11/18/04: Live From Sudan (1981)
Nov. 18, 2004 — -- Tens of millions of Americans have never known a world without satellite technology. But during Nightline's first couple of years there were places from which no live television signal had ever been broadcast. And there were producers who felt that just getting that picture out would be newsworthy enough, even if there was no story.
Tom Yellin, who worked on Nightline during its formative years, was one such producer.
TOM YELLIN, Nightline producer: Jimmy Walker and I had been in Egypt covering the assassination of Anwar Sadat, which had happened just earlier. And we'd gone so far around the world that the idea was 'What else could we do?' And the president of Sudan had suggested that he was perhaps going to be the victim of the same Muslim fundamentalists that had killed Sadat. What he really wanted was American money. But he had floated this story, and so we went off, Jimmy and I, to Khartoum with a crew, and the question was: Could we put Khartoum, the Sudan, on television? No one knew if there was a ground station. No one knew if you could broadcast from Sudan. The essence of Nightline is being able to go live from somewhere. So we took the risk, took the plane, and got there.
When we got there it took me about a day to figure out if there was a ground station. I finally found the ground station and went there. I got on the phone, which was really hard to do from Khartoum, I called the satellite desk in New York, and said, "Hi, its Tom, I'm with Nightline, I'm at the ground station in Khartoum, and I need you guys to book something you know...dih dih dih dih dih...and the guy on the other end of the phone said, "Where are you?" And I said, "I'm in Khartoum, its in the Sudan." And he said, "Well, wait a sec. Theres no ground station there." I said, "Yes there is, I'm in it!" He said, "no, no, no, no, no. It says right here in my book there's no ground station." I said, "No, I'm in the ground station. I swear, I swear." He said, "no, no, I can't book it cause it's not in my book." I got transferred to one of our producers in New York, my colleague David Bohrman, who was a wizard with all this satellite stuff. And I told him the story, and it was the next night that we were able to broadcast that show.
KOPPEL: I will never forget the picture, because you guys were seven hours ahead of us, and the sun was rising over the Nile behind Jimmy Walker, and my recollection, correct me if I'm wrong, is that he didn't have a whole lot to say, but it was one wonderful live picture.
YELLIN: We didn't have a ton to say. The story we had gone there to cover turned out not to be a story. The President of Sudan was claiming he was being threatened by forces that he really wasn't threatened by. So what we were there to tell you was that this dog is actually not barking. But the picture of the sun rising over the Nile -- and I believe there was one of those boats, those Nile boats with the sails in the picture -- was fantastic. For me it was a really remarkable moment because it represented the reach of television -- live television in a way it had never been done before.
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