Television: Now Here's the News...

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It is 10 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 14, and 33 people are crowding into the scruffy conference room at ABC's Manhattan news center on West 66th Street. Some stand, some sit on boxes of supplies—ABC does not waste money on frills—while eleven others sit around a long conference table studded with microphones. The microphones connect this office with bureaus in Washington, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles, where other people are waiting.

Assistants read the day's assignments and other possible stories: there may be a breakthrough in the Iranian stalemate, there is trouble in Turkey and Lebanon, and Richard Nixon is arriving in Manhattan. Most of the stories have already been scheduled or discussed, and the reading goes swiftly, with only an occasional comment from Senior Producer Richard Kaplan or from his boss, Executive Producer Jeff Gralnick, who is calling in from Washington today. "We want to get into Turkey and Beirut," says Gralnick, "and we want to do it soon." Kaplan replies: "We'll get on to it, Jeff." At 10:20 the meeting disbands.

In ABC's eight domestic and eleven foreign bureaus, correspondents and camera crews go off on their assignments. On any one day there are approximately 20 three-to-six-person crews at work around the world. ABC News employs more than 800 people; CBS and NBC are still slightly larger, with about 1,000 employees each.

In New York, Kaplan and Senior Producer Walter Porges take seats around a horseshoe-shaped command post that they call the bridge. Phones are everywhere, and there are two TV screens connected to computers. Without even having to whirl to one side, they can find out the latest on stories or watch footage coming in from the "birds"—otherwise known as satellites. The atmosphere is decidely informal.

At about 3 p.m. the satellite feeds begin to come in from overseas. Most of them are routed through London, where Peter Jennings, one of the show's three anchormen, is always stationed to read foreign news. London is five hours ahead of New York, and Jennings has already taped his segments, which are fed, along with everything else, into a warren of machines in the basement of 7 West 66th. There sound is meshed with video. The recent purchase of new equipment has greatly speeded up the complicated mixing process. Nonetheless, there is a frantic rush each afternoon; everything must be ready by 6. The other networks offer their affiliates a choice of only a 6:30 or 7 p.m. broadcast, but since the days when it had to try harder, ABC has always given its stations three choices.

As taped reports come in, each correspondent's words are transcribed and sent to the bridge, where Kaplan and Porges look at them. If they feel something is missing or needs to be changed, they ask the correspondent to do the report over again. In today's lead story about the hostages, for instance, U.N. Correspondent Lou Cioffi has begun his report with an interview with Irish Statesman Sean McBride, who has been acting as a mediator. Kaplan thinks that McBride should go at the end of the piece, and the change is made.