Inside the Pressure Cooker Called CNN Control

ATLANTA — Tuesday night . . . the night when Jesse Jackson addressed the Democratic National Convention and a national television audience.

The gridlock of people, the heat, the raw emotions, the intensity, the words, the screaming, the shouting, the sheer pandemonium. When it was over, your mouth was dry, your legs wobbly. You were exhausted, spent, blown away. You’d never seen or heard anything quite like it. It was unforgettable theater.

No, not inside the Omni arena with the Democrats. Inside the CNN control room.

“Lemme outta here--I gotta get outta here!” barked Bob Furnad, executive producer of CNN’s gavel-to-gavel convention coverage, as he bolted from the control room, only to burst back in a minute later--a tension-relieving ritual he would repeat several times during the chaotic evening.

In this enclosed, claustrophobic, electronic world, frequent yelling was drowned out by bellowing as the minidramas of TV production overshadowed and seemed distant from the epic drama of Jesse Jackson that was evolving in the hall 75 yards away.

Actually, the control room is no room at all, but a cramped workspace about the size of a walk-in closet inside a trailer beneath CNN’s headquarters in the sprawling convention complex. Packed into this tiny cell, thick with cigarette smoke, were eight CNN people and a visitor. All faced a wall of monitors showing numerous camera positions. The two largest monitors were a “pre-set” screen showing the shot-in-waiting and another screen showing the picture being aired.

Seated at a control panel, directly in front of the monitors, was director Earl Maple, flanked by a technical director and an associate director. Seated behind them were Furnad, CNN political director Tom Hannon and CNN convention manager Jane Maxwell. Standing behind them, with their backs pressed against the wall, were the visitor and another producer, Alec Miran. And in a glass booth behind them stood an audio technician.

In the CNN sky booth above the convention floor--a universe away, it seemed--were anchors Mary Alice Williams and Bernard Shaw, looking over podium reporter Charles Bierbauer and floor reporters Tom Mintier, Mary Tillotson, Frank Sesno and Gene Randall.

As the convention tended to business, it was evident how disconnected those in the control room were from the words spoken on the screen, so intensely preoccupied were they with the awesome task of just getting the show on the air under primitive conditions--on an evening when critical technical problems were enraging Furnad.

At one point, Williams was interviewing Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore, with everyone in the control room, including Furnad, so involved with production matters that they didn’t appear to be listening. As if by rote, however, Furnad aborted the interview.

Furnad: How long’s she been on?

Three minutes, he was told.

Furnad: All right, one more question.

Just as evident Tuesday night was the power of the control room to create any truth it wishes through the pictures it selects to air--dramatic, fascinating, memorable “moments” that are wonderful TV, but not necessarily representative of reality.

Democratic Leader Robert Byrd was speaking in the hall.

Furnad: If the delegates are not paying attention, give me some bored!

And there, on command, was a picture of a bored-looking woman.

Byrd is a drab speaker, but it was impossible for anyone--even on the floor--to instantly survey the hall to determine if he was boring most delegates.

A short time later, Billy Graham was about to begin his invocation.

Furnad: When Graham prays, I want to mix it up, right? Bowed heads!

When Graham started the invocation, CNN indeed showed bowed heads and intense, prayerful expressions. But one off-air monitor showed a man reading a paper.

Maple: We don’t need nobody reading the paper crap. Find someone praying. That’s the whole deal.

The pressure in the control room would rise and fall, depending on the crisis at hand.

Just as Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy walked on stage for his warm-up speech, there were shouts in the control room. . . .

Frantic voice: Here comes Jesse! Here comes Jesse!

CNN immediately switched from Kennedy on the stage to a limo arriving at the hall. The door opened and who should emerge? Oh nohhhhh.

Frantic voice: It’s Jimmy (Carter), not Jesse! And it’s Billy!

Back to Kennedy.

Furnad: I’ll be back! Lemme outta here!

As Kennedy wound down his speech, this was happening in the control room.

Frantic voice: Jesse’s left the Marriott! He’s five minutes away!

Maple: Heads up on arrival. It’s Jesse!

Kennedy finished and was enveloped by media.

Hannon: We’re ready (on the floor) with Tillotson! We’re ready with Tillotson! We’re ready with Tillotson!

But wait, Jackson could be arriving.

The pre-set picture now showed the outside of the hall. But NBC’s Andrea Mitchell was blocking the view.

Miran: That’s what’s-her-name. Get her outta there!

Back to the floor for a Sesno interview, then back outside.

Furnad: Here comes the motorcade. We’re gonna stick the mike in his face, right?

But there was no motorcade.

Furnad: Where’s Jackson? C’mon, I’m getting lousy advances. Let’s go to break. We’ll interrupt if we have to.

The commercial began, but. . . .

Furnad: Here comes Jesse! Bust outta the commercial--now!!!!

There, emerging from a limo, was Jackson and his family. Someone was interviewing him. But it was not CNN. It was--oh nohhhhh--what’s-her-name, Andrea Mitchell.

Furnad: Some you win, some you lose.

It was 9:57.

Furnad: I gotta get out!

At 10:38, Jackson’s family was on the stage, preparing to introduce a film celebrating his career--a film CNN decided not to show.

CNN was airing a shot of Jackson watching a monitor in the hall as his son was saying nice things about him when a major panic swept the control room.

Frantic voice: Woman standing up crying!

Furnad: Take it (the picture of Jackson) off! Take it off!

A female delegate’s face appeared on the screen.

Frantic voice: She’s not crying. That’s not the one.

Frantic voice: Ohio, she’s in Ohio. There she is.

Frantic voice: Where?

Another delegate’s face appeared.

Maple: No, she ain’t crying.

CNN continued to pursue its crying woman, finally finding her, tears rolling down her cheeks in response to sweet words about Jackson.

Furnad: Nice shot.

As Jackson spoke, Furnad sped through a prepared text, asking for camera shots to illustrate specific passages. So when Jackson mentioned “the struggles of those who have gone before us,” the camera found Coretta Scott King in the VIP box.

It was the kind of small artistic triumph that may have gone unnoticed by viewers, but it brought a cheer from those in the control room who, after all, are in the performance art business here--a kind of electronic painting that conveys mood and tone.

Prodded, often loudly, by Furnad, prize picture after prize picture accompanied Jackson’s speech. Briefly filling the screen at one point was a black woman stroking her toddler as he lay sleeping with his head on her shoulder.

But when the pre-set picture showed three white delegates looking uninterested, Furnad didn’t want “bored” for Jackson’s speech, and he rejected it.

Furnad: No emotion, no nothin’.

Well, it was theater.