General Westmoreland once told American reporters they should "get on board" and cover the Vietnam War from the American point of view. Few journalists of that cynical news generation took his advice. In the past few days however, since the American mainland suffered its first-ever attack from the air, many big-name American journalists have blurred the distinction between news and patriotism
CBS's flinty anchorman, Dan Rather, no great fan of President Bush, told David Letterman tearfully on Tuesday's Late Show that if the President "wants me to line up, just tell me where". Letterman, who with his rival late show host Jay Leno on NBC has relentlessly played on the American perception that nothing is sacred, comforted Rather, saying "You're a professional, but good Christ, you're a human being".
The show got its highest rating ever and Letterman was well reviewed for a sombre monologue which he opened with the words "It's terribly sad here in New York City. We've lost 5,000 fellow New Yorkers and you can feel it." Many news broadcasts rode a wave of patriotism while reporting the news.
On Fox News anchorman Jon Scott told the German ambassador "we look forward to working with your country in wiping out those terrorists." Tim Russert on NBC's Sunday magazine show Meet the Press wore a red, white and blue ribbon when interviewing Vice-President Dick Cheney.
This has led to some worried comments about whether the media might not be helping produce an atmosphere which would condition people to support war. Reporters clearly shared the personal distress felt by everyone else and were swept up in a mood of defiance expressed by their own station's logos such as "America Rising" and "America's New War".
This captured the needs of the moment, and the television news coverage has been widely praised in the US for its comprehensive nature and compassionate tone (though there was criticism of unsubstantiated reports broadcast as facts, like the discovery of a truckload of explosives under the George Washington bridge and news that five firemen had been found alive).
Even arch-enemies of the media were lavish in their accolades, including the Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani and Cardinal Edward Egan - who made his way to the cameras after a memorial service in St Patrick's Cathedral to say he had completely revised his negative view of reporters. This week, as the country returned to sitcoms, sports and soap operas, news directors began pondering the problem of how to continue covering an event which traumatised the nation and still demanded a new level of news reporting.
One step has been to reduce the level of anguish by more judicious use of flashbacks. ABC news president David Westin banned replaying the dramatic video of the stike against the World Trade Centre unless crucial to the report at hand.
A major problem is reduced revenues. All network channels dropped commercials in the first four days, losing an estimated $320 million and sending down the share values of Walt Disney, Viacom, General Electric, News Corp and AOL Time Warner, which own respectively ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and WB. There were no commercials either in last night's two-hour-long America, A Tribute to Heroes, run simultaneously on ABC, CBS and NBC, featuring Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen and other stars.
Ratings for the networks rose to record levels - 80 million tuned into coverage on September 11th, the same as last year's Superbowl - but this could not be sustained. The story is now slowly winding down.
However, there is widespread agreement that the news landscape has been altered by the horrific attacks on September 11th.
Television news was transformed from a sideshow of hype and high-profile celebrity-dramas to a 24-hour service of professional, detailed reporting, delivered with weight and gravitas.
The biggest beneficiaries have been the cable news networks, particularly Cable News Network.
CNN domestically had gone on the defensive, reducing the constant hard news coverage for which it was once noted in favour of the personality-driven aggressive talk show formats which had made rivals Fox and MSNBC major competitors for advertising revenue.
Before the attack all three had been focusing on the Chandry Levy-Gary Condit affair almost exclusively, for week after week. When the crisis broke, Americans turned in big numbers to CNN which has drawn record-level audiences, peaking at 10 million viewers for President Bush's first prime-time address.
The only time CNN did better was in February 1991 during the Gulf War. Rivals Fox and CNBC also had record weeks but trailed CNN badly, unable to match its 30 foreign bureaus, its 60 staff in the Middle East and Asia and its access to foreign locations.
As for the big networks, ABC, CBS and NBC had been closing bureaus abroad and are now struggling to cope with the need to provide news from Islamabad and other likely action spots in the coming weeks. Their annual news budgets had been restricted to between $400 million and $500 million compared to CNN's $700 million. For now at least, money is no object.
