The Dos and Don'ts of Television News

By Thomas Griffith

Since William Paley invented CBS, you'd think he would know most of the tricks of the trade. But in 1962 he had to learn from Daniel Schorr about one of television news' more dubious subterfuges.

In his new book Clearing the Air, Schorr tells of a luncheon in Paris during which Paley congratulated him on a CBS documentary about East Germany. "Its dramatic climax," writes Schorr, "showed Walther Ulbricht, the East German Communist leader, upbraiding me for my questions and finally storming out of the room in full view of the camera. 'What I admired most,' said Paley, 'was the coolness with which you sat there and looked at him while he was yelling at you.'

"Breaking into laughter, I said, 'Surely you understand that the shots of me looking cool were "reverses," filmed after Ulbricht had left the room!' No, Paley had not understood, that ... I proceeded to explain in detail the conventional post-interview procedure for shifting the camera and focusing it on the correspondent to repeat the principal questions, plus a gamut of absorbed and skeptical poses, all of this to be spliced into the interview to add variety and facilitate editing. Paley was fascinated. 'But isn't it basically dishonest?' he asked finally."

That very day Paley ordered staged reverses stopped. But his stern edict has since been relaxed, so that if a Mike Wallace interview now takes place with only one instead of two cameras, Wallace can be photographed afterward asking the same questions again or reacting angrily, moodily or laughingly--so long as these reverses are "made in the presence of the interviewee" or with his consent.

Such careful rulings about television behavior can be found in the fascinating CBS code of standards, an area that Schorr does not go into. Laying out what practices CBS does and does not permit, the code, which originated in memo form over the years and was gathered in a 1976 manual, provides a handy check list to the kind of sensationalized TV news coverage that still persists on too many local TV news shows. Some of the situations covered by the code:

> Interviews with victims of accidents or other tragedies, or with their relatives: "Avoid them." Exception: "When they throw light on what happened or drive home a point which might help avoid future tragedies ... Do not interview, or attempt to interview, a person who appears to be in a state of shock." (The CBS code does not point a finger at anyone else, but one of the most shameless recent TV exploitations of distraught relatives was Geraldo Rivera's ABC interviews in the Son of Sam murders.)

> Riots: "If, in your judgment, your presence is clearly inspiring, continuing or intensifying a dangerous, or potentially dangerous, disturbance, cap your cameras and conceal your microphones regardless of what other news organizations may do ... Avoid coverage of 1) self-designated 'leaders' if they appear to represent only themselves or 2) any individuals or groups who are clearly 'performing.' " Had these rules been in force, how different might the history of the 1960s have been?

> Terrorists: "Except in the most compelling circumstances, and then only with the approval of [Richard Salant] the president of CBS News ... there should be no live coverage of the terrorist/kidnaper since we may fall into the trap of providing an unedited platform for him."

In a business where crucial decisions must be taken quickly, these are admirable distinctions between covering and sensationalizing the news.

Ever wonder what happened between CBS and Daniel Schorr? When Schorr leaked to the Village Voice a secret House Intelligence report, he became the center of a celebrated fuss; the rhetoric of lofty principle filled the air. These principles, on both sides, now seem a little tattier in Schorr's telling. When CBS decided that Schorr must go, its lawyers in February 1976 agreed to pay Schorr more than two years' salary, and severance besides. Only after Schorr had assented to a well-paid firing did CBS agree with him that perhaps such a deal might prejudice Schorr's ongoing troubles with Congress. So CBS and Schorr put out a statement that he was only being "relieved of all reporting duties," and this coverup, as Schorr calls it, was insistently repeated by both sides. Later, with the help of his lawyer (Joe Califano, whose $150,000 legal fees-were paid by CBS), Schorr defended himself before the House Ethics Committee. Salant now proposed to take Schorr back; Schorr was tempted. But Lawyer Califano told him: "You're mad. There's nothing left to go back to. They just want to get rid of that awful February agreement and have you back until people forget you're a hero, and dump you then." So Schorr "resigned" and took the money.

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