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American Morning

How Should the Media Handle Coverage of War, Anthrax Scares?

Aired October 16, 2001 - 09:26   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: So now we have a very broad question for you this morning, what's your opinion of news coverage of this war on terrorism and the reports about anthrax?

Howard Kurtz certainly has an opinion on that. He is host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" and comes to us from Washington.

Good morning, Howard, how are you doing this morning?

HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Good morning, just fine.

ZAHN: All right, we're not looking at you, we are looking at the covers of some of the latest weeklies here. You read the cover of "U.S. News World and Report," Terror Inc. Is the Threat Real?, is the question posed in "Time" magazine.

Do you think in general journalists are being responsible in trying to provide information for the public, inform them but not scare the heck out of them at the same time?

KURTZ: Well, it's a difficult tightrope for the media right now, Paula, because on the one hand, you know this is scary stuff people opening letters with disease microbes in them and we need to cover it aggressively. It's important, of course. But on the other hand, you don't want to scare the hell out of the country, and I fear that in the last couple of days, in particular, the media are erring too much on that side. It's not just these...

ZAHN: All right.

KURTZ: ... news magazine covers. Go ahead.

ZAHN: Yes, but what has the media done wrong?

KURTZ: Well, for one thing,...

ZAHN: And who's at fault, the print reporters or TV reporters?

KURTZ: I would spread the blame around, but certainly on cable television the anthrax story is being covered about 27 hours a day. You know it's unnerving. And every time there's a new case, obviously it should be reported, but some of these hoaxes where various perpetrators or nut jobs are just sending plain white powder to newsrooms, that's also getting a high volume treatment. And it's a question of tone and volume I think as much as anything else. I certainly would want to cover all of these things, but I think the country is getting the sense even though there's been a relative handful of anthrax cases and only one fatality that they're under siege and I think the media need to watch this very carefully.

ZAHN: But I'll tell you one thing, Howard, and I'm not going to sit here and defend everything we've done here this morning. I think we very intelligently told the story of what's going on in New York and I think we told the story of what's going on in Boca Raton. And then you punctuate that with an interview like the mayor of New York who's saying, yes, this is scary but let's put this into perspective this morning. I mean I think that's a pretty balanced way of doing it, isn't it?

KURTZ: I think every report that I have seen or read has certainly included all the caveats that you know it can't be spread from person to person, that, for example, 20,000 Americans a year die from flu. But some of that, given the state of mind of the media and given just the fact that it is on all the time now, we're in an all anthrax all the time environment, I think is scaring people even though you are careful to air the caveats.

And one other point and that is the people who are doing this whether they're foreign terrorists or just nut jobs have done something very shrewd by sending these letters to news organizations because...

ZAHN: Sure.

KURTZ: ... one way to get journalists' attention is if Tom Brokaw's assistant gets it. If the baby of an ABC producer gets such a letter it's going to get more media attention then some secretary in an office in Reno so that I think has been diabolically clever. But I also think that we all need to be careful not to err too much on the side of making people frightened all the time. This still is a manageable situation.

ZAHN: All right, Howie, if you would, please stand by because we need to go to the opening bell of the exchanges here this morning which is just about 20 seconds away and we'll get back to our discussion there.

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

ZAHN: Let's go back to Howard Kurtz, who rejoins us from Washington so we can continue our conversation about his analysis on the media coverage.

Howard, I wanted pick up on a point you make, because you said not only is the tone of this coverage very important, but the volume of it as well. Are you suggesting then that cable news is irresponsible to report this anthrax information at the top of the hour of every hour. Lord knows, you don't have the same audience every hour.

KURTZ: I think it's fine to report top of the hour every hour. It is the other 55 minutes that concern me. I think it's even gotten to the point where it's now overshadowing the war in Afghanistan.

I don't want to lay all the blame on media. This is unnerving stuff. I'm checking my mail more carefully. Nothing like this has ever happened in our country before. And another thing is that the media have no choice but to report the pronouncements by federal authorities who are sending very mixed messages here. You have President Bush on the one hand, saying relax, enjoy your normal lives, go to Disneyland. And on the other hand, you have that FBI warning late last week about a possible imminent terrorist attack. So the tone is also being set by politicians at the top, and to some extent, the media are a conduit for those warnings.

But I also think this an important, serious, scary story, but we ought not to let it completely dominate everything we do, because that sends the country a message as well.

ZAHN: All right. But where do you draw the line here, Howard. We a guest was on earlier this morning, Dr. George Friedman of STRATFOR. This an agency that does a bunch of analysis for various international corporations about security concerns. And we did a very broad-ranging interview, but talked about the likely targets Al Qaeda might have if they want to do more damage here in the United States. Do you think that's irresponsible? I mean, these targets are fairly well-known.

KURTZ: Yes, I don't have any great problem with people who have some expertise in the field talking about what might happens next. I mean, none of us knows what might happen next, whether it's going to be an airplane attack, a train, a bus, or Disney World. And I don't think we're giving away any secrets by talking about, you know, sporting events or the Sears Tower being on the likely list of any targets, and I think it's fine to interview people like that. What I don't want to see people like that interviewed, you know, every half hour, because you know, the people who are watching -- and I realize the audience comes and goes out -- take their cue from television, and going back to the point about journalist feeling under seize because the news business is targeted. And when you see Tom Brokaw understandably showing outrage about the letter addressed to him, people get the message as well.

So I don't have the perfect answer here, but it is a tightrope. And I just think in the last couple of days, we have erred a little too much on the side of possibly scaring people unnecessarily.

ZAHN: And just Final quick question about what "The Washington Post" went through a couple of weeks ago, and when you all printed in the weekend newspaper, a quote from a government official basically said that chances of attacks here in America were almost 100 percent certain if the United States attacked Afghanistan. Just give the audience an idea the conversations that are taking place between editors of newspapers across the country and news editors at cable stations and news networks about what is appropriate to report and what isn't, because we've all been given information that may not be considered classified, but certainly very important information.

KURTZ: That particular story, Paula, came from a classified briefing given by administration officials to Congress. And later, then ended up saying pretty much the same thing publicly. What's not widely known is that "The Washington Post" took out some of the details of that classified briefing to Congress, not at the request of the Bush administration in this particularly instance, but because the editors felt that it contained the kind of detail that might be compromising to U.S. troops and national security. That's happened in other cases at other news organizations, sometimes at the request of White House, sometime in an act of self-censorship.

You are all very sensitive here to not putting anything out that could undermine the U.S. war effort, and that is another kind of tightrope we have to pay special attention to, particularly in this kind of war, which is not a conventional war with troops massed at a certain battlefield. So I think we will be seeing more of that, and I think we'll be seeing more pressure from the Pentagon and the administration against news organizations that might seem to creep over that line.

ZAHN: All right, Howard Kurtz, it's always good to see you. Keep your eyes trained on CNN, because the coverage will be balanced. We are really trying to provide context, in particular about this anthrax story.

Thanks, Howard. See your later this week.

KURTZ: Thank you.

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