Local Indies Go International--CNN Style

During most of the early hours of the attack on Iraq, the local independent TV stations in Los Angeles looked like so many affiliates of Cable News Network.

KTLA Channel 5, KCAL Channel 9, KTTV Channel 11 and KCOP Channel 13 all have contracts to run as little or as much CNN coverage as they want.

The stations are happy to have the power and reach of CNN in a time of world crisis, but it can cause problems with station identities.

Several of them chose Wednesday to disguise how much they were relying on the cable network. While stations are obligated to credit CNN during any selected segment they broadcast, the CNN logo on the lower right of the picture can be covered, said an official at one station. In the cases of Channels 5 and 11, the CNN logo was overlayed by the station designations. Channel 9’s logo indicated its channel number plus the CNN name; Channel 13’s number was on the upper right.

The independents debated the merits of further localizing the coverage, either by having sent reporters to the Persian Gulf or by interrupting the CNN material for local reaction.

KCAL spokeswoman Suzanne Lowe asserted Thursday that “it’s a local story for us because we have so many people there.” The station has David Jackson in Amman, Jordan, and David Goldstein in Jerusalem, in addition to an exclusive, one-special-report-a-day deal with Charles Zewe, a CNN correspondent in Saudi Arabia.

“And, of course, when the war began,” she said, “we immediately sent out every one of our news trucks--nine, plus our satellite truck--and we had a lot of live coverage from the airport, from groups and organized protesting. We had people at the Jewish Federation. We had people all around.”

“But,” countered Channel 11 spokeswoman Andi Sporkin, “we do a minimum of occasional local reports and updates, but we take the position that the news is not on Melrose Avenue or a singles bar in the Marina”--a reference to many local reports that emphasized comments from people-on-the-street, any street.

She said that KTTV management feels that local stations have little to do with an international crisis story “where they don’t belong,” other than “postcard journalism” in which reporters find local residents abroad and do “Hi, Mom, I’m here” stories. It’s “grandstanding,” she said.

“There’s a local story to be told,” Sporkin maintained, “but the local story to be told is not in any way to preempt the news, and the news was not coming out of Los Angeles for the past 24 hours or so.”

Jeff Wald, news director at KCOP Channel 13, noted, “The reason we’re not over there is that we felt that we’re a local station and the CNN service is so extensive--they’ve got something like 90 staff members overseas--it would look awfully silly just to show a presence there.”

“I think you’re really kind of cheapening it. . . . It’s window dressing, grandstanding,” he said.

Channel 13 is considering sending a reporter into the gulf area at a later date, Wald said.