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Thursday, April 10, 2003
NATION
THE BATTALION
War rooms: How the cable news
networks get real time on the air
By Stephen Battaglio
KRT CAMPUS
NENV YORK — Fox News
Channel producer Catherine
Brosseau looked like an air-traf-
fic controller on speed.
It was midmorning last
Friday and she had already
spent hours lining up segments
and live shots for the 10 a.m.
slot. But as she scrolled down a
screen in the control room, she
scuttled those plans: Embedded
reporters were calling in from
Iraq and Kuwait.
“Terry, I'm sorry — you're
dead,” Brosseau said into her
headset, informing business
news correspondent Terry
Keenan that her stock report
wouldn't be coming up.
Remotes from the White House
were also dumped for live pic
tures from the front.
Welcome to the fast-moving
conveyor belt that brought the
Iraq war to 76 million viewers
over the first week of the war.
To satisfy them, producers at
Fox, CNN and MSNBC have
been cranking it out 24 hours a
day, seven days a week. And
while the pictures from the front
have been dazzling, getting
them onscreen is not as easy as
pointing a camera.
Here are some behind-the-
scenes glimpses at how it's all
pulled together:
It's 11:30 on a morning last
week, when several MSNBC
producers, retired Army Gen.
Bernard Trainor and anchor
Lester Holt crowd into the
office of Mark Effron, the exec
utive in charge of MSNBC's live
news coverage, at the One
MSNBC Plaza complex in
Secaucus, N.J. They're making
plans for the next five hours on
the air.
Trainor, one of the many ex
generals becoming familiar to
TV viewers, discusses how
Iraqi paramilitary groups are
causing problems for U.S. sup
ply lines to Baghdad _ a devel
opment that becomes a major
part of the war story in the days
ahead.
“Is there any parallel to make
with the Viet Cong?” Effron
asks.
“Yes, very much so ” Trainor
Phil Melito works in the satellite operations room at MSNBC
headquarters in Secaucus, N.J., on March 26.
says. "The Iraqis studied war
fare — disperse and deceive.
Mislead. And they are doing
that very successfully to main
tain ironclad control of the pop
ulation centers. So far they've
been able to do that."
Effron asks the general to
write up those points and moves
on to Holt, who has a sugges
tion.
“I received an e-mail from a
woman who made a really good
point,” he says. "She said some
times you get going with your
military-ese. I don't know what
a brigade or a company is.
Maybe we should keep that in
mind.”
On to chief booker Mike
Tanaka. His job is to line up the
never-ending stream of talking
heads who provide analysis
when the live action lags. But
with coverage not letting up for
a moment, he's worried about
burning out his military experts.
“We need to give these guys
some time off,” he says.
“What, are they wusses?”
Effron replies with mock anger.
“Time off? I don't get time off!”
But war coverage strained
the supply of TV-ready military
analysts. Effron notes that rein
forcements are on the way:
MSNBC's parent, NBC News,
had signed up a few more.
Later, Holt grabs a quick
lunch with Trainor in the
MSNBC commissary. The
channel has picked up the tab
for food since the war started
(though employees note it hasn’i
made it any better).
Holt says he's been putting in
10- to 11 -hour days anchoring,
which leaves little time for
preparation.
“The advantage of being on
the air that long is you are
absorbing information all
along” he says. “When I talk to
(NBC correspondent) David
Bloom. I catalogue what hes
told me about the weather.”
Since MSNBC headquarters
also serves much of NBC News,
its satellite operations roorr
looks like NASA's mission con
trol. Just coming in that day was
Peter Arnett's exclusive inter
view with Iraq’s Tariq Aziz.
For the moment, Arnett’s per
formance is a source of pride,
But the war can shift fortunes
quickly: Five days later, Arnett
was fired from the network for
giving an unapproved interview
to Iraqi television.
Arnett sent the interview
through his videophone. The
technology has leveled the play
ing field in covering the war. But
the phones often have producers
scrambling to put the uplinks on
the air.
“The embedded reporters
come up when they come up,"
says Fox News executive pro
ducer Brian Gaffney. “We can't
schedule someone at 10:41 and
expect him to be there five min
utes early and ready to go. We
have to move stuff around.”
Attorneys say document in rubble
of nightclub overstated capacity
By Brooke Donald
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Private attorneys say
their investigators found a partly burned document
in the rubble of a nightclub that suggests owners
overstated the building’s capacity for the concert
being held when the club erupted in flames,
killing 99 people.
The document, an unsigned contract between
the band Great White and the owners of The
Station, shows the owners promoted the club’s
capacity as 550 for the band’s Feb. 20 concert, say
the attorneys, who represent survivors and vic
tims’ families. West Warwick town officials have
said the maximum capacity was 404, if all the fur
niture was removed.
Authorities have not determined how many
people were in the building when the band’s
pyrotechnics started the fire, which also injured
nearly 200 people. The blaze melted the hand
clicker that kept track of patrons.
Jeffrey Pine, an attorney for club co-owner
Jeffrey Derderian, said clubs often inflate capaci
ty numbers to attract big-name bands.
But Kathleen Hagerty, attorney for the other
co-owner, Michael Derderian, said neither of the
brothers drew up the contract. She said the 550
number was generated by Pollstar Talent Buyer
Directory, a national guide for booking agents.
“My understanding is that the Derderians
never supplied that number. More importantly,
they never had 550 people at the club,” she said.
Gary Bongiovanni, Pollstar’s editor in chief,
said clubs provide the information listed in the
directory, but added that The Station’s capacity
had been listed as 550 since before the Derderians
bought the club in 2000.
Bongiovanni said his researchers talked to
someone at The Station in November to update the
guide, but the only change made was the phone
number.
Hagerty said it was unnerving that private
investigators, not state investigators, found the
document.
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