Letting Viewers Talk Back

ABC's Viewpoint puts correspondents on the firing line

Network television offers disgruntled audiences no outlet as effective as a newspaper's Op-Ed page, or even a correction box. Yet the need for access of dissenting views may be greater in TV news than in print journalism. The time for nightly network coverage is minimal, the emotional impact often maximal. Inevitably, many stories are excluded and others oversimplified.

All three networks have tried to open their programs to angry advocates and ordinary citizens. NBC has quoted viewer letters on NBC Magazine and Meet the Press. CBS has aired letters too, and last year had its 60 Minutes reporters examine on air their own reporting techniques. By far the most ambitious and risky effort has been ABC's Viewpoint, a live discussion among correspondents, aggrieved news subjects and members of a studio audience. The show has probed ABC's relations with business and the White House and has confronted broader questions of accuracy, responsibility and taste—often bluntly. In a segment last October, a woman in Dallas told Barbara Walters that she "comes across in interviews as being almost rude."

Viewpoint has been notable for its mingling of adroit self-defense by correspondents with an occasional apology or admission of error. The self-questioning tone fits ABC'S goals, which include public relations as well as journalistic innovation. Indeed, confession has been good not just for the soul but for the ratings; the sporadic 90-minute show, which starts in the late-night slot of ABC News' Nightline, has attracted somewhat more viewers than Nightline does.

The fourth episode of Viewpoint was broadcast last week from the University of Chicago, where 850 people watched Anchor Ted Koppel in the flesh and half a dozen of his colleagues on monitors. The subject: coverage of foreign affairs. Correspondent John Laurence opened on a skeptical note, calling network correspondents "jet-age ambulance chasers." Koppel closed with a warning that globe-girdling TV technology has given Americans "the illusion that we are familiar with distant places and cultures."

In the segments between, however, Viewpoint lost some of its humility. When challenged about the facts in a report on alleged Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians living in the West Bank, Correspondent Tom Jarriel failed to answer specific charges; rather, he aggressively interrupted his questioner, Howard Squadron of the American-Jewish Committee, until Koppel rebuked him. Said Koppel: "I think it'll be most useful to everyone if Mr. Squadron is given an opportunity to make his points, Tom." London-based Anchor Peter Jennings answered a question about the Falkland Islands dispute with a lame joke that the unmentioned "pawns" in the situation were the Falklanders' sheep.