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By P. J. BEDNARSKI
 c. 1980 Cox News Service
    DAYTON, Ohio - When ''60 Minutes'' decided to do a story on the
Illinois Power Co. last fall, the Decatur utility company did
something apparently no one had ever done before; it brought in its
own cameras to film the ''60 Minutes'' interviews with company
officials, filming the same conversations with corporate officers
''60 Minutes'' camera operators did.
    That gave the power company a record of what its executives said, to
be matched against the portions of the interviews later used on the
Sunday night program. And the difference between the two has led to
Illinois Power's own film, ''60 Minutes-Our Reply,'' sharply
different from the Nov. 25 ''60 Minutes'' segment reported by Harry
Reasoner, which accused Illinois Power of mismanagement of its first
nuclear plant, under construction in Clinton, Ill.
    ''Our Reply'' shows the entire ''60 Minutes'' telecast, but stops it
periodically to add its own verison of the facts, or show parts of
''60 Minutes'' conversations with Illinois Power officials the
program's producer chose not to use.
    The film's narrator, Illinois Power's Howard Rowe, reports near the
beginning of ''Our Reply'', ''The '60 Minutes' program was seen in
more than 24 million homes ... there is no way we can possibly reach
all the people who were influenced negatively.''
    Less politely, Harold Deakins, manager of public affairs for
Illinois Power,says, ''There's no way you can come from out of the
boonies in Illinois and take on CBS. It's like what a friend told me:
'You can't have a wrestling match with a pig, because, after a little
while, you realize he likes the mud.' ''
    Taking on ''60 Minutes'' is nothing new. There have been plenty of
threatened suits. What is different here is that Illinois Power has
the goods - out-takes of interviews ''60 Minutes'' didn't use, and
background that seems to discredit Clinton project critics
interviewed on the program.
    In ''60 Minutes'' jargon, the Illinois Power episode has become
something like a Point-Counterpoint shouting match. The segment's
producer says only that ''60 Minutes'' stands by its story, but
Robert Chandler, CBS news vice president for public affairs, has
answered ''Our Reply'' with a five-page letter responding to each
Illinois Power allegation. The power company, in turn, has rebutted
the defenses offered in that letter with a letter of its own.
    The corporate film dissecting ''60 Minutes'' is being looked on as a
possible new corporate lever against tough television reporting. It
changes the basic journalistic equation from ''Our story vs. yours''
to ''Our unedited videotape vs. yours.''
    ''I get a lot of calls from people at other utility companies saying
'I wish we'd thought of that,' '' said Ashton B. Collins, Jr., whose
Reddy Communications Inc. is publicizing the Illinois Power Co. film.
    Publicity or not, you'll never see ''Our Reply'' on television. Its
telecast would infringe on the ''60 Minutes'' copyright. But Deakins
says ''hundreds'' of copies of the half-hour videotape have been sent
around the country, mostly to other utility companies, and Collins
has encouraged the recipients to show the tape to ''key decision
leaders in your territory.''
    The Nov. 25 ''60 Minutes'' investigated cost overruns at the Clinton
nuclear plant, using it as an example of plant constructions that, in
reporter Harry Reasoner's phrasing on the program, have ''gone crazy
- a China Syndrome of cost.''
    The power company went to the Illinois Commerce Commission seeking a
rate increase, part of which was to be used to pay for Clinton.
(Originally, ''60 Minutes'' said the whole rate increase proposal was
to pay for the power plant. Only 28 percent was for the construction.
''60 Minutes'' corrected that statement, and acknowledged Jan. 27
another error.)
    Reasoner, aided by ''60 Minutes'' segment producer Paul
Loewenwarter, went on to interview three tough critics of the Clinton
construction project, all of them presented to viewers as experts,
and all of them filled with stories about mismanagement at Clinton.
    David Berg was described on ''60 Minutes'' as ''a cost engineer for
the contractor in 1977 and 1978.'' ''Mr. X,'' whose voice was
distorted for the telecast and who was filmed only in shadowy
outline, had ''a crack reputation'' in the nuclear plant construction
industry, Reasoner said. Also interviewed was ''the company's
sharpest critic ... Steve Radcliff, who had been hired by Illinois
Power in 1976 as a cost engineer to try to get construction dollars
under control.''
    The Illinois Power film has a different view, suggesting all three
men had very special axes to grind. ''Our Reply'' says Berg actually
worked for only part of 1977 and 1978, and quit when a raise he
wanted wasn't granted. Mr. X, whom Illinois Power recognized, was
fired for ''not following instructions'' after working on the project
for only three months.
    Radcliff's story is more damning. He was presented by an anti-nuke
group as an expert witness when the Illinois Power rate case came
before the Commerce Commission. As proof of his expert status, he
claimed to have graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in
1957, received a Ph.D. from Walden University in 1974 and been a
professor at Fairleigh Dickenson University.
    In fact, he had not even received a degree from Georgia Tech and on
that basis, the commission ruled he wasn't qualified to testify as an
expert witness. He, too, had been fired by Illinois Power, after 10
months on the job.
    CBS counters that the commerce commission, although denying
Radcliff's status as an expert, allowed his testimony and called it
''relevant, material and competent.'' Illinois Power counter-counters
by pointing out the commission is mandated to accept any and all
testimony by Illinois Power customers and former and current
employees.
    ''Our Reply'' also charges ''60 Minutes'' did not air part of an
interview with the company's executive vice president, Bill Gerstner,
in which Gerstner said that the cost overruns for Clinton were far
below cost problems at other nuclear construction sites.
    Reasoner reported ''our own comparisons ... show Clinton cost
overruns are far ahead of the pack.'' CBS now claims the commerce
commission also discounted Gerstner's analysis. Illinois Power
counters that the commerce commission accepted it and has it in its
files.
    Other disputed items in the ''60 Minutes'' report refer to a
timetable the power company has showing the dates when significant
parts of the nuclear construction would be completed. Reasoner showed
the printed timetable - called ''milestones'' in the industry - and
claimed ''Illinois Power says it will accomplish what no other
nuclear builder has ever accomplished that fast before.''
    Gerstner and Illinois Power believe that ''60 Minutes''
misunderstood the timetable, and the film shows Gerstner attempting
to explain it. But CBS cut the explanation from the ''60 Minutes''
telecast, and in the CBS letter responding to ''Our Reply,'' Chandler
said Gerstner never really answered Reasoner's questions.
    Illinois Power also disputes CBS' claims on ''60 Minutes'' that the
Clinton construction company has never built a nuclear plant and that
there were few written reports on cost overruns or construction
progress. CBS denies Illinois Power's defenses, and as has been the
rule in the dispute, Illinois Power denies ''60 Minutes'''
justification.
    In fact, there is little that Illinois Power thinks was right with
the ''60 Minutes'' report. Although Illinois Power put out a cheery
special edition of its in-house newspaper when the CBS crew came to
town, Deakins says now of the ''60 Minutes'' experience, ''It kind of
became clear to us they had their mind set when they came in here
what they were going to do. I mean, they gave me the impression they
didn't come out here to do 'Love Story.' Now, with their eakins, meanwhile, isn-
't such a fan of ''60 Minutes'' anymore. ''I
used to watch it every and watch for that kind of '60 Minutes'
ritual,'' he says. ''You know how they hang people by their thumbs.
Now I go turn off the television set, and I wonder if they told me
everything I should know.''
    (Distributed by The N.Y. Times News Service)
    
    
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