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Barring the Gauntlet

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'Yitzhak Rabin is dead. And now, back to football...'**

Once upon a time, there was a thing called Network News. It was born in the '50s and, in the past 40-plus years, has had quite a few highly qualified caretakers. Walter Cronkite, for example, watched over it in what was perhaps its finest hour, as he reported, with tears streaming down his face, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And, to borrow from Cronkite's trademark closing: That's the way it was.

Not so anymore, however. These days, television news consists of a singular cosmic entity--CNN-- surrounded by a few pesky orbiting satellites: CNN. When the Gulf War broke out, CNN was there, its correspondents feeding information to the American public while hiding under beds and donning gas masks. Sure, the networks eventually got there, but who do you remember when you think of reporting during the war? Peter Arnett. Wolf Blitzer. Bernard Shaw. The Scud Stud. And so on. CNN correspondents did it all, and the network pretty boys were left to hold their journalistic jock.

Not much has changed since then--and it seems that the networks have admitted defeat. The most recent, and most disturbing, example of this trend could be found (or, to be precise, not found) this past Saturday with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. When news of his death hit the states a little after 3 p.m. EST, every major network broke into whatever shows they were running at the time and announced what had happened. Not everything, of course, was perfect--no one seemed to be able to get the story straight until about 4:15, but at least people knew that something had happened, something that threatened to shake the tenuous foundations of a peace process immensely significant to people all over the world.

When news of Rabin's death was finally announced, CNN stayed on the air to continue its coverage of the aftermath, asking experts and top Israeli officials what they thought about the assassination and what effect it would have on peace initiatives in the region. Personally, I was glued to the set, a politics junkie awaiting my fix of the latest tidbit or piece of analysis. I have little doubt that there were others like me who would have dropped everything in an attempt to make sense of this all-too-sensible tragedy. If they had CNN, no problem--all the information and interviews one could ever want, and more. But those without cable were to have a slightly different experience: football and ice skating.

All sarcasm aside, network coverage of the assassination was nothing short of abysmal. Waiting for more than three hours to present anything but the most cursory coverage of one of the most significant political events of the '90s betrays a laughable, but hardly humorous, lack of journalistic integrity and responsibility. I have no idea if most of the American people really cared at all about the assassination; about half of the people I talked to said they recalled Rabin's name but couldn't quite remember what he did. These are the same people who could recount in detail where they were and what they were doing when O.J. turned the white Ford Bronco into an American zeitgeist.

But it is the job of the media to inform people, whether or not they know that they need to be informed. Arrogant, perhaps, but think about coverage of issues such as the budget deficit and health care; were it not for the media, most Americans would have even less of an idea than they currently do about what those things mean and why they are significant. This responsibility is a fundamental journalistic reality, and one of which the network folks were intimately aware--but conveniently ignored on Saturday. Perhaps next time, the networks will realize that not everyone has CNN, and that they have a duty to provide those people with information to the best of their ability. Perhaps I'm overestimating them, but I think they could do better than a smattering of "special reports."

This weekend's pitiable coverage of Rabin's assassination proved one thing for certain about Network News: It has come a long way from the days of Walter Cronkite. And for now, unfortunately, that's the way it is.

Justin Dillon is a Trinity senior and editor of The Chronicle.