV aftermath of early Friday morning’s proposal from Iraq about conditional withdrawal from Kuwait, which President Bush called a “cruel hoax.”

“You’ll have something new to cover for the next couple of hours,” retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said to Peter Jennings on ABC.

“I’m not sure how to take that,” said Jennings, a thin smile on his face.

He knew exactly how to take it.

If all journalists were judged solely by what they reported the previous day, many would be out of a job. But TV’s runaway instant speculative reporting is often outrageously over the top.

When stories break, for example, morning TV becomes a vat of steamy, gaseous verbiage, continuous emissions of disposable talk that choke and pollute the airwaves, then vanish. Inevitably, these sprouting wild words of morning become the wilted weeds of afternoon, which by evening’s end usually have been supplanted by different words.

The late Malcolm Muggeridge had a word that applies to this endless drone: “Newsac.”

“In general, the yellow flags should be out on this story,” said Middle East expert Faoud Ajami on CBS about the Iraqi proposal. However, in TV’s realm, checkered flags prevail.

“I think you can read too much into” the Iraqi proposal, said a military analyst, retired Col. Harry G. Summers Jr., on NBC.

However, with this crowd, you can never read too much into anything.

And Middle East analyst Gary Sick, noting on NBC that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s name was not attached to the proposal, added, “That may mean nothing.” Was he kidding? In this milieu, nothing means nothing.

Early in the morning, when asked by Jennings to assess “where we are” regarding the Iraqi proposal, Crowe was cautious. “To be candid about it, I’m not sure where we are.”

To be candid about it, not instantly knowing “where we are” can jeopardize a pundit’s job, hence, Crowe ultimately accepted the pea handed him and lumbered with it: “It is likely this will delay the ground attack. . . .”

If only something would have delayed the attack of TV’s “what ifs:”

What if Hussein is cracking? What if he isn’t? What if the United States begins its ground attack just as Iraq begins its withdrawal from Kuwait? What if the United States wins the war and Hussein wins the peace?

What if there were more news and less speculation? A nice thought, but one as much at odds with reality as some of the other speculation.

NBC correspondent Katie Couric: “Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of the end as far as their (the Iraqis’) morale. It’s hard to say.”

NBC’s “Today” co-host, Deborah Norville: “The war will continue. It will probably get uglier.”

NBC’s “Today” co-host Bryant

Gumbel, suggesting to a Palestinian journalist in Amman, Jordan, that the proposal’s intent was to split the coalition: “Do you think it’s gonna succeed?”

Middle East expert Richard W. Murphy on ABC: “I think the next thing we’ll see is movement by Saddam . . . away from Kuwait.”

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle on Cable News Network: “This isn’t going to lead to a satisfactory conclusion.”

CBS’ Bob Schieffer to Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.): “Do you think this is the beginning-of-the-end game?”

At one point on CBS, a London military analyst was in mid-sentence (“I think it’s an act of desperation. . . . “) when cut off by Schieffer for a commercial. Although the next face you saw was car dealer Cal Worthington (“Hey, you wanna really nice truck?”), it didn’t matter that the product was now trucks instead of twaddle.

At another point in the morning, it was time to enter Saddam Hussein’s head.

NBC’s “A Closer Look” anchor Faith Daniels to Middle East analyst Edward Peck: “Briefly, if you could get inside Saddam Hussein’s head, what might his next move be?”

Norville to Summers: “While you never thought the ground war was imminent, do you think Saddam Hussein did?”

ABC’s Joan LundenC to psychiatrist Jerrold Post, who has been studying Hussein from afar: “Do you think he’s also calling ‘Uncle’ a little bit?”

“Oh, I think it’s a partial blink,” said Post, who later would get inside Hussein’s head for CNN.

Anyone entering TV’s head on this day would have found a hair trigger for a brain, for the label Bush attached to the Iraqi proposal applied also to early coverage of the proposal.

A cruel hoax.