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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 19, 1985
No· one was denying that the Beirut erisis was a serious news
story with a particularly harrowing last chapter. But the ever
escalating television circus lent an almost comic touch, as if it
were "Let's Make a Deal" or "Nabih Knows Best," courtesyorthe
Amal BroadcastingCompany.
--
,, A '&C ,,
The real ABC was all over the story--down to delivering� of
the hostages' mail.... Personnel from each network indignantly
denied paying for stories--but some added that they couldn't.
vouch for their competitors.
If no money was known to have
changed hands, it wasn't for lack of trying on the part of the
Amal militiamen•••• Several Amal tried to auction off a session
with the hostages for $12,500--and weren't laughed off.
"I
wouldn't be surprised to see a few of those guys driving around
in Caddies a couple of months from now," said one American re
porter in Beirut••••
On the ground in Beirut, faction-torn Shiites split into yet�
factions--each loyal to its favorite American television network.
CBS and NBC worriedthat the competition was growing danger
ous•••• Even the Shiites wanted a cease-fire. They posted a no
tice in the Commodore Hotel that a11 · footage of the hostages
should be pooled [available to all equally]••••
Earlier in the week, NBC's "Today" show tried to fet�h Mrs. Allyn
Conwell [wife of the unofficial hostage spokesman] by Learjet
from the Greek island of Corfu. They were too late: she was
gone--to ABC's "Good Morning America."•••
After Visnews cameramen taped interviews with several hostages
early in the week, Shiites seized the tape and deleted the
comments of four hostages whose remarks it didn't endorse..•.
For most of the week, the same dozen or so hostages were trotted
out again and again.... More than anything else, the hostage
crisis shows that "news" should be more than just the latest
video images--especially if the terrorists� allowed to��
executive producers.
A major news analysis piece on the media appeared in the July 10 WASHINGTON
TIMES, titled "The Media are the Message." It focused on the prevailing and
presumptuous view that newspeople exist on a plane above and beyond the
nation itself:
Critics are accusing the TV newsmen of providing the terrorists
with a podium, collaborating with them and frustrating the ef
forts of legitimate U.S. leaders by pretending to be intermedi
aries and policy-makers••••
"Morally speaking, there are not two sides to this story," said
syndicated columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz, on a recent edition of
Cable News Network's "The Larry King Show." It was, she said,
the story of "a brutal act, a murder and a kidnapping. To attempt
to show both sides," she said, "is to imply there is a rationale
for a group of murderers who have abducted a planeload of
American nationals."•••