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CNN Saturday Morning News

Professors Analyze Media Coverage of Sniper Case

Aired October 26, 2002 - 08:39   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you've been anywhere near a TV in the last few weeks, and we hope you have, you've seen a little bit of coverage of the sniper shootings, nonstop, almost. Some say it's too much coverage. Two days before suspects were arrested, a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll looked at the issue. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said the news media coverage had been responsible. Thirty-eight percent called it irresponsible.
Joining us to discuss this are a pair of professors, Mark Feldstein, George Washington University, and Charles Warner, the University of Missouri.

Good to have you both with us, professors.

And we should not for some of our viewers, Mark Feldstein was formerly just a humble reporter here. Now he's got a Ph.D. and we call him professor.

Professor Feldstein, so good to have you in the house.

MARK FELDSTEIN, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Quickly, before we get to some e-mail -- and we have plenty of it from our viewers, as you might suspect -- just give me in one syllable the grade you would give the media on this coverage.

Professor Feldstein?

FELDSTEIN: I'd give it a B plus.

O'BRIEN: A B plus. All right.

Professor Warner?

CHARLES WARNER, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI: A C plus.

O'BRIEN: C plus. All right, there you -- now you know where they stand on this.

Let's go to the e-mail, get a few questions in there and see how they respond. Look at this one. "I could understand why there was so much coverage while the sniper was on the loose. I cannot, however, understand why the news channels insist on still giving this story so much coverage. Hearing relatives tell all about the snipers' lives, when they knew them, is bordering on ridiculous. How sad that the hostage situation in Russia was only something which rated a banner going across the bottom of the screen." That's from Laurie Emerson in Biloxi, Mississippi.

And we can save the discussion about the banners, I suppose, for another venue. That could be an entire segment on its own.

Professor Warner, take that first.

WARNER: Well, I think the title of, that I saw of this segment was a media circus and I think that's a great metaphor. It is a circus. And the reason it's a good metaphor is because a circus is a performance. It's entertainment. And what I would say to the person that wrote the e-mail is if you don't want the entertainment, don't go into the tent. Coverage is coverage. This is an all news channel and that's what news is is covering the news. You don't have to turn it on.

So I don't think there's been too much of it. You have to cover the story. But the viewers don't have to watch all of it.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Feldstein?

FELDSTEIN: Well, I mean obviously there's an entertainment aspect to it. I wouldn't deny that. But I think there is a very important news component and one that actually served the public. The suspects, and they're only suspects, of course, at this point, but the suspects were caught in part because of all the media coverage that went out there and allowed the citizenry to become sort of actively empowered.

So, yes, you can deride the kind of the wind bags on the air and the 24 hour cable that has to be filled up, but the fact is there is a very crucial first amendment component here that was fulfilled.

O'BRIEN: Nature and cable abhor a vacuum, don't they?

Let's go to e-mail. This one comes from Herbert Bourne in Columbia, Missouri, I should not, not too far from where you are, Mr. Warner. "I would give CNN and most media a passing grade, except Fox. Except Fox, I said, whose reporter, I thought, was out of line with her Son of Sam comments and something to be sympathetic to the shooters."

For those of you who don't watch Fox, and we're glad you're with us, Rita Crosby of Fox sent a kind of, some would term a fawning letter, to Berkowitz, asking for an interview.

That was an unfortunate chapter, wasn't it, Mr. Warner?

WARNER: Yes. It was definitely unfortunate and I think that it shows the fact that it's, you know, not only external competition between the cable networks, but internal competition between the reporters trying to get noticed.

O'BRIEN: You've got that right.

WARNER: And so this internal competition, trying to get air time, trying to get noticed, trying to break a story, for example, I don't know whether it was that reporter or not that broke the story about an al Qaeda camp in, you know, Alabama, you know? And this, again, it becomes a form of entertainment if it's not fact.

O'BRIEN: Yes, and the letter, Mr. Feldstein, that letter she wrote...

FELDSTEIN: Sucking up to a mass killer.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes. That's a good way of putting it.

FELDSTEIN: Yes, that could be viewed as a little embarrassing.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

FELDSTEIN: But, I mean the thing to remember here is the technology has changed. We are now watching in real time live coverage of stories as they break, whether it's the sniper, the capture of a sniper or a war in the Gulf, whatever it is. And that changes the nature of news coverage. And it's a little bit like making sausage, it may not always be a pretty sight. In the case of the sniper, you have back and forth, some leads that looked promising and turn out to be erroneous. That's the way it is. And if you're going to watch live coverage and the minute by minute breaking news unfold as it happens, there are going to be these things that happen.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a lot like watching sausage being made, except it's probably a lot slower than it takes to make sausage. You know, it's this incremental approach to journalism, which can be, at times, excruciating. We have to fill in the gaps at times, quite frankly.

WARNER: Yes, I think, also, that this is Caplan's Law (ph), the hammer. The law of the hammer is you give a 3-year-old boy a hammer and all of a sudden everything in the household needs to be hammered. And just because you've got all the technology, the live shots and the helicopters, etc., you use them. And what this does is take away journalistic reflection on the issues, such as, you know, Walter Litman (ph) would be turning over in his grave looking at all of these instant analysis, and it's not thoughtful.

So I think that this live coverage and all of the technology reduces journalism and, in fact, turns it into entertainment.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get another e-mail in. Randy Padalec -- I hope I'm not mispronouncing that -- from Prince Georges, British Columbia. "In the future, god forbid anything similar to these sniper attacks becomes a huge media story such as this one did. Will CNN rethink its position on having so many different criminal profilers on the air, given that most, if not all of your guests, were basically wrong on their profile assessments of the snipers?"

Now, I cannot answer for CNN here. But the reason I put this e- mail in here is I wanted to raise that issue of the speculation meter, Mark, I think was pegged on this one, wasn't it?

FELDSTEIN: Yes. Bloviating I think was the word that President Warren Harding used to describe...

O'BRIEN: That's a good word. I like that word.

FELDSTEIN: Yes. And that was before television. Yes, I think a more fundamental issue here, and it's one that's gotten lost a little bit, is there was some law enforcement criticism of the news media for supposedly jeopardizing the case and that, I think, is a more substantive criticism, and a more dangerous one. And I think the fact is it was flat out wrong.

I think the police were frustrated in their inability to get to the killers and they blamed the messenger, as so often happens. In fact, the news media held off in a number of cases reporting stuff that they knew and the fact was is that the leaks that came out, which were, for the most part, planted by law enforcement, ended up helping catch the suspects.

So, you know, we can talk about the entertainment values and could it have been a little more tasteful and was it a little excessive, you know, and those are interesting issues. But the more important one, when you have law enforcement criticizing the media, and there's always going to be a certain clash between these two institutions, the important thing to remember is that the media did its job. It's not an arm of law enforcement and in this case it actually helped catch the suspects.

O'BRIEN: All right, there's an e-mail that picks up on that very theme. "Chief Moose's anti-press attitude caused these killers to continue. He should have put much more information out there. If he put more of what the 17-year-old wrote to them, someone in the public would have recognized the Jamaican aspect. Chief Moose wants to take credit for this capture. B.S., says Celia Brent (ph), at aol.com.

Professor Warner, what I think about in these cases often is Theodore Kaczynski. The decision was made to publish the manifesto. His brother sees it and Kaczynski is in jail instead of still off in Montana there in that shack sending out bombs.

How do you respond to that statement there that the media -- excuse me, the authorities should have been more forthcoming with the information?

WARNER: Well, I disagree. I think that it worked out all right in this particular case. But let's take another scenario. What would have happened if Muhammad had been listening to the radio at the same time as the trucker that noticed him and he had heard that and he said oh my goodness, they know the car, they know who I am and he had jumped out of the car and shot the trucker, who was nearby, and escaped.

So I disagree with Professor Feldstein. I think that it's conceivable that another scenario could have come about where they could have done some great harm. Three or four more people could have been killed if they had known that that report had been put out.

So I think that there is something to be said for, again, some sense of non-competitiveness in this situation and some thoughtfulness.

O'BRIEN: Non-competitiveness. What do you think? I'll let Mr. Feldstein close this out by addressing the issue of whether we can refrain from our competitive zeal.

FELDSTEIN: Can we? Sure. Is it going to happen? Forget about it. You know, the thing to remember is would have, could have, should have, there are a lot of different ways that this could have played out where the media could have been helpful or hurtful. The fundamental thing to remember is in a democracy, you know, we have made a decision that more information is better than less information. And in the marketplace of ideas, truth ultimately will out. And I think we are always better off with more information, with a press as a watchdog serving to hold public institutions and corporations and the police to account than we are with secrecy.

O'BRIEN: Gentlemen, thank you very much.

We appreciate you giving your honest opinions about how we did our job here. B plus to the left, C plus to the right. I guess we'll take those grades. They're passing, at least.

Professors Feldstein and Warner of George Washington University and the University of Missouri respectively, thanks very much for being with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

FELDSTEIN: Any time.

WARNER: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com








Aired October 26, 2002 - 08:39   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you've been anywhere near a TV in the last few weeks, and we hope you have, you've seen a little bit of coverage of the sniper shootings, nonstop, almost. Some say it's too much coverage. Two days before suspects were arrested, a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll looked at the issue. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said the news media coverage had been responsible. Thirty-eight percent called it irresponsible.
Joining us to discuss this are a pair of professors, Mark Feldstein, George Washington University, and Charles Warner, the University of Missouri.

Good to have you both with us, professors.

And we should not for some of our viewers, Mark Feldstein was formerly just a humble reporter here. Now he's got a Ph.D. and we call him professor.

Professor Feldstein, so good to have you in the house.

MARK FELDSTEIN, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Quickly, before we get to some e-mail -- and we have plenty of it from our viewers, as you might suspect -- just give me in one syllable the grade you would give the media on this coverage.

Professor Feldstein?

FELDSTEIN: I'd give it a B plus.

O'BRIEN: A B plus. All right.

Professor Warner?

CHARLES WARNER, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI: A C plus.

O'BRIEN: C plus. All right, there you -- now you know where they stand on this.

Let's go to the e-mail, get a few questions in there and see how they respond. Look at this one. "I could understand why there was so much coverage while the sniper was on the loose. I cannot, however, understand why the news channels insist on still giving this story so much coverage. Hearing relatives tell all about the snipers' lives, when they knew them, is bordering on ridiculous. How sad that the hostage situation in Russia was only something which rated a banner going across the bottom of the screen." That's from Laurie Emerson in Biloxi, Mississippi.

And we can save the discussion about the banners, I suppose, for another venue. That could be an entire segment on its own.

Professor Warner, take that first.

WARNER: Well, I think the title of, that I saw of this segment was a media circus and I think that's a great metaphor. It is a circus. And the reason it's a good metaphor is because a circus is a performance. It's entertainment. And what I would say to the person that wrote the e-mail is if you don't want the entertainment, don't go into the tent. Coverage is coverage. This is an all news channel and that's what news is is covering the news. You don't have to turn it on.

So I don't think there's been too much of it. You have to cover the story. But the viewers don't have to watch all of it.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Feldstein?

FELDSTEIN: Well, I mean obviously there's an entertainment aspect to it. I wouldn't deny that. But I think there is a very important news component and one that actually served the public. The suspects, and they're only suspects, of course, at this point, but the suspects were caught in part because of all the media coverage that went out there and allowed the citizenry to become sort of actively empowered.

So, yes, you can deride the kind of the wind bags on the air and the 24 hour cable that has to be filled up, but the fact is there is a very crucial first amendment component here that was fulfilled.

O'BRIEN: Nature and cable abhor a vacuum, don't they?

Let's go to e-mail. This one comes from Herbert Bourne in Columbia, Missouri, I should not, not too far from where you are, Mr. Warner. "I would give CNN and most media a passing grade, except Fox. Except Fox, I said, whose reporter, I thought, was out of line with her Son of Sam comments and something to be sympathetic to the shooters."

For those of you who don't watch Fox, and we're glad you're with us, Rita Crosby of Fox sent a kind of, some would term a fawning letter, to Berkowitz, asking for an interview.

That was an unfortunate chapter, wasn't it, Mr. Warner?

WARNER: Yes. It was definitely unfortunate and I think that it shows the fact that it's, you know, not only external competition between the cable networks, but internal competition between the reporters trying to get noticed.

O'BRIEN: You've got that right.

WARNER: And so this internal competition, trying to get air time, trying to get noticed, trying to break a story, for example, I don't know whether it was that reporter or not that broke the story about an al Qaeda camp in, you know, Alabama, you know? And this, again, it becomes a form of entertainment if it's not fact.

O'BRIEN: Yes, and the letter, Mr. Feldstein, that letter she wrote...

FELDSTEIN: Sucking up to a mass killer.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes. That's a good way of putting it.

FELDSTEIN: Yes, that could be viewed as a little embarrassing.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

FELDSTEIN: But, I mean the thing to remember here is the technology has changed. We are now watching in real time live coverage of stories as they break, whether it's the sniper, the capture of a sniper or a war in the Gulf, whatever it is. And that changes the nature of news coverage. And it's a little bit like making sausage, it may not always be a pretty sight. In the case of the sniper, you have back and forth, some leads that looked promising and turn out to be erroneous. That's the way it is. And if you're going to watch live coverage and the minute by minute breaking news unfold as it happens, there are going to be these things that happen.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a lot like watching sausage being made, except it's probably a lot slower than it takes to make sausage. You know, it's this incremental approach to journalism, which can be, at times, excruciating. We have to fill in the gaps at times, quite frankly.

WARNER: Yes, I think, also, that this is Caplan's Law (ph), the hammer. The law of the hammer is you give a 3-year-old boy a hammer and all of a sudden everything in the household needs to be hammered. And just because you've got all the technology, the live shots and the helicopters, etc., you use them. And what this does is take away journalistic reflection on the issues, such as, you know, Walter Litman (ph) would be turning over in his grave looking at all of these instant analysis, and it's not thoughtful.

So I think that this live coverage and all of the technology reduces journalism and, in fact, turns it into entertainment.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get another e-mail in. Randy Padalec -- I hope I'm not mispronouncing that -- from Prince Georges, British Columbia. "In the future, god forbid anything similar to these sniper attacks becomes a huge media story such as this one did. Will CNN rethink its position on having so many different criminal profilers on the air, given that most, if not all of your guests, were basically wrong on their profile assessments of the snipers?"

Now, I cannot answer for CNN here. But the reason I put this e- mail in here is I wanted to raise that issue of the speculation meter, Mark, I think was pegged on this one, wasn't it?

FELDSTEIN: Yes. Bloviating I think was the word that President Warren Harding used to describe...

O'BRIEN: That's a good word. I like that word.

FELDSTEIN: Yes. And that was before television. Yes, I think a more fundamental issue here, and it's one that's gotten lost a little bit, is there was some law enforcement criticism of the news media for supposedly jeopardizing the case and that, I think, is a more substantive criticism, and a more dangerous one. And I think the fact is it was flat out wrong.

I think the police were frustrated in their inability to get to the killers and they blamed the messenger, as so often happens. In fact, the news media held off in a number of cases reporting stuff that they knew and the fact was is that the leaks that came out, which were, for the most part, planted by law enforcement, ended up helping catch the suspects.

So, you know, we can talk about the entertainment values and could it have been a little more tasteful and was it a little excessive, you know, and those are interesting issues. But the more important one, when you have law enforcement criticizing the media, and there's always going to be a certain clash between these two institutions, the important thing to remember is that the media did its job. It's not an arm of law enforcement and in this case it actually helped catch the suspects.

O'BRIEN: All right, there's an e-mail that picks up on that very theme. "Chief Moose's anti-press attitude caused these killers to continue. He should have put much more information out there. If he put more of what the 17-year-old wrote to them, someone in the public would have recognized the Jamaican aspect. Chief Moose wants to take credit for this capture. B.S., says Celia Brent (ph), at aol.com.

Professor Warner, what I think about in these cases often is Theodore Kaczynski. The decision was made to publish the manifesto. His brother sees it and Kaczynski is in jail instead of still off in Montana there in that shack sending out bombs.

How do you respond to that statement there that the media -- excuse me, the authorities should have been more forthcoming with the information?

WARNER: Well, I disagree. I think that it worked out all right in this particular case. But let's take another scenario. What would have happened if Muhammad had been listening to the radio at the same time as the trucker that noticed him and he had heard that and he said oh my goodness, they know the car, they know who I am and he had jumped out of the car and shot the trucker, who was nearby, and escaped.

So I disagree with Professor Feldstein. I think that it's conceivable that another scenario could have come about where they could have done some great harm. Three or four more people could have been killed if they had known that that report had been put out.

So I think that there is something to be said for, again, some sense of non-competitiveness in this situation and some thoughtfulness.

O'BRIEN: Non-competitiveness. What do you think? I'll let Mr. Feldstein close this out by addressing the issue of whether we can refrain from our competitive zeal.

FELDSTEIN: Can we? Sure. Is it going to happen? Forget about it. You know, the thing to remember is would have, could have, should have, there are a lot of different ways that this could have played out where the media could have been helpful or hurtful. The fundamental thing to remember is in a democracy, you know, we have made a decision that more information is better than less information. And in the marketplace of ideas, truth ultimately will out. And I think we are always better off with more information, with a press as a watchdog serving to hold public institutions and corporations and the police to account than we are with secrecy.

O'BRIEN: Gentlemen, thank you very much.

We appreciate you giving your honest opinions about how we did our job here. B plus to the left, C plus to the right. I guess we'll take those grades. They're passing, at least.

Professors Feldstein and Warner of George Washington University and the University of Missouri respectively, thanks very much for being with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

FELDSTEIN: Any time.

WARNER: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com