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Not even physicists, practitioners of a somewhat more exact science, have so arrogant a belief in the out there. For 60 years, physics has learned to live with its Uncertainty Principle: that the act of observing an event alters its nature. Journalism continues to resist the idea. And journalism, which shines lights at people, not electrons, does more than alter. It creates. First, out of the infinite flotsam of "events" out there, it makes "stories." Then, by exposing them (and their attached people, ideas, crimes), it puts them on the map. "As seen on TV" gives substance to murder as surely as it does to Ginzu knives. The parade of artifacts is varied, but the effect is the same: coverage makes them real.
No one knows this better than terrorists. No one is more grudging in acknowledging this than television journalists. Their self-criticism takes place generally at the periphery. For example, the TV anchors were much embarrassed that reporters' unruliness caused the first hostage press conference to be temporarily called off. (By terrorists, mind you.) But that misses the point. The real point is what they were doing when not unruly: blanketing American airwaves with shows choreographed by the captors, with the hostages, under constant but concealed threat, acting as their spokesmen.
Another fine point was whether to run live pictures. Dan Rather said no, averring that his network would not be handed over to terrorists. This was in contrast to ABC, which had broadcast live interviews. But what purpose does it serve to broadcast these interviews at all? If the purpose is to show that the hostages are alive and well, the tools of the print media -- a still picture and a summary of what had happened -- are perfectly adequate. But that would be bad television. And that is exactly the point: the play's the thing. These terrorist productions are coveted for their dramatic, not their news value.
That realization might open the way to some solution, or at least some approach to the problem of reducing terrorist control of the airwaves. If much of the coverage is indeed not news but entertainment -- bizarre guerrilla theater that outdoes Network -- then television might quite properly place voluntary limits on it, as it does on other entertainments.
Broadcast television imposes limits, strict but self-enforced limits, on explicit sex. Why not on explicit terror? There is no reason why all the news of a terrorist event, like news of a rape, cannot be transmitted in some form. But in the interest of decency, diplomacy and our own self-respect, it need not be live melodrama.
A few years ago, when some publicity seekers started dashing onto baseball fields during televised games, TV producers decided to discourage the practice by averting the camera's eye. So now, the crowd roars at the commotion, and the viewer strains to see what it is all about, but cannot. Yet he accepts this restraint, this self-censorship, if you will, without complaint because it serves to avoid delays at ball games. Yet we won't do the same when the end is reducing the payoff for political murder.