Desert Storm: Live Reports Bring Sound Of War Home

Story on TV coverage of Desert Storm from the Jan. 17, 1991 edition of the Richmond News Leader.

Secondhand war really is hell. Every muscle in my body aches. My emotions are torn and my psyche numbed after eight hours' vigilant observation of the United States' first live-for-prime-time war.

Certainly, no one who has watched more than five minutes of TV news in the past week could have doubted that the United States and its 27 allies ultimately would be involved in a war with Iraq. Television's recent observations of the Persian Gulf crisis have been intense, personal and anxiety-provoking.

For weeks, viewers have witnessed -- via TV -- the agony of military families bidding loved ones goodbye, heard reports of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's threats to obliterate Israel as well as Allied troops massed in Saudi Arabia, heard President Bush promise repeatedly that he would use force if Saddam refused to withdraw from Kuwait by midnight Jan. 15, listened as congressmen agonized over their decision to authorize the use of force. Nevertheless, last night's commencement of hostilities -- falling between dinner and prime time -- proved shocking.

ABC News was first to announce: Just five minutes, 30 seconds into the

6:30 p.m. newscast, Baghdad correspondent Gary Shepard reported hearing explosions and seeing tracer fire in the sky. “There's obviously an air raid under way,” he said. Anchor Peter Jennings told viewers that the newscast would be canceled for a “Special Report.”

Meanwhile, Cable News Network had opened its telephone lines to Baghdad, where CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw and correspondents John Holliman and Peter Arnett held microphones outside the window of their 14th floor suite at the Al-Rashid Hotel. As Holliman and millions of CNN viewers worldwide listened to the sound of gunfire in Baghdad's streets, NBC's Baghdad correspondent Tom Aspell sounded a cautious note.

“Perhaps this is a false alarm. There are air raid sirens, but I haven't heard any incoming missiles . . . (although) guests (of the Al- Rashid, which served as headquarters for all the news organizations reporting from Baghdad) were hustled downstairs into the bomb shelter a few minutes ago,” he reported.

In the confusion of those first few minutes of what we later learned was a pre-emptive strike against Iraqi military sites, New York anchors and Baghdad correspondents interrupted each other, apologized and again spoke over one another.

By 7 p.m, though, they -- and the world -- knew that Operation Desert Storm had begun at approximately 2:30 a.m. Iraqi time.

“The liberation of Kuwait has begun . . . as of 7 o'clock Eastern Standard Time . . . (we) have hit targets in both Iraq and Kuwait,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said in a brief press conference.

In the two hours between Fitzwater's announcement and President Bush's

12-minute speech from the Oval Office, the networks distinguished themselves with balanced, informative -- if talking-head-heavy -- reporting. The inability to transmit videotape led to particularly colorful descriptions from correspondents trying to explain how it felt to be under attack.

For those first hours, each network displayed distinctive personality traits. CNN -- the only network whose correspondents managed to evade security guards rounding up Al-Rashid guests and locking them into the hotel's bomb shelter -- stayed on-line and lively, sometimes laughing nervously as if to relieve the strain of the danger they must have felt.

NBC's Tom Brokaw spoke with Aspell but concentrated on reports from U.S.-based correspondents. ABC's Jennings, ever smooth and careful, moved his “Report” around the Middle East and back to the U.S., reminding viewers often that information was incomplete.

PBS' “MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” team spoke intelligently while moving miniature missles around a tabletop map that looked like a giant chess board. C-SPAN, cable's public affairs network, provided some of the night's most fascinating coverage of the war by taking telephone calls from viewers reacting to the news of war.

CBS' ever tense-looking anchor Dan Rather was offset by kindly Charles Kuralt's reports from Middle America and avuncular Walter Cronkite's mild observations about his own feelings. Cronkite, I think, spoke for many viewers when describing his trip to CBS' midtown Manhattan studio from his home in the Upper East Side.

“As I came out of my house . . . I half expected to people to be off the street, rushing home to their TVs and radios. There was no wartime feeling.

“It's weird that life goes on. You feel as if it should be suspended or something.”

Ignoring dirty dinner dishes and the small daughters awaiting a bedtime story, I stared at my television, mesmerized. The telephone rang. A solicitor. “I can't talk, there's a war on,” I told my caller.

“Oh, I'll try back. Have a nice evening,” said the voice at the other end of the line. The phone rang again -- a neighbor, in tears, wanting to make sure I was watching, too -- and then again: a colleague checking in.

Meanwhile, the sounds of CNN's through-the-window war blared in the background.

President Bush talked -- and shortly thereafter Defense Secretary Dick Cheney appeared to explain that he couldn't say much, but “the best comments I've seen (about what was happening in Baghdad) were on CNN.”

Meanwhile, local news operations were in high gear, preparing for their 11 o'clock newscasts. Twenty-two people -- the entire on-and-off-camera news staff -- were at CBS affiliate WTVR-TV (Channel 6). At ABC affiliate WRIC-TV (Channel 8), 20 -- including some non-news personnel -- had locked themselves into the station, while about 40 people -- including several

“Call 12: On Your Side” volunteers -- were in high gear at NBC affiliate WWBT (Channel 12).

WWBT's news ran commercial-free, while WTVR and WRIC aired several ads each. Harvey Powers, WWBT news director, said, “I'm not against commercials. It's just at some point in time, you have more news than the hole allows. Tonight was one of those times.”

Taking their cues from network executives, news directors at all three local stations were prepared for a long on-air haul if necessary. All were planning to broadcast regular newscasts today.

Local radio station WRXL (102.1 FM) and its sister station WRNL (910 AM) pre-empted their normal broadcasting to provide live CNN audio programming. The CNN audio was provided to WRXL by Continental Cablevision and WLEE Talk Radio (AM 1320). WRVA (1140 AM) pre-empted all regular programming for CBS audio. WCVE (88.9 FM) extended National Public Radio's “All Things Considered” past midnight.

The night wore on, and the networks' coverage of the war that was still without pictures began to take on a certain sameness. From anchor desk to Pentagon to Capitol Hill to White House back to the anchor desk. Then on to reports (and, finally, some pool film of airplanes) from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Baghdad.

Finally, at 2 a.m., there was further news: more guns in Baghdad, CNN's Holliman reported, and announcements (from all Washington-based correspondents) that there would be no official announcements until “after morning drive time in Washington.”

The maps on my TV screen, the now-familiar talking heads had become part of my domestic landscape, numbing the high anxiety I had experienced earlier in the evening. How much do any of us really know about this war, I wondered. Thousands of details, but the most concise and accessible information I gleaned came courtesy of a BBC radio broadcast, aired by C-SPAN.

“In the first three hours . . . there were 400 raids on 60 separate targets . . . considered mainly successful mission and Allied casualties were very light,” the crisp British voice told me.

I turned off my TV and prepared to rest up for the second round of live- via-satellite war.