If I’m reading the war stories correctly, this may be the time
to buy into the broadcasting business. Certainly, the stocks of
media giants like General Electric, AOL Time Warner, Viacom, and
Disney are well off their highs. Even though people aren’t going to
amusement parks or buying airplane parts like they did in the
halcyon days of the late Nineties, they’re still watching the
news.
But can you make money on the news? Traditionally, the news has
been the loss leader for the mass media, a high-profile flash of
integrity that made a network feel good about cashing all those big
checks off fare like Charlie’s Angels and
Dynasty. The Gulf War changed that. Even if some of the
war coverage was broadcast without commercials, good war reporting
drew viewers who could be expected to watch the news even after the
conflict. The latest wrinkle, propounded by this week’s biggest
mouths, is that the new business is making too much money. Say what
you will, but after three years of losing money in the stock
market, I’m ready to invest in a business denigrated by its
employees as being too conscious of the bottom line. Peter Arnett
and Geraldo Rivera are, in effect, providing a screaming “buy”
signal for the broadcasting business.
I’m sure most of you aren’t ready to trust the word of these
men, but don’t judge them hastily. You have to, for example, admire
the courage of Peter Arnett’s convictions. After Arnett signed on
with the London Daily Mirror on March 31, he was quoted as
declaring, “I report the truth of what is happening here in Baghdad
and will not apologize for that.” And if you can’t admire his
strength, at least admire his agility. Earlier that day, hehad told
an American audience on the Today show, “I want to
apologize to the American people for clearly making a misjudgment
over the weekend by giving an interview to Iraqi Television.”
Likewise, perhaps we are being too tough on Geraldo Rivera. His
violation of the Pentagon’s rules for reporting while being
embedded among the troops was so obvious that I could imagine only
two motives: (1) Geraldo is part of some complex
counter-intelligence game, in which he leads the enemy down a blind
alley, or (2) Combat is really scary and he found the easiest way
possible to get away from it. Neither explanation is really
unreasonable.
While we are evaluating the behavior of the
in-front-of-the-camera crowd, we should take this opportunity to
ratchet up our estimation of Madonna. Never have I been so proud to
be a product of Seventies suburban Detroit. When you consider all
the crap Madonna has peddled to the public over the last twenty
years, usually reveling in whatever negative reaction she could get
— the woman is practically a billboard for the slogan that “all
publicity is good publicity” — she has postponed release of a
video that could be perceived as anti-war. After a career of
presenting controversial images, usually just to prove she could
get away with it, she finally found a reason to hold her fire. Now,
if we can just get her to promise not to make any more movies.
This whole situation has also given us a reason to re-evaluate
our opinion of Ted Turner. (By the way, I’m predicting right now
that Ted Turner will have some dramatic new business plan within a
year.) Peter Arnett, between his apologies and refusals to
apologize, took the time to say that the real problem was that CNN
was jealous; after he’d made Ted Turner “billions of dollars,” CNN
was gone from Baghdad and Arnett was still there. All that really
proves is that there are certain things Ted Turner won’t do, even
for billions of dollars, and Peter Arnett will do those things for
a lot less. Ted Turner did not make billions of dollars from Peter
Arnett. As a long-time investor, securities lawyer, and commentator
on the markets, I’d say it is difficult for the market to attribute
billions of dollars in value to an enterprise that depends on a nut
like Ted Turner. But it is impossible to attribute even a fraction
of that valuation to an enterprise if you assumed its driving force
was a nut like Peter Arnett.
Apparently, biting the hand that feeds is part of every war
reporter’s menu. When Geraldo was first asked about whether he was
being expelled from Iraq — oops, the Pentagon didn’t tell him
right away; their bad — he blamed the story, falsely, on rumors
from MSNBC. “MSNBC is so pathetic a cable news network that they
have to do anything they can to attract attention.” That included,
at one regrettable time, hiring Geraldo Rivera.
How did the U.S. make it through World War II? From what I read
in the history books, we actually fought for more than
three-and-a-half years. Could that be a typo? With the American
attention span, I can’t imagine our being able to handle a story
without an outcome for three-and-a-half months.
The world gets smaller all the time and the current war coverage
is a testament to how small it has become. We can, however, and
will, win this war without winning it THIS INSTANT. Our objectives
require that we take it slow: we have to kill or capture some very
entrenched individuals; some enemy may be coerced into fighting us;
we have to fight anti-U.S. propaganda, a difficult task when our
open society encounters closed societies; our enemy will endanger
its civilians, so we have to be even more careful. On top of that,
we have to pay for anything we break, so it’s not in our interest
to bust up the joint.
I think we may need to demonstrate more, but not for peace. For
quiet. Consider spending a week giving the war news just a passing
glance. The war will still be there when you return.
