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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 19, 1985
PAGE 9
Critics seemed troubled not by any particular action undertaken
by the network newsmen, but a pervasive attitude: that television
journalists somehow � e � an automatic exemption from the burdens
� obligations of citizenship: that being a televisiOiljournal
ist means you ought to rank your cameras above your country.
"There wouldn't have been any press conference," said Time maga
zine's William Henry III, commenting on "Nightline" about the
chaotic first encounter between hostages and newsmen at the
Beirut airport, "if the journalists hadn't attended." Mr. Henry
said it "bothered" him "that some Americans in that room were
free to go when it was over. Others had to stay. � why were
the™ able to leave able to? Because they were being used to
transmit the messages of those terrorists•••people who were the
sworn enemies of this country."•••
Network journalists hammered home the same theme: Television was
able to document throughout the crisis--even guarantee--that the
hostages were alive and well.
The hostages were alive, all
right, but were they well?•••
What weren't the networks telling us? Almost everything of con
sequence.... What kind of unspeakable things were happening?
[Especially with the handful of passengers kept separate because
they had Jewish-sounding names.]... "We lived in filth," said
hostage Arthur Toga, after he arrived back in the United States.
"The place was a hovel. We had cockroaches, rats and a non
working toilet for 19 men with diairhea."•.•
CBS Broadcast Group Vice President Van Gordon Sauter� the role
of the media as "an honest broker of information, whether it's a
Reagan press conference 2f. the hostages delivering messagesto
the president." "We were the conduits for what was happening-;11"
safd CNN's Bernard Shaw.
"I can hardly agree with a position that implies such neutrali
ty," said Dorothy Rabinowitz. Is it really the�, she asked,
to �ay that because "the president of the United States� the
media•••� can be used
.e.Y
terrorists as well?•••
ABC scored a ratings' coup when correspondent Charles Glass led a
crew onto the Beirut airport tarmac to interview TWA Captain John
Testrake from the window of his cockpit.... Everything, the
captain said, was OK--almost everything. Captain Testrake was
concerned about a possible U.S. mission either to rescue the
hostages or retaliate against their captors. "I think we would
all be dead men if they did," Captain Testrake said•.••
"I think that was a very legitimate question (ABC's Charles Glass
querying Captain Testrake about the "military option"), to ask
that man what he thought about the prospect of retaliation.
After all," added Mr. Shaw, "his life was involved."•.•
It didn't seem to occur to the network journalists, noted the
critics, that Capt. Testrakern'Tght not be in an ideal situatTon
to decide what is best for Amerrca.--iiii'here�ol!have the specta-