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From: bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Bob Sherman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: CNN From Baghdad
Message-ID: <16192@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 91 10:04:01 GMT
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In <16149@accuvax.nwu.edu> ehopper@attmail.com writes:

>One of the little nagging questions last night was how CNN was getting
>audio out of Baghdad while everyone else was shutdown.

>In fact, when NBC was interviewing the CNN crew, CNN declined to say
>how.  One Associated Press story this morning said that CNN was using
>a four-wire phone line (I assume a dedicated circuit).  There were
>also references on CNN to "turning off the microphone so that we can
>hear Atlanta".

The four-wire stuff was two lines, one in so they could hear the AFB
line from Atlanta with incoming audio, and the other was for the
outgoing audio which is what you heard. Once the phone lines and the
electric were gone, they had outgoing audio only, and could not hear
AFB at the same time. In fact for much of the time they had no idea if
what they were saying was even being heard by anyone, let alone
getting on the air, and much of the time they were broadcasting while
lying under a table on the floor. Only one of them kept their head up
to look out the window at a time.

Shaw and Holliman are out of Iraq now and safely in Jordan. Arnett
elected to stay behind in Iraq against the advice of CNN in Atlanta.
But then he has covered many wars before (has won a Pulitzer Prize
among other awards in the past) and is no doubt enjoying every minute
of it. It was the first war for Holliman (and his wife who remained
behind in Washington), and Shaw was not really there to cover the war,
but it broke out while he was there. I was with Shaw some years ago
in Jonestown, Guyana when hundreds of people went on a grape kool-aid
drinking binge, and I can tell you that he has a very good head on his
shoulders. He was not working for CNN at that time, but was with ABC.


bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu    MCI MAIL:BSHERMAN