Networks Juggle Roberts, Katrina Coverage

NEW YORK – For the cable news networks, it’s a conflict designed for the split screen. The Senate confirmation hearings for John Roberts as the nation’s chief justice opened Monday as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina continued to dominate the news.

Add in a power outage in Los Angeles, and Monday was a day of quick decisions for TV news producers.

Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC each carried the Roberts hearing solidly for an hour after it started, then peeled off to cover President Bush’s visit to New Orleans and Michael Brown’s resignation as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Among broadcast networks, only NBC carried Roberts’ opening statement Monday afternoon. CBS and ABC did not.

The Roberts hearings would be likely to receive considerably more attention if it hadn’t been for the hurricane, and also if there wasn’t a general sense that Bush’s nominee for chief justice is likely to be confirmed, said Mark Effron, MSNBC vice president of news.

Then again, news executives would have had a much tougher decision last week if the hearings had been postponed, because there was more news unfolding from Katrina, he said.

CNN believes its new daytime program, “Situation Room,” is perfect for such conflicts because it often shows Wolf Blitzer standing before a video screen split into six pictures.

That still requires CNN executives to decide which screen has an audio accompaniment. But Jonathan Klein, CNN president, said the wall of screens helps convince viewers that the network is keeping them on top of all the stories.

Through opening statements by senators on Monday, the news networks generally played closest attention to those likely to be toughest on Roberts – like Sens. Joseph Biden or Charles Schumer.

Otherwise, even the eyes of Washington insiders glaze over during opening statements, Klein said.

“We don’t have interest in posturing,” he said. “We’re monitoring for substance. As the substance increases, so will the coverage. We’re not C-SPAN.”

The Roberts hearings offer enough breaks for the networks to get other news in, said Marty Ryan, director of political coverage for Fox News Channel. The bigger days for Roberts will come when he gets substantive questioning, he said.

Within an hour of Roberts’ statement, Fox broke in to its analysis with news of the Los Angeles blackout. Anchor John Gibson immediately pointed out that ABC had just aired a videotape of a reported terrorist threat against that city.

Officials quickly said, however, that terrorism had nothing to do with a blackout caused by utility workers connecting wrong wires.