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September 28, 1997
GE DOG WAGS ITS NBC TAIL ? General Electric's hammer lock on editorial policy at NBC News... ...was vividly demonstrated once again last week. At issue was scathing criticism by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt that GE is lobbying "to weaken and gut" laws requiring the cleaning up of toxic waste in the Hudson River and other industrial sites across the U.S. Although CNN and other broadcasters gave package-length treatment to Mr. Babbitt's charges and GE's rebuttal, programs at General Electric-owned NBC News were silent on the matter. Was this the result of a shortage of time on a busy news day ? Judge for yourself: while CNN's report was on the air, "Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" featured a lengthy, two-item segment about "how more and more Americans are dressing-down on Fridays." Sweatshirts at the office eclipsed PCB's in the nation's waterways. This, despite the extraordinarily harsh language used by the Interior Secretary -- which editors at the New York Times felt newsworthy enough to deserve front-page treatment. Mr. Babbitt, reported the Times, accused GE of "using science to confuse, instead of clarify, the problems in the Hudson." "The idea is to throw so much sand in the process that nothing ever gets resolved." Ironically, these accusations of corporate smoke-and-sand blowing coincided with the announcement by GE-appointed management at NBC that sportscaster Marv Albert had been fired. So this question might reasonably be posed: if damaged credibility is a firing offence at one GE subsidiary, then whose head will roll at the parent company as a result of its misconduct with the environment ? After all, General Electric's liability in the Superfund group of clean-up regulations encompasses some 79 sites across the country, a fairly substantial case of assault-and-battery against the American landscape. Judging by the combative language of GE spokesmen, however, no admissions of culpability are on the agenda. And any pressure to change that policy will have to come from quarters of the news media other than NBC News. It's clear that no matter how many journalists in the News Division remain eager to report stories like the Hudson River disaster -- and there are, in fact, many who are so inclined -- the division's executives and leading anchors have become so closely aligned with GE's overall corporate mandate that journalistic enterprise is now restricted to the safe, profitable editorial territory delineated either explicitly or implicitly by General Electric's management culture. Or to put it simply: NBC's story horizon has been narrowed and focused to suit GE. That's a damaging blow to a company that Americans have traditionally relied upon as a watchdog of the public interest. Meantime, the professional men and women of NBC News look in vain for someone to face up to a leadership role in shoring up the company's strained credibility. Many reporters and producers view as inappropriate and untrue Tom Brokaw's recent assurances that, under GE, the News Division hasn't sold out its genuine news credentials. Too much evidence to the contrary is turning up these days, both in the stories that make NBC's air and in those, like GE's PCB-liability, that do not. |
| Next time... | that report we promised you last time on the young journalists of America. It was their concerns, as related to this reporter, that prompted a time out to consider the material above.
See you then... |