The war is no longer a 24-7 live event on cable news.
With the military stage of the monthlong Iraq conflict coming to an end, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC have returned to running repeats of prime-time shows in the wee hours.
“Even by administration standards, the war is winding down,” says Teya Ryan, executive vice president and general manager of CNN/U.S. “Our job is to follow the news, and that’s what we’re doing.”
CNN has about 60 staffers in the region, down from a high of more than 200. It’s had a Baghdad bureau since the “91 Gulf War.
Economics was not a factor in CNN’s decision to ditch uninterrupted live war coverage, Ryan says, despite the money saved by fewer staff hours and materials.
“We still have more people in the region than any other cable news organization. We’re still in a hyperactive, heated news environment, and we’re prepared to respond.”
Beginning Monday night at midnight EDT, CNN will rerun Larry King, Paula Zahn’s two-hour “American Evening,” and Aaron Brown’s “NewsNight” until 5 a.m.
For MSNBC, money “is and isn’t an issue” in its war-zone staff reduction, says president Erik Sorenson.
“We were prepared, as a company, to lose money with this war. We’re driven by the story. We’re a commercial operation, too. We want to get back to keeping the lights on and making money.”
One exception: MSNBC will continue to preempt its 5-to-9 a.m. simulcast of Don Imus’ syndicated radio show in favor of live war coverage.
MSNBC’s repeats, beginning at midnight EDT: Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Olbermann, and Scarborough.
Like big brother NBC, MSNBC wants to establish a Baghdad bureau. “We must have a presence in Iraq,” Sorenson says. “I don’t think this story is over.” No Baghdad bureau decisions yet from FNC, ABC or CBS.
The broadcast networks also have pulled many of their correspondents from the war zone, and the evening newscasts have returned to a more varied mix of stories.
The move “is a reflection of the larger trend away from foreign news that we’ve seen over the last 10 years or more,” says Terence Smith, media correspondent on Jim Lehrer’s “NewsHour” on PBS.
Not to be overlooked, Smith says, is the huge expense to ABC and CBS, which do not have cable outlets to amortize costs.
“As soon as a crisis situation has peaked, the tendency among network bean-counters is to pull people out as soon as possible. The way network news is budgeted, that is inevitable. They are not set up to sustain that kind of effort.”
Smith predicts that the broadcast networks’ emphasis on foreign news will subside even faster than it did after Sept. 11. And that, he says, is a disservice to the public.
“The broader trends and international politics that got us into this war are, if anything, more complex and more important to follow in the postwar period than they were before.”
Still, Smith acknowledges “you can’t stay at a war level of staffing on a permanent basis. I know it’s not practical. I applaud NBC for announcing it’s starting a Baghdad bureau. Other networks will have no choice but to follow.”
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AP-NY-04-18-03 2013EDT
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