"We'd Better Be Ready"

By Janice Castro

As the hostage story broke, newshounds were straining

For days it was obvious that the two hero-size news stories were on a collision course. "What happens," worried an NBC news executive, "if the hostages are freed at the moment Reagan is taking his oath of office?" Several blocks away, at ABC's broadcasting studios, World News Tonight Executive Producer Jeff Gralnick, 41, was warning his harried news staff: "We'd better be ready! We'd better be damned ready!"

When the two stories converged within 28 minutes last Tuesday, the U.S. press was ready--perhaps too ready. ABC, CBS and NBC together spent an estimated $10 million to cover the interlocking dramas. Each fielded some 400 news reporters, producers and technicians worldwide to cover the stories, pulling many staffers off other assignments. Says Ernest Leiser, CBS vice president for special events and political coverage: "We had to cannibalize the rest of CBS news in order to do it." The Associated Press and United Press International had hundreds of reporters in Washington, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt and Algiers, as well as in dozens of American towns where relatives of the hostages awaited their release.

In Washington, reporters kept 24-hour vigils at the State Department and White House for the latest word on the progress of the hostage negotiations. The Los Angeles Times put all 27 of its Washington reporters and editors on the two stories, the first such concentration of coverage since the Nixon resignation in 1974. Says Bureau Chief Jack Nelson: "We brought in a lot of sandwiches."

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 journalists gathered at the Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden and at nearby Rhein-Main airport in Frankfurt to await the captives. Each TV network had at least 50 people on hand, some from as far away as Bangkok and Johannesburg. Studios had been set up in the Frankfurt-Sheraton Hotel last October, when it looked as though the hostages would be freed. Said Thomas Cheatham, NBC'S Israel bureau chief, who had been standing by in West Germany for the past four months: "A minimum figure for the watch here alone would be well over a million dollars for each network, and at least another million for pool coverage." The payoff was meager, however, since the hostages were rarely available to the press. Said William Tuohy of the Los Angeles Times: "Too much press, too little information."

The Washington Star and the rival Post both published extra editions on Tuesday. It was the first Post extra since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; soon after it hit the streets, one vendor was offered $5 for a copy. Many other newspapers put out special supplements on the hostages. In Milwaukee, the Journal started printing a special eight-page wraparound section moments before the planes carrying the hostages to freedom took off from Tehran. The special sold an extra 45,000 over the normal press run of 320,000. Says Assistant Managing Editor George Lockwood: "It was nip and tuck at the end. There were butterflies in our stomachs." Newspapers in the U.S. and Europe generally gave the hostage story top billing over the Inauguration, but the New York Times led with Reagan's swearing-in. Said Times News Editor Allan Siegal: "In terms of real importance in the long run, we thought the Inauguration was the bigger story."

A5 the hostage story neared its climax, network anchormen displayed uncharacteristic tension. Citing an Agence France-Presse report at 10:23 a.m. that a plane was taxiing on the runway at Tehran airport, CBS's Dan Rather snapped that the wire service had been "a pillar of inaccuracy." Minutes later, convinced that the Iranians were holding the hostages until Carter was out of office, Walter Cronkite angrily confessed on the air: "I try to remain the cool correspondent, impartial and unaffected by events, but it seems like the most uncivilized final touch to an uncivilized performance that I can imagine."

Once the hostages were airborne and the new President had been sworn in, live satellite hookups swiveled from Washington to Algiers to West Germany to the home towns of dozens of hostages. When the hostages deplaned in Algiers, each network had an ex-hostage on hand in the studios. At NBC, seeing the hostages safe in Algiers, former Captive Lloyd Rollins began to speak of Iranian mistreatment of the Americans. One shocking revelation: some had been forced to play Russian roulette. At CBS, as former Hostage Richard Queen quietly named each returning American descending the airplane ramp, Dan Rather's voice broke with the emotion shared at that moment by millions of television viewers worldwide: "The 52 American hostages! All of'em back!" Suddenly the Americans were no longer hostages; groping for a new term, reporters called them "just-freed hostages," "ex-hostages," even "returnees."

The most ambitious coverage, print or electronic, came from ABC, which aired a gripping three-hour documentary that reconstructed months of secret, futile negotiations to free the hostages. Pieced together by ABC Paris Bureau Chief Pierre Salinger, the report made several startling assertions: that the U.S. was willing to have the late Shah arrested in Panama; that the militants in the embassy had blocked one near settlement by threatening to kill themselves and their prisoners; that U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim had bungled the negotiations at a critical juncture. At week's end Waldheim called the allegations "untrue and unfounded." But Carter telephoned Salinger to compliment him on "an outstanding job of reporting." The former President denied that he had planned to arrest the Shah, and disputed some other points, but called the report "basically accurate."

Even before the hostages' release, the press had descended on their families with Fleet Street ferocity. Smiling local anchormen seemed to rain from the sky; five television helicopters set down in a cornfield next to the home of Hostage Frederick Kupke in Francesville, Ind. (pop. 975). Lawns were trampled, living rooms were crammed with reporters and television gear. Dr. Ernest Cooke, father of one of the hostages, updated Marshall McLuhan's famous aphorism. "The medium," said Cooke, "may be mostly equipment."

To ingratiate themselves with the overwrought families, reporters offered flowers, television sets, money and even a pet hamster. A handful of journalists doubled as family spokesmen, and others developed emotional bonds that made journalistic detachment impossible. Said Joyce Valdez, who covered the family of Billy Gallegos for the Pueblo (Colo.) Chieftain: "Sometimes I felt like hugging them." Sam Jones of KTHV-TV in Little Rock helped the Kirtley family arrange an expansion of their home and was once spotted sweeping their porch. When Marine Sergeant Steven Kirtley called home from Wiesbaden, the busy reporter was amply repaid: he got an exclusive interview. Other family members, like Hostage Bert Moore's wife Marjorie, managed to resist most such entreaties.

In the frenzied race for reactions last week, two reporters nearly came to blows on the Gallegos' front porch; another was caught riffling through the family mail. In Globe, Ariz., NBC Correspondent Don Oliver got into a shouting match with Hostage James Lopez' mother Mary, demanding an interview. She won. In Edwardsville, Pa., Mrs. Theresa Lodeski finally heard from her son, Bruce German, at 4 a.m. Wednesday. A reporter snatched away the phone and began firing questions at German. Said German's half-brother Ari Benjamin: "We had no idea how ruthless the press could be."

If the hostage families were tired of the media siege, so were the journalists. Said a Boston television reporter: "People only have so many emotions, and we constantly asked them to come up with more. After a while, I began to feel stupid." In New York City, some reporters disobeyed their editors' instructions to follow Barbara Rosen, wife of one of the hostages. Explained J.J. Gonzales of WCBS-XV: "There is a line between coverage and harassment." As the hostages prepared to return home at week's end, a protective Government made plans to ensure them a measure of privacy. The reunion with their families was set for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where --aside from one scheduled news conference--authorities could keep the news-hounds at bay. A few more days in a kinder sort of captivity was necessary before the hostages could face freedom --and the press. --By Janice Castro

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