TV Caught With Its Antennae Down

Television was awaiting pictures from Hurricane Bob when Hurricane Boris unexpectly blew in, blasting lazy August to smithereens.

The upheaval in the Soviet Union clearly caught the networks with their antennae down, requiring them to turn on a ruble in an attempt to swiftly mobilize their resources to once again cover historic turmoil in the East.

Well, not that swiftly, surprisingly, for the jolting ouster of epic reformer Mikhail S. Gorbachev by Soviet hard-liners was only sketchily reported late Sunday and early Monday.

Hence, the story that may become the biggest of the 1990s registered as a mere prime-time blip in a panorama of entertainment shows that were more cost-effective. The only network that penetrated the near blackout with sustained coverage late Sunday was, predictably, Cable News Network.

The deposed Gorbachev and President Bush weren’t the only vacationers whose holidays were aborted. NBC’s Tom Brokaw and ABC’s Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel were among numerous key network news figures forced to cut short or delay vacations as a result of a Soviet crisis that, on Monday, TV’s familiar Rolodex of journalists and commentators struggled mightily--and unsuccessfully--to define.

Much of the analysis, occurring in a vacuum of information during customary morning-shows time, was what Koppel termed “constructive speculation,” an attempt to give shape to the shapeless.

It included the usual goofy charades of media interviewing themselves.

On KABC Channel 7’s “A.M. Los Angeles,” that meant bringing on “Eyewitness News” reporter Alex Paen as an expert and having substitute co-host Chuck Henry ask “Eyewitness News” commentator Bruce Herschensohn: “How would you rate this as coups go? Did they do a good job with this one, or did they muck it up?”

Yes, on a scale of one to 10. . . .

On “CBS This Morning,” moreover, co-host Paula Zahn interviewed anchorman Dan Rather and correspondent Bill Plante, as if these generalists somehow had inside knowledge.

It was also CBS, though, that much of Monday morning had the clear edge in coverage, with Rather and Soviet scholar Stephen Cohen making an especially strong team--Cohen’s conjecture was at least informed--and correspondent Jonathan Sanders, a Soviet scholar himself, providing crisp, authoritative live reports from Moscow.

CBS and CNN had the best footage from Moscow--throngs of Muscovites setting up barricades and challenging troops and tanks, scenes triggering TV memories of revolution in Eastern Europe and democracy demonstrations in China.

At one point, CNN let its pictures roll without commentary for, perhaps, 10 minutes, indelibly stamping them on your mind and the historical record.

Even more dramatic was CBS footage of citizens attempting to halt tanks by climbing atop them and harassing the tankers inside. Replaying a scene from Beijing’s Tian An Men Square in 1989, one man even tried to block a tank with his body. When the tank didn’t stop, he scrambled out of the way.

It was almost as if TV coverage of revolts and demonstrations elsewhere had been a primer for these Muscovites. Yet it remains to be seen how long this TV primer will remain open now that hard-liners have removed Gorbachev from power and caused Boris N. Yeltsin, the democratic-minded president of Russia, to hole up inside a government building.

Press freedom has really taken hold under glasnost. How heartening to see Soviet media ask tough questions of new Soviet leader Gennady I. Yanayev in a news conference that good old CNN carried on tape, almost in its entirety.

Yet what did it mean that the conference was omitted from Soviet evening news Monday and that forces controlled by coup leaders were reported having taken control of broadcast facilities in many of the Soviet republics?

As Soviet TV diminished, American networks continued their buildup. On special assignment in Kiev, Mark Walton rushed to Moscow to join his CNN colleagues Eileen O’Connor and veteran Steve Hurst. Vacationing Jim Laurie rejoined newcomer Sheila Kast in ABC’s Moscow bureau, which was also awaiting a fourth TV crew and correspondent Rick Inderfurth from the United States. And CBS was flying in its most seasoned foreign correspondents--Tom Fenton from London and Bert Quint from Rome--to join Sanders and Anthony Mason in Moscow.

Another costly foreign crisis--even one where they already have well-staffed bureaus--is exactly what the financially strapped network news divisions don’t need after a Persian Gulf War whose coverage destroyed their budgets.

Yet on Monday--as Soviet hard-liners sought to consolidate power and Yeltsin held out defiantly--that is exactly what they appeared to be getting.