TV & VIDEO - April 27, 1989

NBC News President Michael Gartner says “we didn’t do anything wrong” in trying in advance to line up interviews with jurors after the verdict is given in the Oliver North trial. The judge in the case rapped NBC for sending one-sentence letters of invitation last weekend to the homes of jurors now considering a verdict in North’s federal court trial in Washington. Gartner, speaking Wednesday to the New York chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, called it “just good reporting, trying to set up an interview.” On another issue, Gartner said NBC had made a mistake in closing its Houston bureau in January as part of a cost-cutting effort and said a bureau will be reopened in Texas. He did not specify when or where the bureau would be located.