segal@uunet.uu.net (Gary Segal) (01/21/91)
The following article contains some information about the means used
by CNN to maintain contact to Baghdad. While some of the information
is not totally correct, there is still some usefull clues as to how
CNN talked to Baghdad live; while the world listened.
If you are new to telecom, please be aware that a two-wire phone line
does not work by having "one going out and one going in," but "mixes"
both the outgoing and incomming signals on the one pair, while a
four-wire line uses one pair for each direction of communication.
Also, two-wire lines are made of the exactly the same type copper as
four-wire lines.
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From "The Chicago Tribune," Friday, January 18, 1991
"Early Planning Helped CNN Register a Television Coup"
Section 1, page 9
By James Warren
Chicago Tribune
Atlanta - The Cable News Network's dominating coverage of the Gulf
War's opening was not luck. Although scens of reporters in gas masks
in Israel on Thursday night give visual immediacy to coverage that was
missing the night before, CNN's early coup Wednsesday was still
memorable - and unexplained.
It came from the four-wire, a private dedicated phone line that
doesn't go through standard phone systems.
The Iragi invasion of Kuwait began Aug 2. By September, CNN was
gearing for possible war coverage from a besieged Baghdad. Richard
Tauber, CNN's director of satellites and circuits, first went to
Jordan and began dealings with its TV and radio ministry since CNN
ultimately would have to transmit from Jordan to the U.S. He also
talked to the Jordanian Telecommunications Corp., because the
four-wire would have to run essentialy between Baghdad and Jordan.
CNN's mission to Iraq was more difficult, and Iraqi approval did not
come quickly. According to CNN executives, the Iraqi ministries of
information and telecommunications were split on whether to permit it.
But CNN's growing reputation won the day, and subsequent similar
requests by other networks were spurned.
"CNN is seen around the world," Tauber said. "Saddam [Hussein] knows
that. When the Jordanians fianally put in the order [for the phone
line], the Iraqis said O.K."
"Did we lose the four-wire?" Richard Tauber called out Thursday
morning amid the din at Cable News Netowrk here, alluding to a cutoff
in contact with reporters in Baghdad.
At 10 a.m. Chicago time Thursday, Tauber had learned that the Iraqi
government had, at least for the moment, ended transmissions of CNN
reporters Peter Arnett, John Holliman and Bernard Shaw from their 9th
floor room in a Baghdad hotel.
Eight hours later, Tauber's worry momentarily took a back seat to
those of CNN colleagues in Israel. As fears of a nerve gas attack
played out, viewers watched and listened while Larry Register, CNN's
Jerusalem bureau cheif, was sternly ordered to close windows that had
been opened in order to get a better view of the city.
The reporters in the bureau room soon would don gas masks and talk to
editors in Atlanta, giving firsthand reports on the frightening
prospect of a nerve-gas attack just down the street.
The four-wire constiuted expensive foresight critical to the Baghdad
coverage of the initial allied assault. It explains why CNN could
draw unpreccedented ratings and so humble its competition that CBS
made a rather notable request Thursday to a ten-year old rival once
ridiculed as "Chicken Noodle News."
CBS' Mike Wallace and Don Hewitt, executive producer of "60 Minutes,"
called a top CNN executive to see if Arnett, Holliman and Shaw could
be made available for Sundays' "60 Minutes."
For sure, there was ample intrinsic merit in the generally unruffled,
highly detailed performance by the trio, who were involuntarily
dispatched with other journalists to the hotel basement for much of
Thursday by Iraqi authorities.
But they could have never recounted the bombings without both a bigh
help of Tauber, a certifiable "techie," and the consent of Hussein's
underlings.
Normal American phones work on two lines, with one going out and one
going in. If two people talk at the same time, they won't hear one
another very well. The four-wire, made of copper, has two lines going
each way. It was run from a speaker phone placed in the CNN hotel
room to the local phone company office.
A speaker's voice goes through the line to a nearby microwave
transmitter. From there, it's bounced to a local phone company in
Amman, Jordan. A microwave transmitter in Amman sends the signal via
stellite to a ground staion in Etam, W. Va., and then via AT&T to two
phone circuits in New York. The folks in Atlanta, headquarters of
CNN, can "patch into" those circuits and talk to the hotel room from
the newsroom (all in about one-quarter of a second).
If you have trouble programming your VCR at home, that will all seem
truly baffling. It's also a lot more expensive. The basic cost to
CNN for just having the service has been $15,000 a month since
October. But it was a prime reason CNN could transmit with faily good
sound quality Thursday when others could not.
Of course, there was another reason: The Iraqis didn't pull the plug.
Indeed, the line sitll hasn't been pulled. If one ambled by CNN's
foreign desk Thursday, one realized that the line was still working
and open.
The problem is that the government is barring CNN's trio from using
it.
By Thusday night, CNN officals could not be sure of their group's
safety. CNN President Tom Hohnson indicated that he had discussed the
matter of CNN's continuing presence in Baghdad with both Gen. Colin
Powell, chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Marlin Fitzwater,
White House press secretary.
One specific topic was apparently a rumor, passed to CNN by an NBC
executive, that the hotel was on a list Thursday night of allied
bombing targets. That was untrue, Johnson was told.
Meanwhile, CNN's Wednsday coverage resulted in a huge ratings leap.
One can't fairly compare ratings of the broadcast networks with the
different universe of cable. But CNN's Wednesday numbers smashed its
pervious prime-time record (Tuesday night) by 150 percent and was
1,000 percent greater than its December average.
One estimate gave CNN 11.2 million viewers, or a 19.1 rating in the
cable system. But it didn't account for the many CNN radio and TV
affiliates, like Chicago superstaion WGN-Ch. 9, which made ample use
of the coverage.
Gary Segal ...!uunet!motcid!segal +1-708-632-2348
Motorola INC., 1501 W. Shure Drive, Arlington Heights IL, 60004
The opinions expressed above are those of the author, and do not consititue
the opinions of Motorola INC.