Who Would Have Thought It Just a Few Years Ago, But To The Main US Terrestrial TV Networks Russia Is No Longer A Story That Merits Correspondents Based In Moscow

For someone who grew up watching news on the US networks some 30 years ago when at least half of the newscasts were from correspondents overseas, one can’t help but notice it’s a good day if there is just one international story, even though that really has to fight its way to air. Of course, it’s kind of difficult to air international reports when you have hardly any correspondents based in overseas centers outside of London. No wonder the US population is so insulated and so caught up in their domestic problems; they have few opportunities to see what is happening in the world around them.

And now comes news from Moscow that NBC is closing down that bureau (there may be semantics here – the bureau itself may exist, it’s just there is no one working there – ABC has been booted out but probably not that sorry to be gone from Europe’s most expensive city although it, too, probably continues the rent payments, and CBS has no presence except to send in a “fireman” when necessary.

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The networks have chosen London as their main base for correspondents and when a story occurs within Europe, Africa and for most of the Middle East (there are still bureaus in Israel and NBC is opening up in Beirut) then the fireman is sent out to do the story, “instant experts” on what is happening on any ground as agency people sarcastically call them.

Tom Fenton, long time CBS chief correspondent in London, summed up the situation that affects not only CBS but the other networks, in an item posted on the CBS web site dealing with suggestions on how the new Katie Couric-anchored CBS News program could be better than its predecessors.

“The present CBS News system of putting the lion’s share of its assets in a big London bureau and having few correspondents on the ground in other areas of the world that are more crucial to American interests is both expensive and not very smart. Putting a senior correspondent back in the Moscow bureau would make sense, especially if that person is also given responsibility to cover such sensitive areas as Iran and former Soviet Central Asia.”

That Moscow does not merit having correspondents on the spot is somewhat mind-boggling. The country is very much in transition, via its petroleum and gas exports it is becoming an economic superpower, and let us not forget it still has that nuclear arsenal. And as it gets stronger it is increasingly taking its own views on world affairs that do not necessarily match the views in the West. It’s a story that Americans should get a regular dose about.

According to online reports, NBC Moscow correspondent Preston Mendenhall was on home-leave when he got the call his contract was not being renewed. Other staffers have been let go. NBC news president Steve Capus says that all foreign bureau operations are being reassessed and that he does not expect any to “close” but apparently keeping an empty office is not the same as “closed”, but the fact is there will be no correspondent on scene in Moscow.

For ABC it’s a bit different. The Putin government was furious with ABC for broadcasting on Nightline an interview with the main Chechan rebel leader Shamil Basayev (Moscow calls him a terrorist) There has been no ABC correspondent in Moscow now for several months and negotiations on resolving the issue have broken down. The Russians are, however, granting temporary visas for ABC’s coverage of the St. Petersburg G8 summit this week – the last thing President Putin needs is George Bush complaining about American news organizations being denied visas to cover the summit.

That Chechan interview has also had a major affect within Russian broadcasting itself. The interview was conducted by a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) but it was never aired on the station, but parts were shown on ABC.

And so it was payback time, not just against ABC by denying renewal of accreditation for their correspondent, but also against RFE/RL, and the government chose a very clever way of doing it.

There is a rule for Russian radio stations that only a certain percentage of their programming can come from external sources, and the majority must be produced in-house. Around 30 radio stations had been broadcasting some RFE/RL programming. The culture ministry told those stations they were in violation of those programming rules, which they probably were. The ministry told them their licenses were at risk. Within a short time the 30 stations had dwindled to five transmitting that RFE/RL material.

But last week also saw an extraordinary media PR event in Moscow – President Putin himself appeared live of global television and the Internet for nearly two hours answering questions sent in by Internet from all over the world. The broadcst was organized by the BBC and Russian website Yandex and was extraordinary for the candor of many of Putin’s remarks.

He answered the obvious questions about North Korean missile tests, whether Gazprom supplies was being used as an economic tool to pressure the west, but it were the other questions that are memorable if for no other reason that they got asked and answered.

Putin himself looking at a list of questions that had been sent in by Russians chose one that a Western president or prime minister would just have soon avoided -- a 55-year-old woman asked him whether he could live on the 2,000 rubles ($70) monthly pension she received. He told her that frankly he could not, and he then went into a long discussion about how pension payments were being improved and would benefit from the higher prices received for Russian energy exports.

A question from Africa asked why there were so many racist attacks upon Africans visiting or studying in Russia and Putin addressed that head-on as something that had to be stopped, He was asked about Russia’s spiraling drugs problem and he admitted it had gotten worse, but the rate of new addicts was decreasing, and he explained what his government was trying to do to stop it. Would any of that have been asked, answered, admitted in the Soviet Union?

He heard complaints about how difficult it was to get Russian visas (This writer in order to cover the recent World Association of Newspaper conference in Moscow in June had to wait outside the Russian consulate in Geneva for 90 minutes, then was let into a small room for another half hour wait, then when the consulate official saw an American passport was told to complete a far more complicated visa application form that wanted to know just about everything ever done since graduating from college with phone numbers and names of bosses at work (none of which could be remembered), then another wait to hand in that second document, then told how much the visa application would cost but that couldn’t be paid on the spot in cash– one had to walk to the post office four blocks away, pay into the consulate account there, bring back the receipt and then pick up the visa in a couple of weeks. And this, incidentally, was supposed to be a fast-track procedure because there was an official invitation letter to attend the conference, one of whose sessions was hosted by Putin himself!)

If Putin had heard the specifics above he would not have cared – his point in the broadcast was that the Russians are only reciprocating what Europe and the US does to Russian citizens seeking visas. And he took particular umbrage at US rules that basically stop young single Russian women from getting US tourist visas because the US authorities make the assumption that those women are going to the US to be prostitutes. “That is insulting,” Putin said.

(Three years ago this writer was on a business trip in Sofia, Bulgaria. During a dinner the conversation got around to America and one of our hosts – a woman in her 20s who held an executive position in a Bulgarian multi-national company – said how much she would love to visit California and see San Francisco. “Why don’t you go,” she was asked. Because I can’t get a visa,” she replied. “Why not”? “Because if you are a single woman in your 20s it is nearly impossible to get a US tourist visa ” she said. “They think we are all prostitutes.” So much for capturing the hearts and minds of the young.)

Putin obviously went on this live show as part of the PR preparations for this week’s G8 summit, but it was fascinating to watch. And even he seemed to enjoy it – he extended the program by 30 minutes. Wouldn’t it be great to see George Bush do the same!

But getting back to our original subject – with President Bush in St. Petersburg the American networks will have plenty of coverage this week. But once he goes home, and the summit is over where will be the American networks then?

When one considers how hard a fight it was those years ago in the Soviet Union to gain press accreditation and now, with that story just as big today – perhaps a different story but just as big -- for not even one US terrestrial network to have a correspondent on the ground speaks very loudly about US network news budgets today.

And they said budget cuts had no affect that a viewer could observe on how the networks conduct their news business. Baloney!