Nightline goes out with a Whimper
When Ted Koppel hosted the final broadcast of Nightline I last week, he chose to
revisit a series he had first broadcast a decade ago called "Conversations with
Morrie". That series, as Koppel reminded viewers, comprised the most popular and
replayed segments in Nightline's storied 26 year history. Koppel clearly enjoyed
reminding viewers that it was a series that had to be done over the strong
objections of his bosses at ABC News that no one would be interested in an interview with somebody who was
dying from a relentlessly, progressively painful and debilitating terminal
illness.
Koppel and Nightline deservedly won a number of prizes for the Morrie series. It
was a rather unique moment for TV News that allowed viewers to ponder questions
of their own humanity: mortality, personal courage, candor, nobility, humility,
humor, fear, etc.; all demonstrated in the waning days of an extraordinary
person, who, if the TV show had not appeared, would have died of Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS in near complete
anonymity. Morrie Schwartz, teacher, son of immigrants, hardly known outside his
family and college community, after all, was the opposite of the kinds of
leading players who Koppel and his colleagues had interviewed over the show's
long history, often with a deftness rare in broadcast journalism.
Ironically, Nightline, born of one Middle Eastern crisis, the Iran Hostage
Crisis, was probably pushed off the ledge by another, the present Iraq War. Not
that Nightline was somehow very much off the reservation when it came to the
War. You could even argue, quite the opposite, at least in the opening days, when Koppel
himself got imbedded with the invading Army and rode along with the shock and
awe forces at the "Tip of the Sword" on their way to Baghdad while managing to
look nearly as ridiculous as Michael Dukakis in tank gear. But Nightline was
coming from a firm tradition, and even if had turned a bit gray around
the whiskers, its crew of reporters, Dave Marish, Chris Bury, John Donovan,
Michelle Martin, among others, had been schooled in an era of professional
journalism. They could, once the initial blowout of enthusiasm had peaked, start following the
real story as it unfolded on the
ground. They reported on the looting that followed the fall of the regime, the
logistical problems, including the proper armor for the Humvees, the waste and
corruption as the military contracts were passed out, the rather
undignified departure of Proconsul Paul Bremer and, in a unique turn of events
that may have sealed their fate,
the deaths of American military as the insurgency grew in force. It was
Nightline that called attention to the energy the Pentagon was putting into
hiding the transport of military remains back to the country and on the
occurrence of the thousandth US military death, Nightline dedicated an entire
program on Memorial Day to a remembrance of the dead military, in silence,
showing their photos, ranks, names and hometowns.
Of course, it wasn't just their war coverage that did in the show; the ratings
weren't all that good. Still the new Nightline started precisely the week the Administration
was rolling out a newly invigorated
defense of the War's progress as a reaction to Congressman Jack Murtha's call
for an immediate withdrawal and a more muted but significantly lopsided vote in
the Senate that seemed to press the Administration, at a minimum, to state its
goals to the American public. There was also inside the White House, of course, an
understanding based on the polls that the American public was losing patience
with a policy that seemed more based on promises and the currency of terms like
"insurgent" than a dreary replay of facts on the ground.
First the Vice President came out swinging, all but calling any opposition to
Administration policy, aid and comfort to the enemy. Then it was the President's
turn, in what was called a major speech at the Naval Academy, to describe a
scenario in which progress was being made in standing up an Iraqi Army and
police force ready to substitute for American forces who could, once the Iraqis
were ready to carry the burden, begin a troop pull down that would allow them to
come home in what he newly defined as full victory.
Coincidentally, the new Nightline headed by Cynthia McFadden led off the week
with stories by ABC's
former chief White House reporter, Terry Moran on a quick tour in and out of Baghdad.
Just a day or two before the President's speech laying out the standing up the
Iraqi army criterion for withdrawal, Moran is able to show footage of
an Iraqi patrol going out on its own with only the backing of US troops. Just as
coincidentally, An IED goes off and the ABC camera crew is there to record
wounded and dying Iraqi forces. The coincidence is made even more questionable
in the light of what had been a near ban of any footage showing American's forces in action being
wounded or killed on TV. The Pentagon, having learned the lesson of Vietnam, knowing
that a constant flow of pictures of American's being killed or maimed helped
turn public opinion back in the 1960's, has made sure those images have stayed
off the little screen. Apparently, showing Iraqi forces dying is deemed to have
the opposite effect.
The following night, Moran still in Baghdad, is shown on Nightline II standing in
the surrealistic war memorial site that Saddam Hussein dedicated to his "victory"
in the Iran/Iraq War, a war in which US aid to Saddam played a major role. The
memorial, the one with the row of gigantic sabers that cross over the roadway,
was completely empty indicating its location in a protected area of the city.
The point of Moran's blithe report is that there is a major swing in mood in the
country and that progress on the ground is palpable. In one of his more
ingenuous sentences, he talks in a first hand way about the mood of conversation in the cafes and markets, as if he, or any other foreign reporter
for that matter, would dare go out into the crowd and sample the mood. We are
perhaps supposed to suspend all reality and believe that he speaks
fluent Arabic. Moran then rolls his report on Ahmed Chalabi, the
Administration's on again, off again, choice to straighten out the Herculean
mess that is Iraq today.
There is undisputedly an enormous problem with Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been
destroyed or heavily impacted by the war so far and the US prestige around the
world is even lower than Bush's poll numbers at home. We have also spent over
300 billion dollars there so far and no matter what the final outcome will be,
we'll be spending like sums for years to come. What Koppel's Nightline had been
offering in relatively small doses was something that is badly needed today,
some untainted reporting on a situation that looks like it is turning into the greatest US foreign policy debacle in history. The
President's, and all of us', problem is not finding words of encouragement or
resolve or even selectively parsing the situation to put it in the best light.
The problem in Iraq for the President and the country is facts on the ground.
In an insurgency, it doesn't matter if 80% of the territory is calm at any given
moment, it's that insurgents somehow circulate freely within the various warring
populations and that they are able to stay organized and have access to lethal
arms and the money it takes to conduct and coordinate a successful gorilla war.
Two and half years after declaring victory on the ground, it seems rather ironic
to hear the President talking about securing Haifa St or the road out to the
airport in the very capital of this large country. It is even worse when it turns out that what is considered secure, is
only secure because militia's like the Mahdi army of Muqtada El Sadr, not the Iraqi Army, are in control of those areas and many others across
the country. American's don't want to leave a mess in Iraq, they know the
consequences. What they need to know is what the US military can and cannot
achieve and whether perhaps as Murtha suggests, the presence of US troops is in
itself a provocative factor at this point.
We need facts, as best they can be revealed in such a roiled situation and good
reporting is necessary. Koppel's Nightline, for all its lapses and signs of
fatigue, was a source for
some reliable information. We need all we can get, not less certainly and even
more certainly, not the kind of cheerleading we got from Terry Moran last week.
Meanwhile, facts on the ground, the ultimate determinant, will continue to come
out of Iraq no matter what the politicians say. As we write this, two days after
the President's victory speech, the major news media report the detonation of an
IED that killed 10 US marines and wounded another 11 in Fallujah, a city that
cost the lives of so many others to "secure" just a short time ago.
