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TV Networks Move Quickly on Saddam News |
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2 hours, 22 minutes ago |
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By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - Many Americans awoke Sunday to stunning television pictures from Iraq (news - web sites) of a bedraggled, bearded Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in U.S. custody and an exultant U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer proclaiming: "We got him."
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The defining images were repeated over and over as details of the dramatic capture gradually unfolded and President Bush (news - web sites) reported to the nation.
"Those pictures. To use Saddam Hussein's phraseology — the mother of all mug shots," said Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace. "You have to wonder in some sense if he wasn't relieved to have been caught."
With many newspapers out-of-date before readers retrieved them from the front stoop, some printed special editions. The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, Tenn., just outside Fort Campbell, put out an afternoon edition.
Several papers put out four- to eight-page "extra" sections, including The Tampa Tribune in Florida, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the Great Falls Tribune in Montana. The Dallas Morning News put out a 16-page extra edition of its free daily tabloid.
Many media outlets couldn't resist the irony of a man who built palaces for himself being captured in filthy hole in the ground.
"It could not have been a more undignified situation," NBC's Tom Brokaw said. "He was literally a rat trapped in a hole."
Keenly aware of the importance of images, Bush administration officials came equipped to Bremer's news conference with pictures of a disheveled Saddam opening his mouth for a doctor's tongue depressor, as well as murky shots of his underground hiding place.
Bremer opened the briefing shortly after 7 a.m. EST with the words: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him." Many listening to him applauded.
Some Arab TV stations did not carry Bremer's announcement. But the major ones, such as Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya in Dubai, showed both Bremer and scenes of Iraqis celebrating in Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Washington, Hafez al-Mirazi, asked what right the Americans have to show Saddam as a prisoner of war on TV when the United States objected to showing American POWs on TV during the war.
ABC, CBS, NBC and the cable news channels covered the story full-time through Bush's address to the nation, shortly after noon.
"I thought President Bush had a very measured tone in contrast to the other times we've heard him talk about Iraq," said NBC's Tim Russert.
Word of the possible capture began being seen on television shortly after 5 a.m. EST, more than 12 hours after the event.
CNN's Alphonso Van Marsh, embedded with the U.S. infantry division that caught Saddam, was alerted that something was up when he saw soldiers celebrating. He sent back the first videophone images from the scene.
A flood of details came in before the official confirmation, quicker than usual for breaking news. Reporters said Saddam's identity had been confirmed through a DNA test and examination of scars on his body, that his location was a cellar near his hometown of Tikrit, that celebratory shots were being fired in the streets of Baghdad.
Some of the information proved shaky. Fox News flashed on the screen: "Captured suspect had millions of dollars in U.S. cash." In fact, officials later said Saddam had $750,000.
Even before Bremer's news conference, some networks were reporting the news with certainty. ABC News aired a picture of Saddam with the words, "Saddam Hussein Captured." NBC News had a similar headline.
CBS' Dan Rather said it appeared to be "terrific news for the United States of America" but repeatedly urged caution before jumping to conclusions. "We're in the school of `you trust your mother but you cut your cards,'" he said.
Rather was at CBS' anchor desk by 6:15 a.m. EST, the first of the network's Big Three anchors on the job. NBC's Brokaw appeared at about 7 a.m.
ABC News moved nimbly with special reports from George Stephanopoulos shortly after 5 a.m.; the network had been criticized earlier this year for responding slowly to the war's breakout and the space shuttle disaster. Peter Jennings, however, was reporting on a documentary in Los Angeles early Sunday and not immediately available to go on the air. Charles Gibson handled the bulk of the anchoring.
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