TV & VIDEO - June 8, 1989

NBC News officials decided not to send correspondent Garrick Utley to Beijing after all. He will stay in New York, NBC said Wednesday. The network on Monday had said Utley, co-anchor of “Sunday Today” and “Meet the Press,” would head for China the next day to join NBC’s staff there. Utley, a former foreign correspondent, said he was en route to Kennedy Airport here Tuesday when he got the message. After considering the changing situation in Beijing and how long he might be gone from his two Sunday programs and other NBC work, Utley said his bosses decided that they didn’t want him to go. “God knows I’d love to be there,” said Utley, a 16-year NBC veteran whose background includes two years covering the Vietnam war and who was in China for five weeks in 1987 for a series of special reports.