NEW YORK It's a simple assignment: Get out there to the PersianGulf and film whatever is going on.
A boat, a plane, a helicopter and several thousand dollars a daylater, and the evening newscast features a hazy long shot of a shipin an ocean, perhaps with some helicopters hovering around it.
Since the United States agreed to reflag Kuwaiti tankers andescort them through gulf waters mined by Iran, U.S. networks havehired every reasonable form of transportation to search for tankersand U.S. Navy escort vessels that are specks in the long stretch ofsea.
"It's like a needle in a haystack," NBC correspondent MartinFletcher said by telephone from Dubai.
Editors stateside must make news decisions in the middle of thenight, morning in the Middle East. The gulf waters stretch about 800miles, so sometimes the action is in the north and a network's crewis on a ship in the south.
For the networks, finding the news is not enough. The tape mustget to the network.
NBC put a BBC crew on an out-of-work oil supply ship leased for$3,000 a day. A helicopter that costs $1,000 a day has to fly outand dangle a shipping bag over the deck to pick up the tape.
That's if there is footage to pick up. News crews are alsodealing with a number of Middle East governments, not all of whomapprove of coverage of the Iran-Iraq war.
At one point, a Bahrainian coast guard vessel apprehended theBBC crew and detained them for 12 hours, Fletcher said.
Correspondents sign off with generic "so-and-so in the PersianGulf" or even just "in the gulf" because of sensitivity by the Arabsto the term "Persian." Also, certain governments in the region do notwant Iran to know they are helping U.S. journalists, so they do notwant their names used in datelines.
Getting from one country to another can also be time-consumingbecause of red tape.
"Not only is it hopping on helicopters and boats, but you'realso visa-hopping from country to country," said Jeanee von Essen, aCable News Network vice president.
The U.S. Navy is not too hospitable, either. Fletcher said whena NBC helicopter apparently came closer to a U.S. warship than a Navyhelicopter liked, they were told to get away or face "appropriatedefensive measures."
ABC News Vice President Robert Murphy said he did not think newscrews had missed anything significant, despite the problems.
"It has required that we be out in a helicopter or boat,patrolling around almost from dawn to dusk, but nonetheless, it's afairly small enough area that it can be done," he said.
In fact, the news media have been ahead of the militaryofficials in some cases. Four of the nine mines found in the gulfwere located by news crews.
Fletcher spotted one with an oil tanker only 200 yards away.
"It hits you in the stomach when you suddenly see that round,First World War object with spikes, and it's shocking," he said.
He and his crew tried to radio the captain of the tanker, butcould not, so they landed on the deck.
"He was a bit surprised, until we told him there was a minenearby," Fletcher said.
No comments:
Post a Comment