Soviet Scenes

Hospitality for U.S. TV crews

For years, requests by U.S. television networks to shoot extensively in the U.S.S.R. have been rebuffed with icy nyets from Soviet authorities. Now, however, there appears to be a sudden thaw. Over the coming months, U.S. viewers will be virtually deluged with taped and live reports from the Soviet Union. The most ambitious project airs on NBC beginning this week. In the next fortnight, the network's Nightly News will feature taped segments on the Soviet character and economy, the status of the Muslim minority, and how citizens' perceptions of the U.S. are molded by the Soviet government. The broadcasts will be augmented by reports on NBC News at Sunrise and live interviews from Moscow on the Today Show, conducted by host Bryant Gumble. NBC News' chief foreign correspondent, Garrick Utley, says of the unprecedented access: "We were able to cast our net as broadly as possible. There was no censorship of the tapes whatsoever."

Soviet hospitality is being extended to other networks as well. Metromedia will be sending crews later this month. Says John Parsons, news director of Metromedia's WNEW-TV in New York City: "We'll go to nightclubs and farms and see the people at work and at play." In December, PBS's Inside Story plans to examine U.S.-Soviet relations on a show that will include conversations between scholars of the two nations beamed via satellite. CNN is negotiating to air Soviet programs as part of an exchange package.

Communist leaders appear to be gambling that U.S. journalists will provide a more favorable picture of the U.S.S.R. than the Reagan Administration has. Says NBC Special Segment Producer Ron Bonn: "They apparently believe that access to a large American audience is worth the risk of exposure." Soviet officials nixed few requests: an interview with Dissident Andrei Sakharov, a visit to Kiev, any views of airports or shots from great heights. To ease the U.S. reporters' way, the Soviets provided sophisticated English-speaking coordinators from the state television network.

For its efforts, NBC has come away with an engrossing view of life in the Soviet Union. Among the fascinating glimpses: citizens at a cemetery in Leningrad, where mass civilian graves of World War II dead are marked only by the years; a spy thriller on Soviet TV in which the villain is an American CIA agent; a portrait of the Muslims, who because of their high birth rate will soon outnumber ethnic Russians. "We've tried to give a different look at the Soviet Union without prostituting ourselves," says Bonn. "Our reports are different but honest." qed