Searching for Bang-Bang

Competition heats up for Viet Nam-style coverage in El Salvador

As the fighting intensifies in El Salvador, the race for the story among U.S. journalists is heating up too. With big-name correspondents pouring in for this month's national elections, resident newsmen are increasingly hard-pressed to provide action for home consumption. TIME Caribbean Correspondent Bernard Diederich describes the scramble:

The heat is on to produce footage to accompany what some newsmen call "Mr. Haig's war." Compared with earlier days, there is less camaraderie and pack journalism, there are fewer collective safaris. The competition often borders on frenzy. The TV networks are under pressure to produce bang-bang. "Bang-bang," explains one network TV producer, "is the hook that gets it into the tin. A massacre will do it also." But the army and the guerrillas are not always cooperative. At times there is no bang-bang--at least the networks and still photographers can't find any, and it isn't for want of trying.

During the daylight hours, there are more patrols of El Salvador's rural highways by the news media than by the government forces and guerrillas combined. Those who strike it lucky are envied by the others. One night, at the microwave station feeding the day's catch to the U.S.,-this reporter, who had found only sleeping soldiers after a day of fruitless searching, was told by a competitor that "ABC has bang-bang just like Viet Nam [the highest class of footage]. Tim Ross [ABC freelance correspondent] has a colonel in a jeep, just like central casting, saying they have a wounded black guerrilla they suspect is a Cuban."

The opposition screamed. The networks consulted their war maps and plotted the colonel's position, frantically wondering how they could have missed his field artillery. In response to queries, the military hospital said it had no Cuban.

The colonel had described the prisoner as having a black beret with a Cuban-type star on it. (Nobody knew exactly what a Cuban-type star was supposed to look like.) In another report, the prisoner was said to have died. "Now they'll never know if he had a Cuban accent," said one reporter. Out in the countryside, ABC and NBC vans in search of the elusive Cuban bogged down in the mud, and a Salvadoran peasant collected two crisp 100 colones notes ($80) to haul the vans out with a team of oxen--while a network cameraman captured the action. When Ike Seamans of NBC approached the San Vicente garrison, the soldier on duty wouldn't even let him speak. "The lieutenant is asleep and the Cuban is dead," said the soldier.

The next day, in a news conference at the general staff headquarters, Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia replied to the inevitable questions: "Yes, there have been reports of some foreigners ... yes, black..." But in the end Garcia could not confirm that the Cuban existed. Perhaps the distinguished members of the press would be interested in a Nicaraguan prisoner--a commandante?Outside the room, ABC Producer Frank Manitzas performed a little skit, complete with Cuban accent: "Sure he was a Cuban. There he sat, with a big black cigar in his mouth, and said, 'Oye, chico--got a light?' "

Meanwhile the pursuit of bang-bang continued. The following day, on the highway to Suchitoto, troops halted all newsmen, including Gary Shepard and his CBS crew, while buses loaded with Salvadorans went forward. In the distance were little puffs of white smoke. The word was that the government was launching an attack on the guerrillas. While the camera rolled, Shepard protested angrily that, after all, the American taxpayers are footing the bill for this action, and they have the right to see the footage.sb

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