PEETAH AHNETT
Posted on 02/18/2003 5:59:27 PM PST by meia
Columbia Tape Shows Network Competition
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Feb 17, 2:43 PM (ET)
By DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK (AP) - During coverage of the space shuttle Columbia's disintegration, the folks in CNN's control room thought the picture they saw on rival Fox News Channel looked familiar.
So they tried a little experiment.
The producers superimposed a tiny "CNN" logo on the upper left corner of the network's screen as it showed the shuttle breaking into pieces. Blip! The same logo appeared on Fox News Channel.
Then they decided to abruptly switch cameras so a picture of correspondent Miles O'Brien appeared. For two seconds - until it was hurriedly replaced with a view of NASA's mission control - it looked like O'Brien was working for Fox, too.
The shuttle disaster provided a vivid example of the lengths to which television networks sometimes go to get the most compelling pictures for a big story - and an even more vivid example of the consequences if they don't.
A Fox News Channel spokesman did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Earlier, a station representative told Broadcasting & Cable magazine that its request to explain the apparent piracy was "a waste of time."
As the Columbia flew over Texas on the morning of Feb. 1, Dallas station WFAA-TV followed its normal routine for fly-bys: a cameraman was assigned to capture the streak across the sky.
The picture appeared live on the air. But it wasn't for several minutes, until the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it had lost contact with the shuttle's crew, that it became clear what WFAA's pictures revealed.
Several videos of the shuttle falling apart, both amateur and professional, eventually surfaced that day. But for a certain period as the nation awoke to the unfolding tragedy - perhaps as much as an hour - WFAA's pictures were the only ones available.
WFAA has affiliation agreements with both ABC and CNN. Television is a complex web of affiliations and exclusivity arrangments. Usually, they're respected. But with satellite dishes, networks can pluck virtually any pictures out of the sky and, on a big story, it's often anything goes.
CBS used WFAA's video in its special report. The network politely asked for permission - after the pictures had already appeared.
CBS News President Andrew Heyward argued that the concept of fair use - essentially the legal term for anything goes - applies in cases of national emergencies.
"Every once in a while you have a piece of video that is so newsworthy you really can't keep it off the air," Heyward said. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, network news division heads agreed that they all could use each other's video.
CNN believes fair use applied for the shuttle story. But its executives are still annoyed at Fox.
"It's a perfectly acceptable position for networks to take video from each other in times of national emergencies," CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said, "but it's rare that networks would go to such extremes to cover it up rather than give proper credit."
The fair use doctrine gets murkier for stories that aren't so big, as CBS learned this month when "60 Minutes II" obtained an interview with Saddam Hussein.
"Once it was used on Arab TV and on Channel 4 in England, you knew our competitors were going to stretch the concept of fair use very thin," Heyward said. He sent a letter to rivals reminding them of CBS' exclusive.
During shuttle coverage, NBC's Fort Worth affiliate, KXAS-TV, provided pictures to the network that, through an existing arrangement, were then distributed by the Reuters news service for international use only.
Reuters at first neglected to include an explanation that the pictures were not for domestic use but, according to both NBC and Reuters, this was quickly corrected. Nevertheless, NBC said Fox News Channel repeatedly used the pictures without permission.
"If they hadn't used our video and CNN's, they would have had nothing," said NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust.
As part of its agreement with WFAA, CNN took the expensive step of installing a special fiber optic line that enabled it to pick up the station's signal with the flip of a switch, said David Duitch, WFAA's vice president of news.
ABC didn't make the same investment, and instead made arrangements to get a special satellite transmission from WFAA that morning. But for 45 agonizing minutes, the satellite wasn't working, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said.
In ABC's control room, there was undoubtedly temptation to simply take CNN's pictures. But the network believed its own satellite problems would quickly be fixed, he said.
The consequences were profound. ABC is normally a close second to NBC in broadcast news rankings, but it was a startlingly distant third that morning; NBC had 8.7 million viewers between 9:30 a.m. and noon, CBS had 5.2 million and ABC had 3.5 million. More people saw CNN's and Fox News Channel's coverage than ABC's, according to Nielsen Media Research.
There were other mitigating factors; ABC doesn't normally broadcast news on Saturday mornings and its rivals do, and Peter Jennings didn't arrive at work until after noon.
But the lack of compelling video at a time others were showing it repeatedly is seen as a big reason why the ratings performance was so disastrous that ABC News President David Westin had to call a special meeting with affiliates to explain what went wrong.
Small wonder, then, why many networks believe that in such situations, it's best to get the pictures first - any way they can - and deal with the consequences later.
For WFAA, its big moment is likely to live on. Duitch suspects he'll see his station's video in future documentaries about the space program, or perhaps a still picture in textbooks.
"I certainly hope they would credit WFAA," he said. "But do I think that's going to happen? Well, I'm not so certain."
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EDITOR'S NOTE - David Bauder can be reached at dbauder"at"ap.org
PEETAH AHNETT
I've been in broadcasting for over 25 years and no, Everyone does not do this sort of thing. Yes it happens, and when it does, the pirates are rightly ridiculed and slammed. There is no difference in this and a reporter or columnist using someone else's research or writings as their own. It is plagiarism pure and simple. If conservatives are going to condemn plagiarism when it is done by the liberal media, then they also need to condemn it when it is done by the conservative media. If they had just acknowledged it when it happened instead of trying to cover it up, it wouldn't be a big deal. The coverup is always worse than the actual deed.
Hysterical, of course. That's how Fox is.
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