More Programs, Less News

By Richard Zoglin

Chicago, City of the Big Shoulders, has always had to shoulder a big share of the network news load. A few years ago, each of the three broadcast networks had thriving bureaus there -- nearly a dozen reporters among them, all scrambling to cover most of mid-America between the Alleghenies and the Rockies.

If it was a hard job then, it is all but impossible now. Two weeks ago, CBS confirmed that it was shutting down its Chicago bureau, leaving a single reporter to handle the entire region from an office at the network's local affiliate. ABC is cutting its Chicago office from eight people to two by the end of the year. Only NBC's bureau is remaining intact -- with one correspondent, down from five in 1984.

The cold winds of Chicago are spreading across the network landscape. ABC has closed its Dallas bureau, scaled back its office in Boston and reduced its presence in Central America. NBC is laying off 20 news people by the end of the year. CBS, which is making the severest cuts, has axed at least 60 members of its news staff.

Much of this, of course, is a continuation of a trim-down trend that has been going on for years and has been accelerated by the economy's recent nose dive and the drying up of ad revenues. But the crunch has become more urgent because of the budget-busting Persian Gulf crisis, which has cost the networks as much as $3 million combined per week (though less than half that in recent weeks). "What it means is no budget or people for anything else," says one CBS correspondent. "God help us if another big story breaks."

The latest round of belt tightening, however, has an odd new twist: network news, by some measures, is booming. Because news shows are cheaper to produce than entertainment fare, they are in demand at the networks. Four hours of news programming is now seen weekly in prime time. NBC will add another hour in January -- a half-hour version of Real Life with Jane Pauley and the investigative series Expose -- as well as an afternoon show hosted by Faith Daniels. CBS's America Tonight has joined the late-night schedule (though it will leave the air, at least temporarily, in late January), and ABC has talked about doing all-night news.

The irony is that while news programming is proliferating, news gathering is drying up. The networks have become adept at devising new and fancier ways of packaging the news, finding the human-interest angle and the life-style feature, gathering experts for Ted Koppel or Lesley Stahl to interview at night. What they are doing less and less of, however, is day-to-day coverage.

To a great extent, this is a response to both economic and journalistic realities. The three networks are no longer the only source of TV news; by the time the evening news rolls around, most viewers have seen footage of the day's big events, either on CNN or on their local stations. Network executives argue that their newscasts must go beyond simply recapping the day's news and provide more analysis and background. The most radical move in this direction is coming from NBC Nightly News, which has instituted a round robin of daily features with catchy umbrella titles ("What Works," "Vital Signs") and on some nights has scrapped the news-of-the-day approach entirely and devoted the broadcast to one topic, such as the Persian Gulf crisis.

Reporters in the field are being stretched to the limit. CBS's Denver | correspondent, Bob McNamara, whose producer was just laid off, fears he will have little time to look for stories beyond the obvious ones. "I don't want to turn out Wal-Mart news," he says. When bureaus are closed down, says Robert Murphy, ABC's vice president for news coverage, "you lose the ability to respond to breaking stories before they become apparent to a national audience." The networks are relying more and more on their local affiliates to fill the gap with footage of stories like last week's airplane crash in Detroit. Meanwhile, the seasoned network foreign correspondent is becoming an endangered species. With fewer reporters and crews overseas, the networks are depending increasingly on foreign satellite services -- except, of course, when President Bush comes calling.

Network executives insist that the cutbacks have eliminated fat, not journalistic muscle. "We have more reporters at NBC now than when I came," says Michael Gartner, president of NBC News since August 1988. "We have far fewer managers and straw bosses and accountants and support people." The networks are also saving money by pooling their resources on more stories. For President Bush's trip to South America last week, each of the three networks sent only about one-third as many people as usual, and they shared camera crews for many of his appearances. "It's crazy for us to spend a lot of money to get the same generic shot of George Bush on a podium," says NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert.

The question is where that saved money and manpower will go. Ideally, it could allow more reporters to dig up more stories. More likely, it will just mean more people analyzing, recycling and repackaging less and less news.

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Washington, Elizabeth Taylor/Chicago and William Tynan/New York