The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this day; then, a Jan Crawford Greenburg rundown on today's Supreme Court decision on age discrimination; a look at the struggle to form a new democratic government in Iraq; a media unit chronicle of the rise of satellite radio; two reports on the politics and alleged tyrannies in the African nation of Zimbabwe; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about the late magazine editor Henry Grunwald.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that workers can sue their employers for age discrimination, even if the nation is not intentional. Roughly half the nation's workforce aged 40 and over is covered by that decision. The ruling came in a 5-3 decision. We'll have more on this story right after this News Summary. A federal appeals court in Atlanta today denied another request to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reconnected. The court did not reveal a breakdown of how the judges voted, but Judge Stanley Birch wrote that any further action by the court would be improper. Schiavo's parents had made the appeal. The judge criticized Congress and President Bush for intervening in the case two weeks ago. He said: "The legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people - our Constitution." The decision came as Schiavo entered her 13th day without food or water. The Vatican announced today Pope John Paul is receiving nutrition through a feeding tube. The pope's had trouble swallowing since throat surgery last month. A spokesman said the pope is making a "slow and progressive" convalescence from that operation. Earlier, he blessed crowds silently from his apartment window at the Vatican. John Paul is 84 years old, and has been hospitalized twice in the past month. Western Indonesia was hit by another earthquake aftershock today. It measured 6.3 on the Richter scale, but there were no reports of damage. Monday's earthquake was centered just 19 miles from the island of Nias. Sara Smith of Independent Television News narrates a report on the rescue and cleanup efforts on that island.

SARA SMITH: As officials try to count the dead, at least 1,000 on Nias alone they say, many victims are still trapped under the rubble. Desperate relatives, those who did survive, plead for help to search for missing lived ones. They dig with their bare hands as there is no heavy equipment available to help them here. And as survivors mourn the dead, relief agencies worry about the living. There's not enough clean water, food or medical supplies. International aid is on its way, two plane loads arriving from Australia. And other supplies are in the region after the recent tsunami, but bad weather makes it difficult to get them to where they are most needed.

GROUP CAPTAIN JOHN ODDIE, Royal Australian Air Force: When you have a rapid, or such a substantial disaster where infrastructure breaks down, then any support like this is going to be critical. It's going to be critical to the people on the ground who have had their lives specifically damaged, but also to overcome the damage to infrastructure fairly quickly.

SARA SMITH: Some of the most severely injured have already been flown to the mainland, a U.N. helicopter able to airlift those in the most need. Victims have to be evacuated to find treatment. Medical help is largely unavailable in Nias. Most doctors and nurses have fled fearing another tsunami. Troops are on their way to help from Singapore and beyond. The Indonesian government said they will accept foreign military help this time. They need it to try to recover from this their second major disaster in just over three months.

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. dispatched two naval medical ships to the region today. The pro-Syrian prime minister of Lebanon today said he was unable to form a unity government. But Omar Karami refused to resign and hopes for more talks with anti-Syrian opposition leaders. Karami's statement came one day after Syria promised, for the first time, to remove all its troops from Lebanon ahead of elections scheduled for May. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said Syria's words were not enough.

ADAM ERELI: This is not a game where you have play-by-play commentary. This is the international community looking for a result. The result is withdrawal. That's how we will assess the results, not by statements of intent or partial moves or different concern where things are at different stages on different days.

JIM LEHRER: Some 8,000 Syrian troops remain in Lebanon. They are the remnant of a larger force deployed during the 1970s to help quell a civil war. Insurgent attacks claimed more lives in Iraq today. In Mosul, gunmen opened fire on a military checkpoint, killing six Iraqis. A cab bomb in Baghdad killed another. And to the south, an attack on pilgrims traveling to an annual Shiite religious festival in Karbala killed one Iraqi. In Iraqi politics, negotiations continued over top parliamentary and ministry posts. No decisions were made at a contentious national assembly session yesterday. We'll have more on the Iraq political story later in the program. The U.S. economy grew briskly at the end of 2004. The Commerce Department reported today the Gross Domestic Product increased at an annual rate of 3.8 percent from October to December of last year. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained 135 points to close above 10,540. The NASDAQ rose more than 31 points to close at 2005. Two notable passings to report tonight. Attorney Johnnie Cochran died Tuesday of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles. Cochran became a national figure as one of O.J. Simpson's defense lawyers. Simpson was acquitted of murdering his former wife and a friend in a 1995 trial. Before that, Cochran was best known for representing clients who claimed they were victims of police brutality. Johnnie Cochran was 67 years old. And former Democratic Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama died Tuesday, at a hospital in Sheffield, Alabama. He'd had heart trouble. He won the silver star as a marine in World War II, went on to be chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court before being elected to the U.S. Senate. He served there from 1978 to 1996. He was 83 years old. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to age discrimination at the Supreme Court, Iraq's political problems, a new form of radio, the latest from Zimbabwe, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - AGE DISCRIMINATION

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Brown has the Supreme Court story.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yesterday, a ruling on sex discrimination. Today, a ruling in a difficult area of age discrimination, as the court opened a new path for older workers to sue. Back with us again tonight, NewsHour regular Jan Crawford Greenburg, Supreme Court reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Welcome back.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: This case started with a group of police officers in Jackson, Mississippi. Tell us the facts behind the case.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Sure. The city of Jackson, Mississippi, adopted a pay plan in 1999 that was designed, they said, to bring up the starting salaries of their police officers, to make the city more competitive with other cities in the region. The plan gave officers with less than five years' experience proportionately higher salary increase than it did the more experienced officers, those with more than five years of experience. Now, obviously the more senior workers the ended to be the older workers, so they got smaller pay raises. They said that was age discrimination, and they filed a lawsuit under the federal age discrimination law.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, they're claiming something called disparate impact, which if I understand right, argues that even if the action was not intended to cause discrimination, it did, it qualifies as discrimination.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That's right. They said as older workers that this plan, this pay plan affected them adversely because of their age and that they were not getting the same kind of increases that younger workers got.

JEFFREY BROWN: Even though the company or town didn't intend it that way.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right, and even though they had no smoking gun, no evidence of intentional discrimination, a more straightforward age discrimination claim. So they turn to this federal law, sued in federal court, but a lower court threw it out, an Atlanta-based federal appeals court ruled that the federal law at issue, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act simply did not cover these kinds of claims about adverse impacts on people.

JEFFREY BROWN: But today the full court disagreed with the lower court. Justice Stevens wrote, who I note is the oldest member of the court, he wrote the opinion.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That's right.

JEFFREY BROWN: What did he say?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, he said the history and text of this federal law showed that Congress clearly intended for it to cover these kinds of claims, and he said that Congress also recognized that employers could have occasion to treat older workers differently, which makes age discrimination cases a little different than say sex or race discrimination cases.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's not a blanket prohibition against treating older workers differently.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That's right. That's right. That was very important in this case and affected, at the end of the day, the outcome in this case because as Justice Stevens explained, there are times when an employer can say, look, we have this policy. It's a neutral policy. It may affect our older workers differently, but we have a good reason, a good business reason for doing it. In the case today, it showed his point, proved his point because while the court issued this very broad, sweeping ruling that opens the courthouse door to people to file these kind of lawsuits, at the end of the day, the Justices concluded that the police officers here, the older police officers could not prevail because the city had offered a good reason for treating them differently. It said it wanted to raise the salaries of junior police officers and attract more people to the police force.

JEFFREY BROWN: This is the irony of the case. They won the legal argument, but they actually lost their case.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right. They won the war, but they lost the battle. That's exactly right.

JEFFREY BROWN: There were several other opinions. Justice Scalia joined with Justice Stevens but with different reasoning?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Yes. That was one of the fascinating things about this case. We think of this court and describe this court as narrowly divided, 5-4 on controversial issues with the five more conservative Justices joining together. But today Justice Scalia sided with the liberal Justices to hold that older workers could file these kind of lawsuits if they were adversely affected, but he didn't join Justice Stevens' reasoning. He said, I agree with the result, but not the outcome. He said, I'm not going to look to the history or the law or the language of the law, but I'm looking to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that's the agency that implements these discrimination laws. The EEOC has long said that these kind of lawsuits should be allowed under age discrimination laws, so Justice Scalia said, I'm deferring to them. That was his reason for going along with the result today.

JEFFREY BROWN: I read today that this could impact some 75 million Americans, or at least that's the number of Americans in the workforce over the age of 40. It is possible to assess the broad impact of a decision like this today?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, AARP and other groups who have filed on behalf of older workers in this case said it was a huge victory for workers because it allowed claims in cases where you couldn't find a smoking gun or blatant evidence of intentional discrimination, that that was critically important when an employer had adopted a plan or a policy that adversely affected older workers. So this opened the door to the courthouse for them. They said that was a huge victory. But on the flip side, the business groups, the National Chamber of Litigation Center, which is the litigation arm of the Chamber of Commerce, they had come in and they said, okay, the court's opened the door, but only a crack, because it's giving employers this defense that they can make if they can show there are reasonable business reasons why they've adopted plan and this policy.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now while we have you here, I want to get a legal update on the Terri Schiavo case. Last night the court reporter of appeals in Atlanta opened the small window on the legal argument which this afternoon was shut again. Can you tell us what happened last night?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Sure. Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, went to the federal appeals court in Atlanta and said, we want to file papers here. We've got new legal arguments. They were rejected on Friday. We want to ask this court to reconsider that. Now, they were supposed to have done that by the weekend, so yesterday they asked the court to basically waive the deadline and allow them to file those papers, and last night the court said go ahead, file the papers, which they did. Today the federal appeals court in Atlanta rejected their request to rethink the case.

JEFFREY BROWN: They used, at least one judge used some very strong language, which we showed in our News Summary, where he said, "legislative and executive branches have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance..." That's unusual, isn't it?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, it's unusual to hear that from a judge at this point because obviously lawyers for Michael Schiavo have long contended, at least in the week-and-a-half since Congress passed this law, allowing the Schindlers to step in to federal court, that that law was unconstitutional, but up until this point, judges have not taken a look at that. They've just said we're going to assume the law is constitutional for now and be that as it may, the Schindlers just have no legal case here. So today the federal appeals court judge that you mentioned was really the first judge to come in and say, I think this case... I mean, this law is unconstitutional. Now of course, that's just one judge's views, and certainly it doesn't carry any precedential weight. But of course it was notable because we did have a judge weighing in on an argument that Michael Schiavo's lawyers have certainly made since Congress passed this law.

JEFFREY BROWN: So as we sit herenow, it is possible to say whether there are any further legal avenues, are there ways to go back to these courts or to the Supreme Court?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: The Schindlers, it appears now, will go to the U.S. Supreme Court tonight and ask the Supreme Court to again step in and side with them and find that the Constitution... Terri Schiavo's constitutional rights have been violated - that there is not clear and convincing evidence she would not want to continue receiving food and nutrition, but everyone that I've spoken with on both sides of this issue says that's an extremely unlikely case that the Supreme Court would ever get involved in at this point.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Jan Crawford Greenburg, thanks again.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: You're welcome.

FOCUS - POWER STRUGGLE

JIM LEHRER: The struggle to form a new government in Iraq. Margaret Warner has the story.

MARGARET WARNER: Two months ago, on Jan. 30, eight million Iraqis risked their lives to go to the polls and elect their first truly democratic government. But today on the two-month anniversary of the vote, the national assembly elected that day still hasn't managed to form a government. Its 275 members-- Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis-- convened yesterday for only the second time since their election, and the session quickly dissolved into acrimony over their inability to select someone to lead them.

SHEIKH HUSSEIN AL-SADR (Translated): We are unable to do anything concerning the national assembly unless we choose a speaker and two deputy speakers.

SHATHA AL-MOUSAWI (Translated): I would like an explanation as to why you don't have a result so far.

MARGARET WARNER: After about 20 minutes, the acting speaker kicked out all the reporters.

DARI AL-FAYADH (Translated): Now I call upon the media to leave as we will now have a closed door session.

MARGARET WARNER: And Iraqi State Television stopped broadcasting the session and cut to the national anthem. Electing a speaker is just the first step. Then the assembly must choose a president and two vice presidents, ratify their selection of a prime minister and draft a constitution by mid-August. Yesterday, some members were questioning whether they could meet that deadline. Around Baghdad, ordinary Iraqis expressed dismay over the political wrangling.

MAN ON STREET (Translated): The Iraqi citizen feels depressed and we thought that this depression would go away once the election took place. Now after the elections this hope is vanishing and if the arguments between the parties carry on then any new hope will vanish, too.

MAN ON STREET (Translated): We hope that they will have a positive outcome today. We don't mind who is in the government as long as they are just and fair.

MARGARET WARNER: Meanwhile, the old unelected government, headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, is still running things. And the insurgency continues to rage. Sunday, the commanding U.S. General in Iraq, Army Gen. John Abizaid, expressed concern over the Iraqis' failure to form a government.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: The more uncertainty, the greater the chance for escalated violence.

MARGARET WARNER: But yesterday, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld offered a more upbeat assessment.

DONALD RUMSFELD: What's happening over there is politics. People voted Jan. 30. They are not skilled at that, they do not do this every two years or every four years as we do in our country. Will they get there? Sure. Is it going to be as efficient as a dictatorship? No. Is it going to be vastly more desirable? You bet.

MARGARET WARNER: The national assembly plans to meet to try again this Sunday.

MARGARET WARNER: To explain what's behind the current stalemate in Iraq, we turn to Larry Diamond, who served as political adviser to the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad for several months last year. He's now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford; and Reuel Gerecht, the former CIA operations officer in the Middle East from the mid '80s to mid '90s; He's now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Welcome to you both. Mr. Diamond, in the broadest political terms, explain why the Iraqis are having such a hard time forming a government.

LARRY DIAMOND: Well, basically, Margaret, it's an interim constitution that allows for the formation of this government with a lot of veto points and which requires a great deal of consensus. In order to begin to form a government, they have to elect a presidency council, and they have to do that by a slate, and it has to be elected by a two- thirds vote. So there's a lot of consensus, log-rolling and coalition- formation that's necessary to put this together and they're trying do everything at once. So it's very complicated.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Gerecht, how much of it is also the fact that you have these three factions that have -- ethnic factions-- that have no history of either negotiating with one another nor really experience in the art of political compromise?

REUEL GERECHT: I think that has a lot do with it. I mean, dictatorships do not breed a spirit of compromise and tolerance. I mean, I think there are three overarching themes that you have going on there, and certainly what you might call behind everything is a sectarian idea, a sectarian politics that the Sunnis, the Shia and the Kurds have something that rightfully ought to belong to them. It's important, I think, to remember that there are issues of religion and state that will divide them. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the religious Shia against the less religious Sunni and Kurds. There's federalism, which is a very important issue for the Kurds. And attached to that issue actually is also oil wells, the division of the oil wealth of the North which the Kurds think should go primarily to them, and the Sunnis and Shia have, of course, a somewhat differing view.

MARGARET WARNER: And Mr. Diamond, going back to the point you made about the need for consensus, if we reduced it to the political abc's, it's-- though the Shiites won a clear majority, they have more than 50 percent -- the rules under which they're operating mean they cannot muscle things through on their own, is that right?

LARRY DIAMOND: Well, Margaret, you could put it that way in the sense that you need a two-thirds vote to get a presidency council who then have to unanimously agree to nominate a prime minister, but keep in mind that the United Iraqi Alliance predominantly Shiite but not exclusively, actually won only 48 percent of the vote, and a number of Shiite votes, probably 30 percent of Shiite votes, went to other parties, primarily the interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's list. So Shiites are divided among themselves to some extent and even within the United Iraqi Alliance it's a coalition that's riven with its own internal factions, even though they unite under the somewhat more religious or Islamist banner in orientation symbolized by the blessing of Ayatollah Sistani.

MARGARET WARNER: Alright, then if we turn to the Shiites and Kurds, expand a little bit, Mr. Gerecht. I mean, have the Kurds being playing hardball? They've got 75 votes. The Shiites, even if they canagree, and as Mr. Diamond explained, they don't totally agree on everything, but even if they were, they need some Kurdish votes. Have the Kurds been playing hardball?

REUEL GERECHT: Oh, sure. They've definitely been playing hardball. I mean, the Kurdish history in modern Iraq is not a happy one. What the Kurds certainly want to guarantee is that they have enough autonomous authority, federal authority, to guarantee them certain political rights and civil rights which would not be subject to any type of parliamentarian, majoritarian vote. And I think they're going to be quite tough on those issues. There's also the issue obviously of the oil in the North and the city of Kirkuk in particular which the Kurds see as sort of their Jerusalem, and they want to reverse the process of Arabization that occurred under Saddam Hussein. So they're going to hang very, very tough. Now the Shia don't have any history of bad blood with the Kurds, however, the Shia really are the progenitors of modern Iraqi nationalism. They certainly believe in a unified state. So there is friction there, and that friction, I assume, is going to continue. I think they will reach a compromise, but it's going to be tough.

MARGARET WARNER: Alright, now talk to us about the Sunnis, Mr. Diamond, because the immediate stumbling block yesterday was that though the Shia and Kurds very much want to give the post of speaker to a Sunni, that the Sunnis could not agree on one. What's the problem there?

LARRY DIAMOND: Well, the problem it seems is not so much that the Sunnis couldn't agree on a speaker, but that the person that the predominant powers in the assembly had invited, namely the interim president, Gazi al-Yawer declined it because he felt that having served as president the post wasn't good enough for him. I think we may look back historically and judge that this was a serious error on President al-Yawer's part. You know, part of the problem, Margaret, is that because so few Sunnis, perhaps only 25 to 30 percent of them, came out to vote, and it was a proportional system, only about 6 percent of the seats in the national assembly are held by Sunnis. So you've got 17 Sunnis, and they're looking now for another one that would be judged to have sufficient stature to be the speaker, formally the president of the national assembly.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Gerecht, someone I read today also noted that the Kurds know they will probably never be as powerful as they are now because the Sunnis didn't participate. I mean, the Kurds have an outsized presence in this current assembly, do they not, as compared to their population, so they're trying to take full advantage of it.

REUEL GERECHT: Yeah. I mean, they definitely want to use whatever leverage they have, the leverage is greater now before they actually had a written constitution, before the politics of Iraq becomes solidified. I would add, though, I think in the future, even though the past history of Iraq is largely of Sunni Arabs oppressing, brutalizing the Kurds, that down the road, not that far down the road I wouldn't be surprised to see sort of a Kurdish/Sunni-Arab entente to sort of balance the power in Iraq against the Shia community.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Mr. Diamond, do you-- is it known yet, and I know deal is final until everything is final-- but is it known yet on the question of the role of Islam whether that has been privately agreed to yet between the Shiites, among the Shiites and with the Kurds, the role of Islam in the new Iraqi government?

LARRY DIAMOND: It isn't known, and, of course, what thepermanent constitution will say about the role of Islam in political life and its relationship to law and the state can only be determined in the negotiations over the permanent constitution. I think the interesting near- term question that people will be looking at is whether there will be an effort to impose Islamic Sharia Law in personal and family matters. The Iraqi governing council, the representative body during the occupation, voted in a sort of late-night partial vote to impose this in December of 2003, and then it was reversed by the full governing council a couple months later in an extremely acrimonious session. My guess is there's probably no agreement on this now, and it's something that's going to play itself out over the course of many months.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Gerecht, what's the impact? What are the potential dangers of this ongoing delay?

REUEL GERECHT: Obviously if it continues and continues and continues, it's possible that it could reverse the real momentum that was evident after Jan. 30. I mean, it appears that the violence has been diminishing, that Jan. 30 really was a revolutionary moment for Iraqi society. If, in fact, the process to establish this first real government implodes, that's not good. However, again, I think most Iraqis, even though they're very frustrated by this and they complain about it quite openly, nevertheless, I don't think they really expected this to go terribly easily, that the Iraqi expectation was that this would be solved on the very last day, the very last moment of the very last day right when they're on the edge of the precipice. I strongly suspect that's the way it's going to come out, that right when they're on the precipice, the forces will come together, the elders of the Shiite, the Sunni and the Kurdish societies will come together and they will work out a deal, and they will move forward.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Diamond, have they reached that precipice yet? I mean, there's no timetable for actually just these early appointments. Have they reached that yet where the elders are going to come in and force a deal?

LARRY DIAMOND: I don't think so. You know, what's happening is a more subtle process, Margaret, of gradual erosion of public confidence and enthusiasm. And the longer this goes on, the deeper the erosion will be and the more people will become disillusioned with these politicians and maybe with the larger democratic political process. I think that if they meet on Sunday and can resolve these issues and within the next week get a government together, things can move forward. There's still an underlying reservoir of hope, enthusiasm, and goodwill that can be exploited.

MARGARET WARNER: And if they can't, Mr. Gerecht, then also what is the impact-- I'm thinking of what Gen. Abizaid had to say-- on the insurgency?

REUEL GERECHT: Well, if in fact the momentum of Jan. 30, of the hope and promise of Jan. 30 is derailed, then I think you will fuel the insurgency because the Sunni insurgents will believe that in fact the new order hasn't arrived and that there is some way they can actually overturn the democratic revolution which they oppose. So that is the worst-case scenario. I still remain fairly optimistic here. I think the... there has been erosion of the initial enthusiasm after Jan. 30, but I think again the history of Iraq is so very bad that the expectations, the hopes of something better, I think aren't terribly hard to fulfill. And it's very, very likely that you will see certainly on the Shiite and the Kurdish sides a consensus developed, fitfully, painfully and with a great deal of screaming.

MARGARET WARNER: At least they're talking instead of fighting.

REUEL GERECHT: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Reuel Marc Gerecht, Larry Diamond, thank you both.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, satellite radio, a Zimbabwe update, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - SPACE AGE RADIO

JIM LEHRER: Media Correspondent Terence Smith reports on the next frontier in radio.

ANNOUNCER: -- XMK -

ANNOUNCER: Live from SIRIUS Studios -

ANNOUNCER: SIRIUS central 148 on...

TERENCE SMITH: It's a space-age battle between the two new stars in the radio galaxy: XM versus SIRIUS.

ANNOUNCER: 877 Max 1145...

ANNOUNCER: Accident reported east bound on the...

TERENCE SMITH: These two start-ups are locked in a multi-billion dollar battle to dominate the fastest-growing new technology product in decades: Satellite radio.

FRANK AHRENS: It's an evangelism product, and customers aren't just... they don't just say "ah, it's okay." They say, "you got to have this."

TERENCE SMITH: Frank Ahrens is the media and entertainment industry reporter for the Washington Post.

FRANK AHRENS: It is to radio what cable was to television. It's not free; you have to pay for it. But in paying for it, you get a whole bunch of extra choice. And I remember when I was covering this in the beginning, people in radio were saying, "Who's going to pay for radio?" Well people said that about TV about 30 years ago.

TERENCE SMITH: Here's how the technology of satellite radio works. The digital signal is beamed to a satellite and then bounced to an antenna on a car or other portable devices, which allow consumers to receive hundreds of channels.

HUGH PANERO: Now you can take XM Radio on your belt, into an airplane.

TERENCE SMITH: XM president and CEO Hugh Panero explains the genesis of his company's name and its aim.

HUGH PANERO: There was A.M., There was F.M., and now there's you know, XM, which is the next generation of radio. I think what we are offering people is this ultimate audio form of entertainment.

SCOTT GREENSTEIN: Whatever we do...

TERENCE SMITH: Scott Greenstein is the president of Entertainment and Sports at SIRIUS.

SCOTT GREENSTEIN: We at SIRIUS, at least on the music side, feel like it's an iPod without the work. In other words, it's right there for you to have as much selection of songs as you can go.

TERENCE SMITH: Most of the channels on the satellite dials carry original programs created by XM and SIRIUS in their own studios. Both services also buy other broadcasts like news and sports produced by other companies. The music on satellite radio is commercial free, though XM and SIRIUS do run ads on news, sports and entertainment channels.

SPOKESPERSON: You can record your favorite shows.

SPOKESMAN: NFL which was in there before...

TERENCE SMITH: XM launched in 2001, SIRIUS, less than a year later. DC-based XM has signed up 3.2 million subscribers. SIRIUS, with headquarters in New York, has slightly over one million listeners. Beginning next month, XM will raise its new subscriber rate to $12.95 a month, matching that of SIRIUS. XM listeners can surf 151 channels while SIRIUS offers 120.

SPOKESMAN: He still shops at straight-up K-mart.

TERENCE SMITH: Content is king in this high stakes radio revolution. It could seem like a strategic game of "Let's Make a Deal."

SPOKESMAN: Let's Make a Deal starring TV's big dealer, Monte Hall.

TERENCE SMITH: SIRIUS startled the industry by signing the obscenely popular shock jock Howard Stern for $500 million over five years.

SPOKESMAN: ...A lot of geeks...

TERENCE SMITH: XM has the equally raunchy Opie and Anthony and...

SPOKESMAN: Thanks for listening...

TERENCE SMITH: ...For contrast, Bob Edwards, the longtime host of National Public Radio's Morning Edition. In sports, SIRIUS paid $229 million over seven years for the National Football League's games. XM upped the ante by paying $650 million to broadcast major league baseball over the next 11 years. SIRIUS recently paid $107 million to snatch live broadcasts of NASCAR races from XM in 2007. Frank Ahrens.

FRANK AHRENS: Well, the two companies are following kind of different business strategies, and different by necessity. XM is taking more of a kind of slow and steady measured growth approach. And SIRIUS, because they started late and they have to make up the gap in subscribers, is taking more of a Hail Mary approach.

TERENCE SMITH: Barry Hirsch is a hardcore commuter and now, a SIRIUS subscriber.

BARRY HIRSCH: You're able to tailor what your tastes are to kind of fit what you're doing in your home, in the car. I'm also able to listen to one station without interruption on long car rides anywhere in the country.

TERENCE SMITH: He can also access his satellite service inside his house via computer, or in an adapted boom box, or on his home stereo. It displays the channel, the artist and the song. Both services are picking up new subscribers as the units are factory-installed in new cars. SIRIUS comes in nearly 80 different car models, including manufacturers Ford and Chrysler. XM is offered in 120 different models, including those of Honda and G.M. College student Helen Rivas convinced her parents to buy a Honda so they could get XM.

HELEN RIVAS: I just feel like it's safer, I can just keep it on one channel and I know that just my music will come on, one or two commercials here and there, but nothing where it's ten minutes of commercials and fifteen minutes of music.

TERENCE SMITH: With both companies in the red, XM and SIRIUS will need a combination of about 40 million subscribers to break even, says Frank Ahrens.

FRANK AHRENS: Last year, each of them lost well over $600 million each.

TERENCE SMITH: That's a lot of money.

FRANK AHRENS: Yeah, it sure is, especially if you're a shareholder.

TERENCE SMITH: To turn that red ink into black, gamesmanship between the companies was on full display at this winter's consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

SPOKESMAN: Let's get it started in here!

TERENCE SMITH: That's Joe Clayton, the second SIRIUS CEO, introducing his recently appointed replacement, Mel Karmazin. Formerly of Viacom, Karmazin is widely recognized as one of the top broadcast radio executives in the country.

MEL KARMAZIN: The combination of the awareness and consumer satisfaction is going to make the company even bigger than most people have ever thought it could be. The consumers certainly see it as the next generation of radio.

SPOKESMAN: The man named innovator of the year by Billboard Magazine, president and CEO of XM, Hugh Panero. (Applause)

HUGH PANERO: We expect that XM will end 2005 with 5.5 million subscribers, furthering our position as the big dog in satellite radio. While other people are creating smoke, we're creating fire.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, Howard Stern!

TERENCE SMITH: SIRIUS is banking on the fire it hopes Howard Stern will ignite next year. The shock jock has been fined some $2.5 million by the Federal Communications Commission on indecency charges over the years, and he says he looks forward to his new home on satellite radio where the content isnot regulated by the FCC.

HOWARD STERNS: I have millions of fines against me and this my way of checkmating the United States Government and saying, "You know what, I've got somewhere to go. We're going to build a new future. This is the beginning of the new

age."

TERENCE SMITH: Speculation about Stern's future is common at XM, which has three times the listeners of SIRIUS, will Stern be worth the half-billion dollar gamble? Hugh Panero, who once tried to woo Stern, is not so sure.

HUGH PANERO: Do you really think that there's going to be Howard Stern's picture at the Ford Motor dealership in the Midwest where they're trying to sell satellite radio? I'm really not quite sure.

TERENCE SMITH: Creative flexibility is what attracted other talent to the new medium as well. Springsteen guitarist, Sopranos actor and nationally syndicated Terrestrial Radio DJ "Little Steven" Van Zandt programs two SIRIUS channels. He plays six generations of rock and roll.

STEVEN VAN ZANDT: The audience is not listening to the radio anymore, okay, and I really, I really wanted to change that. If the Rolling Stones started today, there's not one radio station in America that could play them. Okay, they don't fit into any format. There's no format for rock and roll.

SPOKESMAN: But they found sympathy...

TERENCE SMITH: Over at XM is another Terrestrial Radio veteran, Bob Edwards. He had an audience of 13 million weekly listeners by the time he was forced out of NPR in a talent reshuffle. He now hosts an hour interview show each weekday on XM.

BOB EDWARDS: That is a very exciting thing to be a pioneer, and to watch a network grow and prosper and gain the confidence of an audience. And here I am again, in the third year of XM, when it's still new and doesn't have a very big audience, 3.2 million subscribers at the moment, and it's the same feeling. Let's see what this can be.

TERENCE SMITH: XM says it will break even by 2006. SIRIUS won't commit to a date. Both say money concerns will not impede the race for the stars.

SCOTT GREENSTEIN: Traditional radio will exist but satellite radio will have a large spectrum of programs and choices for personalized information and choice that America seems to gravitate towards.

TERENCE SMITH: Hugh Panero says there is room for two companies and rumors of a merger are rumors.

HUGH PANERO: It's a very interesting business in a duopoly like this, where at times you're both spokesmen for satellite radio and you want to build the category and you really need two companies to do that, to build awareness. Other times, we are fighting tooth and nail to get a subscriber.

SPOKESPERSON: Christopher Reeve's life should be like...

TERENCE SMITH: How brightly these young stars might shine in the future will depend on how many subscribers decide they can't live without this new technology.

SPOKESMAN: ...Outside his own work.

FOCUS - ELECTION TENSION

JIM LEHRER: Now, a look at what's going on in the African nation of Zimbabwe, a country Secretary of State Rice recently called one of the last "outposts of tyranny." With parliamentary elections set there tomorrow, we have two reports from Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News. The first is about President Robert Mugabe's campaign on behalf of his party.

LINDSEY HILSUM: The last day of campaigning, and President Mugabe's been working the crowd just outside Harare. At 81, he's tireless, denouncing the opposition MDC as traitors and sell-outs to the white man. They're thanking President Mugabe for bringing computers to their school. He's also brought his version of patriotic history, now taught in schools and colleges across Zimbabwe. Some call it Mugabe-ism-- a vision of the past with Mugabe and his party ZANU PF as heroes winning the war against white rule in 1980, and now seizing the land from white farmers.

SPOKESMAN: There was oppression by the British settlers, and now the same British group wants to preach democracy to us. Nonsense. We'll show them democracy. That there is need for democracy, and we brought democracy to Zimbabwe. One man. One woman. One vote in 1980."

LINDSEY HILSUM: The people listen. He tells them there's no money for fertilizer, so they must go back to using cow dung. He went barefoot as a child, he says, but today's children complain if they have no shoes. You wouldn't think going backwards would be a vote- winner, but it seems to work with some.

WOMAN (Translated): We love our president because he has so much respect for black people. He doesn't want us to remain as slaves. We want to get our inheritance because this is our place and we should be the masters.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Every night before the TV news they show scenes from the colonial past. It's the campaign of an old man preparing his legacy. Zimbabwe is still enthralled with Robert Mugabe as he stamps his final imprint on the country's history.

JIM LEHRER: Lindsey Hilsum's second report is about the role of food shortages and overseas aid in the Zimbabwe elections.

LINDSEY HILSUM: This is a dry land, and the rains have failed again. Rural Matabeleland, one of the poorest provinces. But drought has withered the maize in other parts of Zimbabwe, too. Last year, President Mugabe said Zimbabweans would choke on foreign food aid. Today his ministers admit they might need it.

NATHAN SHAMUYARIRA: If we are short of food, we will ask the international community for food aid. There is no one who has worked harder to see that there is food at every table than President Mugabe.

PIUS NCUBE: They want to control all the food. All the food must be in their hands. They do not tolerate any other body keeping food all because they want to politicize food.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Martha Ncube pumps water for her goats. She's an admirer of the archbishop and a big supporter of the opposition movement for democratic change. She shows me her compound, built with the money she earned as a schoolteacher before retirement. To buy food, the people here have to register with the local headman. In this part of Matabeleland, she says, the headman refuses to sell food to opposition supporters, however hungry they are.

MARTHA NCUBE: Sometimes we are told that there is no food to eat. Only that the food is for the ZANU PF members. You are an MDC member.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Martha attends an MDC rally. In this constituency, the opposition candidate is expected to retain his seat. I was told that ZANU PF uses food to attract voters to its rallies.

MAN: You'll find that they always say they are register food, handouts or whatever. But eventually when you read it and find out, it's a political meeting so there food is there to attract more people.

LINDSEY HILSUM: "Mugabe is blaming Tony Blair for everything," the MDC official tells the crowd, "but we say Mr. Mugabe, we are hungry, we need food aid." It's a popular message and unlike in the last two elections, the MDC can say it without interference from the police or violent ZANU PF youths. This time the opposition is being allowed to hold their rallies freely and they say they're attracting good crowds like this across the country. But even if that translates into votes, they still can't win this election. They're contesting all 120 seats but afterwards President Mugabe can appoint another 30 MP's so that will ensure that his party, ZANU PF remains in power. This is Chitungwiza, where the MDC M.P. Job Sikhala is defending his seat. In the 2000 elections he was badly beaten up. This time ZANU PF supporters move along his street chanting. No one takes much notice. Privately, the South African government says it persuaded President Mugabe to call off the thugs.

JOB SIKHALA: Mugabe is desperately in search of legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. That's why they are trying to give some semblance of peace, but, however, in terms of violence, it's not true.

LINDSEY HILSUM: The crowds at rallies for the MDC Leader Morgan Tsvangirai have been huge. But changes to constituency boundaries are likely to benefit ZANU PF, and civil society groups are concerned about potential rigging. Some now feel what's needed is an uprising.

PIUS NCUBE: How else do you move out of something you don't like when relation don't work? People will have the right to make a popular uprising, but it must be peaceful and non-violent, and they need good, convincing, charismatic leaders. Perhaps we have to pray for summit. We don't seem to have them right now.

NATHAN SHAMUYARIRA: He has been calling for insurrection. I think this is the fourth time. Of course, no insurrection will take place because no one takes this man seriously, only you people in Britain and other places take him seriously. We don't.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Rain came to Harare today. Too late for the crops, it just fills the potholes. The election is heavily stacked against the opposition, but the people of Zimbabwe don't look as if they're on the brink of an uprising. The U.N. expects that after the election, the government will ask for food aid to end the worst hunger.

ESSAY - MAN OF OUR TIME

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt has some words of appreciation for a powerful editor.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Of Henry Anatole Grunwald, who died recently, it may be said he was the last of a breed without fear of trumpeting a clich . The breed in question is that group of gifted, confident and all-powerful editors who had total, far-ranging command of a publication. In the case of Grunwald, it several publications. As editor-in-chief of Time Inc., He put his brand on Life Magazine, Sports Illustrated, People, and of course, Time Magazine, where I and others, such as Lance Morrow and Frank Tripett, wrote essays under him-- and I mean under him. I take it back about the last of a breed, because Abe Rosenthal, the former editor of the New York Times and Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post are still around, fortunately, but they emeritus. And perhaps there are one or two others. But Grunwald and his ilk had the freedom of authority that is denied or is not available to editors today. The reasons are all around us. Publications today are parts of vast, corporate entities, so the power of any individual editor is delimited. One begins to think there are four companies left in the world and they are run mainly by bottom-line mentalities. Not the best atmosphere for imaginative, autocratic leaders. In 1942, the poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote: "In an historical moment when nothing depends on man, everything depends on him - this paradoxical truth is revealed today with particular force," he said. And today as well, though there are few around to act on the revelations. From the sprawling corporate structures of 2005, one hears the voices of boards of directors and of spokespersons for boards of directors but not from one talented, albeit often pig-headed, person in charge. Henry Grunwald could be pig- headed and wrong-headed, but he was a treat to work for. When arguing with him, one knew one was going up against not a profit or a merger or an amalgamation other's shopworn ideas, but rather a man-- one intelligence confronting another. He lived for ideas and spoke of them with charm, wit and surprisingly sweet laughter. At work, he saw it as his business, indeed his duty, to interpret the world. Along with his colleague, the great managing editor of Time, Ray Cave, he sent us writers out on grand errands like an Arthurian king. "Write about the U.S. protest of the 1980 Olympics." "Write about the Iran hostages." "Write about the election of Ronald Reagan." "Write about war, politics, religion, culture, custom." "See it all. See it fairly. Be truthful, be sensible and be careful with language." "When nothing depends on man, everything depends on him." So it went for the years I knew him and for the others who, as we wrote, only wondered this at the end of the day: What will Henry think? I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day: The Supreme Court ruled that workers can sue their employers for age discrimination, even if it's unintentional. A federal appeals court in Atlanta denied another request to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reconnected. And insurgent attacks claimed seven more lives in Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: And, once again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are five more.

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.