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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (23954)	8/22/2001 10:26:57 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Chung to Interview Condit on ABC Slideshows Reuters Photo Chandra Levy Case By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer NEW YORK (AP) - In agreeing to California Rep. Gary Condit (news - bio - voting record)'s suggested ground rules for Thursday's interview with Connie Chung, ABC News has limited its ability to control the story. The interview will be 30 minutes ``live to tape,'' broadcast lingo that means ABC will run the half-hour with no opportunity to edit what Condit says, and no extra time to follow up if Chung has more questions. There are no restrictions on what Chung can ask the congressman, who has been in virtual seclusion as stories swirled about his romantic relationship with missing intern Chandra Levy. Police have said the 53-year-old married Democrat is not a suspect in Levy's disappearance and that there's no proof a crime was committed. ABC News President David Westin said he had no problem agreeing to the conditions. ``I don't see it as giving anything up, because if they had said `do it live,' we would have done that,'' Westin said Tuesday. ``I thought it was perfectly appropriate.'' But Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press and Politics at Harvard University and former television journalist, said a network would refuse those ground rules under most circumstances. ``You do it because you want an interview and you are prepared to sacrifice an element of journalistic control to get it,'' Kalb said. It's rarely done, for instance, on CBS' ``60 Minutes'' and executives there suggest it wouldn't have happened with Condit. ``60 Minutes'' pursued it, but believe Condit wanted the interview to be Thursday night. A politician trained in dealing with the media can skirt tough questions, or frustrate an interviewer with long-winded answers, Kalb said. ``This interview would put a lot of pressure on the interviewer even without these additional constraints,'' Kalb said. ``This adds to it considerably.'' Kalb learned a lot about the high-stakes network competition for big interviews through one of his students: Connie Chung. Before joining ABC News in 1998, Chung studied at Harvard and wrote a thesis on ``the get,'' a broadcast term for a coveted interview. Chung's thesis talked about the methods prominent broadcasters used to wrangle an interview, including Barbara Walters: ``a superb mixture of calls, letters and faxes at just the appropriate time.'' Chung found herself competing with Walters and Diane Sawyer at ABC News for the Condit interview. ``It's a tradition around here,'' Westin said. ``I don't like the idea of trying to curb competition ... Once the decision has been made, this organization has been quite good at rallying around and supporting whoever gets it.'' Thursday's interview will run after a brief set-up story and be followed by a two-minute recap by Chung, Westin said. Because of commercials, there's only about 39 minutes of editorial time in a one-hour program. It's expected to be one of the most-watched TV programs of the summer. Two of CNN host Larry King's three most popular shows of the year were about the Levy case, including last week's interview with the intern's parents. It's probably Chung's most prominent interview since skater Tonya Harding (news - web sites) during the height of the Nancy Kerrigan (news - web sites) feud. Chung's interviewing style got her in trouble during a 1995 interview where former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's mother called Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites) a ``bitch.'' Industry circles were buzzing Tuesday with reports that Condit chose Chung in part because his media adviser, Marina Ein, is a longtime friend of the broadcaster, or that Condit lawyer Abbe Lowell knew Chung's husband, Maury Povich. Chung wasn't talking. Westin said he didn't know, but that there's nothing wrong with using personal contacts to get an interview. dailynews.yahoo.com