By MERVIN BLOCK
June 2003

If you think only a solar eclipse can turn day into night, lend me your ears.

When you turn on the news at night, you’re bound to hear tonight embedded in scripts. But unless you’re tone-deaf, you can often detect, or suspect, a false note. Even from networks. On the “CBS Evening News” recently, a correspondent in Washington introduced video:

“Saudi investigators say that altogether they've now swept up 11 suspects in the Riyadh bombings earlier this month [could it be later this month?]...The Saudi interior minister said tonight that the 11 were rounded up without incident over the past two days near the holy city of Medina….” Said tonight? I wondered whether that was true. So I did a little Sam Spadework. When the correspondent spoke, just after 6:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, May 28, the time in Saudi Arabia was 1:30 a.m.--seven hours ahead of the time in network newsrooms.

That means the Saudi interior minister must have made the announcement after midnight over there. But five hours before the broadcast, at 1:31 p.m., E.D.T., the French news agency AFP (Agence France-Presse) quoted the Saudi interior minister as telling a news conference that 11 people had been arrested in the past two days.

When the CBS correspondent said, “…altogether they’ve now swept up 11 suspects,” the altogether was also suspect. Reporters in Riyadh for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times wrote that the minister said—on May 28--at least 21 suspects had been arrested, 11 in the past two days. The AFP story of 1:31 p.m., E.D.T., also attributed “21” to the minister.

Is it even plausible that the interior minister would hold an additional news conference to repeat or amplify his announcement? And after midnight? In fact, the Trib’s man in Riyadh, Cam Simpson, told me (by phone after he returned to the States) that there was no post-midnight conference.

On the same night as the CBS newscast, the anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight” said:

“Overseas, now, for the latest on terrorism. In Saudi Arabia, authorities say they have arrested 11 people in connection with those bombing attacks [bombings alone would do the job] two weeks ago in the capital, Riyadh.” Then the anchor introduced a correspondent, “here with the latest.” [Latest twice in one lead-in? Yep. And isn’t news always the newest?] The correspondent narrated video:

“The 11 Saudi suspects were arrested outside this Internet café in the holy city of Medina. Tonight [the correspondent was here, not over there], the interior minister, Prince Nayef, told reporters the men and three non-Saudi women with them were captured without gunfire….”

Tonight? Not so. But how about other purported facts?

The correspondent said the suspects were arrested outside the Internet café, but The Associated Press had moved a story at 7:18 a.m., E.D.T., that a Saudi paper said three suspects were arrested inside. And six minutes later, AFP carried the same account. Other wire and newspaper stories also said the three men had been arrested at (inside or outside) the café—and the other suspects arrested elsewhere in or near the city. But I couldn’t find a print story saying all 11 suspects had been arrested outside the café. Or that the women were arrested at the café.

Neither the ABC nor CBS scripts identified the source(s) of their information.

As for ABC’s mention of “the men and three non-Saudi women with them," the next day the BBC Monitoring Service circulated a partial translation of the interior minister’s news conference. The BBC noted its source as an article in Arabic posted at the Web site of the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) at 1713 Greenwich Mean Time, May 28--1:13 p.m., E.D.T.

The BBC said the SPA article reported the minister had told the news conference that a man was arrested “on his way between Medina and Mecca along with three women who seem to be the wives of some of them.”

On the day of the news conference, SPA also provided an English-language account of the minister’s remarks. SPA quoted the minister as saying 11 suspects had been arrested in Medina, which state-run SPA said brought the total to 21 arrested. By early that afternoon, E.D.T., AFP (Agence France-Presse) was reporting both figures. At 7:01 a.m, E.D.T., and all day long, the AP was saying that since the bombings, the Saudis had “detained about 100 people.” Even so, that evening, CBS said, “…altogether they’ve now swept up 11 suspects.”

Makes you wonder about those network newscasts (NBC’s “Nightly News” didn’t run the story that night): Were the correspondents misinformed? Were they uninformed that Saudi Arabia is in a different time zone from Manhattan? Unaware they should present the time element according to the place where they’re broadcasting? Sloppy or simply indifferent about taking liberties, caught up in the pursuit of nighthood? Or were their inaccuracies inadvertent, a matter of misspeaking--sort of a bad air day?

But at the end of the day (yet another cliché), does it really matter whether their tonight was factually correct? If you don’t know the right answer to that one, you’re in the wrong business.