News media try to cover anthrax attacks fairly
By The Associated Press
10.17.01
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| Anthrax-laced letters addressed to Brokaw, Daschle. |
NEW YORK — It wasn't a prop when NBC "Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw held up a bottle of the anti-anthrax drug Cipro on the air. The pills were his own supply.
Brokaw has flashed anger, guilt and a little bit of fright since it was revealed on Oct. 12 that his personal assistant had tested positive for anthrax after opening an infected letter addressed to Brokaw.
News organizations have been forced in recent days to explain a complicated, scary story to the public that has directly affected their own people. They're both telling the story and living it.
"I suspect that many of us have the same surreal feeling," Brokaw said, "that we're watching a movie — and we're in it."
Investigators combed the ABC News headquarters on Manhattan's Upper West Side yesterday after it was reported that a network producer's 7-month-old had been hospitalized with anthrax.
Unlike NBC, where Brokaw was forced to move out of his regular studio for at least a week, ABC's "World News Tonight" stayed in its third-floor home. The ABC producer who brought her son to work wasn't in that immediate area.
Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times who was sent a suspicious letter that tested negative for anthrax, wrote a first-person account about her experience and appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" to discuss it.
Like hundreds of fellow NBC News employees, Brokaw was tested for anthrax and prescribed Cipro as a precautionary measure.
"Nightly News" executive producer Steve Capus, managing his staff's move to makeshift offices, is constantly reminded about what the public needs to know on the story from the questions that come from his own people.
"I am sensitive to a responsibility that I think all journalists have these days, which is dealing with facts — not hyping or being overly dramatic," Capus said. "Just report the news straightforwardly."
When NBC reports on a suspected anthrax incidence, he said, it is careful to follow up with the results of negative tests. The network is also trying to steer clear of reporting hoaxes.
When the first case of anthrax was reported in a Florida photographer, news outlets seemed to have trouble finding reliable information about anthrax, said Carol Gentry, director of the Knight Public Health Journalism Fellowships at the Centers for Disease Control.
Since then, most organizations have found their footing and "I've been impressed with their even-handedness," she said.
Television networks "have been forced to be a little bit restrained, probably because internally they are concerned about the health and welfare of their own employees," said Robert Logan, director of the Science Journalism Center at the University of Missouri.
TV reporters are bending over backward not to spread panic, said Joseph Angotti, chairman of the broadcast program at Northwestern University's journalism school. One exception he cited: some of the cable news talk shows.
"I see some anger in Brokaw in the one commentary he made and I sometimes see anger in other people," Angotti said. "But I don't find it disturbing and I don't think it's affecting their objectivity in covering the story."
If there is an organized terror campaign, it's being done by people who know the media well and use television's tendencies to spread unease, Gentry said. They understand the continuous news hole that cable news networks must fill.
CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC have a very difficult balance, CNN anchor Aaron Brown said.
"I have tried to present this stuff very slowly, very carefully," he said. "People need to understand the dimension of what it is — and what it's not: There doesn't seem to be any widespread attack on people — but none of us knows where this is going."
Brown said he didn't envy President George W. Bush's effort to deal with both prudence and paranoia. He has to urge people to get on a plane to take business trips while his vice president spent many days in a secure location.
"If our messages are mixed, they are no more so than the messages the government is forced to put out," he said. "Why? Because it's all uncertain."
Newsday reported that CBS News President Andrew Heyward had informed staff of precautions the network was taking against biological threats. Many staffers said the assurances had made them less afraid.
"They actually allayed my fears," Ann Marie Kross, a production manager for "60 Minutes," told Newsday after the meeting with Heyward. She had expressed concerns during the meeting about her 9-month-old son because she had taken him to work a few times in recent weeks. On Oct. 10, she said, he had come down with a fever and runny nose. A doctor is now treating him for an ear infection. Doctors at the CBS meeting told her the medication he was receiving would also combat any symptoms associated with anthrax.
Related news media developments
CNN said yesterday it had been approached by someone claiming to represent Osama bin Laden about an interview with the terrorist leader. CNN said it had submitted questions but would not promise to air any response.
A person claiming to represent the al-Qaida terror network approached Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based independent television network, late last week with the offer, CNN said. Bin Laden would respond to questions submitted by Al-Jazeera and CNN and give his answers on a videotape delivered to the Arab network, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said.
The terrorist leader has used Al-Jazeera as a medium to deliver messages in the past few weeks. Access to American news media by bin Laden and his representatives is a touchy subject for CNN.
The network, along with ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and Fox News Channel, last week agreed not to air transmissions from the al-Qaida group without first screening and possibly editing them. The Bush administration called the transmissions propaganda and said there was a possibility that bin Laden was using the tapes to deliver coded messages.
"By submitting our questions, we are making no commitment to air bin Laden's response," Blitzer said. "We will look at the tape, if there is a tape, and decide how much or how little to run."
CNN will freely allow other news organizations to use any tape that is received, however they want, the network said.
CNN does not know how al-Qaida communicates with Al-Jazeera or how the network will get its questions to bin Laden, Blitzer said. CNN doesn't even know whether bin Laden is alive or dead, he said.
Blitzer said CNN wants to ask bin Laden to outline his role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent anthrax cases in the United States. The network also will ask what weapons bin Laden and his followers have, and how they plan to use them.
CNN also wants to ask: "How can you and your followers advocate the killing of innocent people?"
In Syracuse, N.Y., law enforcement officials at a seminar said they would be willing to include journalists in preparedness planning for terrorist attacks. They would be reluctant, however, to allow them to join those first sent to the scene.
The flow of news and access to information were the focus of discussion among journalists, law enforcement authorities and medical and health officials during a two-day symposium on terrorist attack coverage that ended yesterday at Syracuse University.
Journalists contended that the early release of information could help save lives, avert widespread panic and assist authorities in getting out vital information to the public.
"The media is often looked at as a nuisance. But with today's 24-7 news cycles, they can be a blessing if we use them wisely," said Joan Deppa, a Syracuse University communications professor and symposium director.
The idea of having news representatives involved in preparedness planning drew broad agreement. But training reporters to go in with first responders was coolly received. Among concerns were that journalists could quickly become a burden to emergency personnel, said Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh.
Law enforcement and health officials, who would be the first to respond to such incidents, were keen on managing information in an effort to ensure that it came out in an orderly fashion.
Thomas Kent, a deputy managing editor of the Associated Press, said journalists would act responsibly with the information they had and not report rumors, but that no local agency would be able to completely control information on a major disaster.
Journalists noted that in the World Trade Center attack victims told their stories by cell phone. Reporters also received information from politicians and individual agencies leaking information and through nonofficial sources, such as witnesses, ambulance drivers and firefighters.
Bob Meyers, president of the National Press Foundation and another participant, said the meeting was helpful in letting journalists and public safety officials know each other's needs.
"Anytime you bring people together who have a different approach to the same subject, you are accomplishing something positive. It is saying, 'I'll learn your language. You'll learn my language,'" he said.
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