Marketplace Features

«  return to the home front main page...
	Reporter’s Notebook by Kelly McEvers

" To know how many people actually watch the news each night is to understand what a tight race the “Big Three” are running. Just the slightest change in percentage points can pitch one network into the lead; being in the lead means you make more money.

I don't usually cover the media. I don't even live in New York. I knew the competition between the networks was fierce -- but I didn't know it was nasty.

I arrived in the city about a week before the piece was due and set up shop in my cousin's Manhattan apartment -- a barely heated pre-War on the far Upper East Side. I started putting in calls. I aimed high.

I requested meetings with anchors, with captains of industry. The assistants asked who I was. I said, "public radio."

"What exactly does that mean?" asked one assistant, and I realized I was not speaking his language. So, I began identifying myself by the number of people who listen to the program each week.

"About 4 million ..."

When I asked for Brokaw, I hinted that I might already have Jennings. A callback sneered that Brokaw was preparing to leave the country, while the other anchors -- not to mention any names -- were staying at home. NBC is ahead in the ratings, the assistant reminded me. If I wanted to talk to the losers, I was free to do so.

I put in a request for Rather and got no response. I found out Jennings had planned a week's tour around the country "to gauge how the public really feels about war with Iraq." His people told me I might as well settle for a breakfast at CBS the following morning. I called CBS and said I heard about the breakfast from ABC.

I'm invited.

I was late. Rather was there, John Roberts was there, other correspondents were piped in from Washington and Kuwait. The reporters covering the breakfast all worked for newspapers or magazines. I wrestled with the sound engineers for 15 minutes, fearing I'd miss what Rather said. I finally rolled tape.

It was a cynical group, those reporters. They asked about budgets, competition, ratings. They were assured the network cares most about its duty to the public.

Then Rather took the mic. He was clutching a book titled “War and the Poets.” We couldn’t help but wonder why he had it. We're trained to think this way. He talked about what a great job CNN did in the first Gulf War -- but he said pretty pictures aren't enough.

He said a lot of people don't have cable; that it's his job to tell viewers that war can be hell. It's his job, he said, to show the "real blood, the real mud and the real screams of the dying." His voice broke a bit after he said this, and he paused for a second. Then, he continued talking.

We were all pretty quiet for a while. We weren’t thinking about how CBS news is third in the ratings. We just started clinking our glasses and plates, again, and coughing. "
--Kelly McEvers