Victory on TV

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TV news crews that followed Northern Alliance forces into Kabul mostly provided celebratory coverage of victorious soldiers waving, crowds of people celebrating in the streets, and men defiantly shaving their beards. For the correspondents on the ground, however, the mood was less euphoric. "You can't trust anybody you see with a gun," said NBC news director David Verdi. "You just don't know. It's really like the wild, wild West. In a situation like that, you're completely on edge." CNN's Matthew Chance said that he saw gruesome sights while traveling around Kabul, including bodies strewn in parks and drainage ditches that people were spitting on, but these grim images were not included in the footage that CNN actually aired.