THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 16, 1994 TAG: 9411160468
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SARAH MISKIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Although television has increased the public's role in setting foreign policy, the fear that it is driving decision-making is unfounded, broadcaster Robert MacNeil told the Norfolk Forum on Tuesday night.
Appearing as a guest lecturer before a packed Chrysler Hall, MacNeil, co-anchor of PBS' ``MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour,'' said TV has been accused of ``usurping the role of responsible people in government to set policy that is in the national interest.''
This view, however, ignores that the public is no longer passively reacting to foreign policy but is now helping to shape it, MacNeil said.
He acknowledged that television had brought public opinion into play as never before in determining where the national interest lies and how to further it.
``Television is the public window of the information revolution and is its noisiest voice,'' he said.
``Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda and Bosnia. In all cases, decisions have been affected in some degree by television pictures.
Governments are battered simultaneously with calls to do everything, to do something and to do nothing.''
But governments and politicians cannot legitimately complain that television is encroaching on their role, MacNeil said.
``Governments are not virgins when it comes to television; they are in bed with them.''
He cited the example of Jordan's King Hussein, who, when irritated by something former Secretary of State George Shultz said on CNN, did not contact the State Department but called the network to have it broadcast his response.
On the one hand, MacNeil noted, Secretary of State Warren Christopher has said television should not be the ``North Star'' of American policy. On the other hand, Christopher was perfectly happy to see television images of the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
``Television was acceptable to the White House when it made the gulf war look like a video game and sent George Bush's approval rating soaring.
``In our democracy, the creatures of television have been given their freedom, but government still thinks of itself as a Prospero who can control its images.''
If politicians and governments don't want television images to be the North Star of policy, ``they had better point to the star they are steering by,'' MacNeil advised.
The president drives foreign policy and should ``ride the tiger,'' he said. ``While he is in the saddle, television acts as a megaphone. If television senses that the country generally approves of a policy, it amplifies that particular action to the point of stupefaction.''
But television can also amplify a president's inaction, so that ``instead of riding the tiger, it rides him.''
``Television makes the conduct of foreign policy more visible. It reduces the ability of government to ignore events or be slow in dealing with them.''
As the car changed the physical landscape of America's towns and countryside, MacNeil said, television is altering the landscape of international affairs.
``Television has changed the landscape of our minds.''
But ultimately, too much may be made of the impact of pictures on foreign policy, MacNeil said. ``Otherwise, all anyone would ever need to start a war would be a television camera.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
Robert MacNeil, at the Norfolk Forum on Tuesday, disputed that TV
manipulates government: ``Governments are not virgins when it comes
to television; they are in bed with them.''
by CNB