Tv's Week: Of Gab and Glasnost

By Richard Zoglin

Paul Simon's earlobes are too big, and his droning voice doesn't match the sprightly bow tie. Bruce Babbitt has trouble working up a convincing smile. Pete du Pont comes across as an eager accountant, and Al Gore could fit comfortably into the cast of Dynasty. All of them, however, could take a few lessons in TV communication skills from the Soviet Union's new media star, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Snap judgments emerged as quickly as the images last week, when TV took over the national stage for an extraordinary display of video diplomacy and politicking. On Monday the American public got its first extended look at General Secretary Gorbachev, in an hour-long prime-time interview conducted by NBC Anchorman Tom Brokaw. The following night all twelve Democratic and Republican presidential candidates gathered for the first time to engage in a two-hour debate, again moderated by Brokaw. President Reagan snared his own half-hour of prime time on Thursday, answering questions from four TV anchormen in a session that had been planned before the Gorbachev appearance but was clearly intended to help counter it. By the end of the week even humble TV viewers knew, or thought they knew, as much about the men holding and vying for power as seasoned political pros. If that was just a TV-created illusion, it nevertheless served to dramatize the medium's huge and still growing impact in the political arena.

That impact is viewed with alarm by many. The rave reviews won by Gorbachev's television performance ("A tour de force" -- San Francisco Chronicle) sparked grumbling that TV had given a slick propagandist a free platform from which to seduce the American people. The candidates' debate, too, was decried as another instance of TV's reducing complex issues to trivial matters of looks, performing style and catchy one-liners. Neither TV event, however, was a ratings blockbuster: both were soundly beaten by entertainment fare on the other networks.

The main question surrounding Monday's interview was the degree to which American TV was being manipulated. All three networks, as well as CNN, had sought a pre-summit interview with Gorbachev, but the Soviets gave the exclusive nod to NBC. CBS executives complained that their network was being punished for aggressive coverage of the war in Afghanistan and Dan Rather's combative questioning of Gorbachev in Paris two years ago. NBC executives preferred to see their coup as the fruit of a 2 1/2-year negotiating campaign by veteran NBC News Executive Gordon Manning.

A dozen NBC staffers traveled to Moscow for the interview, which was taped ( on Saturday in the Kremlin's Council of Ministers building. The Soviets supplied most of the technical personnel, as well as interpreters for both men. (Gorbachev's smooth English words, sprinkled with familiar colloquialisms like "you know," were provided by Viktor Sukhodrev, who has translated for every Soviet leader since Khrushchev.) The NBC crew discovered Gorbachev's media savvy early on: a day before the TV session, he and his wife Raisa walked into the interview room alone to check out the seating arrangements and camera angles.

Under the ground rules, NBC submitted a list of subjects to be covered, but not specific questions. No topic was declared off limits by the Soviets. No editing was done on the interview, which lasted just under 59 minutes. The time limit worked to Gorbachev's advantage: his answers were long and sometimes evasive, giving Brokaw little time for follow-ups. "It was important that I try to get him on the record on a variety of issues," Brokaw said later. "I didn't want to end up in a debate about a single issue that would consume the whole hour."

If Gorbachev managed to control his TV appearance with verbosity, the twelve presidential hopefuls who assembled in Washington's Kennedy Center on Tuesday had to get attention in one-minute snippets. The format was livelier and more freewheeling than many such encounters. Brokaw posed questions in rapid-fire, seemingly random fashion, and there were no canned opening or closing statements. Given little time to make an impression, several participants resorted to camera-inspired gimmicks. Babbitt, presenting himself as the only candidate to favor tax increases to reduce the budget deficit, sprang from his chair at one point and challenged the others to "stand up" for his approach. Richard Gephardt attacked one of his chief foes in the coming Iowa caucuses, Paul Simon, with one-liners such as "Simonomics is really Reaganomics with a bow tie." George Bush got the evening's biggest laugh in responding to his opponents' gloomy assessment of Administration efforts to combat AIDS. "I just am all depressed," he said. "I want to switch over and see Jake and the Fatman on CBS."

Amid such ploys, in-depth discussion of issues was all but impossible. The presence of both Democrats and Republicans on the same stage, moreover, seemed to leave some candidates confused about which foes to fight. Given a chance to ask a question of one predesignated rival from the same party, some candidates chose to attack; others lobbed a softball that could be smacked toward their mutual rivals across the stage.

All of which raises the familiar complaint that TV is damaging the political process. That TV has changed the process is undeniable; that the change is necessarily bad is less certain. Catchy campaign slogans were hardly invented by TV, nor was the practice of oversimplifying issues to appeal to voters. Successful political leaders have always been those who adapt best to the dominant communications medium of the day. Politicians of the 19th century were rewarded for having booming oratorical voices or an imposing physical presence. TV places a premium on other, more intimate qualities like warmth and sincerity.

Of course, brief tidbits from a televised debate or an hour-long "conversation" staged for TV can hardly give viewers a complete picture. But it is more of a picture than they would have got even a decade ago. The important thing, notes NBC News President Lawrence Grossman, is to explain the ground rules and set up the event "in a way that gives people a chance to draw their own conclusions." TV may be the medium, but the message is still judged by human beings.

With reporting by Naushad S. Mehta/New York