Who Wants This Job?

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

The network is being eyed for sale. Staffing and salaries have been slashed. Morale is low when it's not obstreperous. The chief corporate asset, credibility, has been squandered in a humiliating succession of errors and ethical slips. On top of all else, three of the past four occupants of the job have been shown the door. Is it any wonder that NBC News seems to be having trouble finding a president?

What used to be one of the most coveted jobs in journalism is now widely viewed as a "challenge" if not a headache. Despite power, prestige and a salary that may exceed $1 million, whoever takes the job will have to contend with problems ranging from a persistent third-place rating for NBC's Nightly News to the lingering shame from Dateline's rigging of a crash fire to illustrate a piece about design defects in some General Motors trucks. An investigative report released by NBC last week found "misjudgments and professional lapses" in Dateline's production and led to the ouster of three producers.

Partly as a result, a roster of contenders have deflected or flat-out declined overtures. According to present and former NBC top brass, they include: the network's own anchor Tom Brokaw, and its Washington bureau chief and Meet the Press host Tim Russert; ABC News president Roone Arledge, his executive vice president Paul Friedman and Nightline anchor Ted Koppel; CNN president Tom Johnson and executive vice president Ed Turner; and PBS documentarian Bill Moyers. There may be others. Although the search has been under way for at least a month -- since before Michael Gartner resigned -- somewhat less glittery prospects were still being approached late last week.

There are, to be sure, candidates actively seeking the job from both inside and outside, including interim boss Donald Browne. But few fully meet the criteria privately articulated by NBC's corporate president Robert Wright: experience in news, experience in television and, most important, "high profile." Says one broadcast news veteran whom Wright has consulted: "He has been telling everyone that he'd like most to get Koppel or Moyers. He likes the idea of instant credibility."

To some people involved in the selection process, Wright's criteria imply that he sees NBC News' problems as primarily public relations and that he hopes installing an eminent journalist can diffuse them. But as acting president Browne acknowledges, many inside NBC -- plus one candidate from outside -- think the recent difficulties directly result from the staff cuts as NBC's parent company, General Electric, turned the news division from a $126 million money loser in 1988 to an anticipated $20 million profit earner this year. Browne says Wright has promised that "there will be more personnel," but to at least one candidate who declined, that commitment is not enough: "I would hypothetically consider going there only with the personal assurances of Jack Welch at GE that the company really intends to rebuild the news division."

Despite the bumpy start and unavailability of some high-powered names, NBC will doubtless find an experienced, plausible news president. Many of the same people who described the job as horrendous would be ready to take it. Some insiders predict that the eventual choice will indeed be one of those who has already turned it down: Russert of Meet the Press. Whoever it is may find there are days where he shares the judgment of Everette Dennis, executive director of the Freedom Forum at Columbia University: "Taking that job would be like jumping onto a funeral pyre."

With reporting by Wendy Cole and Georgia Harbison/New York