Live Hostage Coverage:
What Do You Report?

VOLUME X, NUMBER 42                          October 22, 1990

Around midnight, a mad gunman invaded Henry's Publick House and Grille, a college bar in Berkeley. This Iranian-born carpenter held the occupants hostage, and physically and sexually assaulted them for about seven hours. A student died. At least nine others were seriously injured. The incident ended when Mehrdad Dashti was shot and killed by a police SWAT team.

The television stations carried live cut-ins throughout the night and extended live coverage in the early morning hours. Inside the bar, the gunman watched KPIX-TV.

Afterwards, in a two-page letter to the station (copies to all other media), the hostages contended the station's live reports had endangered their safety.

The hostages claimed the gunman called for "volunteers to die" after he heard a KPIX reporter say that a SWAT team was assembling across the street.
KPIX News Director Harry Fuller responded that reporting on the SWAT team's presence was done six-and-a-half hours after the incident had begun. "My assumption was that even this guy --- as crazy as he was --- knew the SWAT team was there. I don't think we told him anything he didn't already know," Fuller added.

The incident raised the question of how much a news organization should report during an on-going police action where there are lives at stake.

Fuller believed he and his people behaved as responsibly as they could, knowing what they knew then.
He accepted that many of the people who were in the bar were upset.
"The hostages are angry, and I don't blame them for being angry. They were publicly humiliated and raped. That's about as bad as it can get without being killed. I understand their anger and their bitterness," he said.

Did the KPIX reporting jeopardize lives as the hostages claim?
"There is no way to know," replied Fuller.

He felt that the hostages were extremely angry with the station and they wished there had been no coverage.
"They would like for this incident not to have happened, and anything which happened during the night that made it more uncomfortable for them, they are angry about," he said.
He allowed that perhaps if there wasn't any media there it would not have been as frightening for them.
"However, I do know one victim did say when the gunman found out on our station that he had killed someone, he broke down and cried, and promised he wouldn't shoot anyone else above the waist," he said.

Deciding what to cover includes balancing the possibility of a deranged person monitoring live broadcasts.

At KRON-TV, News Director Al Goldstein said the next time he was going to assume the hostage-taker was watching. He added, "That makes the coverage much more complicated."

While KRON was not involved in the coverage controversy, Goldstein did put out a memo the day after the incident instructing his staff in two areas.
He told them:

1. Do not use information obtained from police scanners on the air. At one point, he had heard one of his people quoting off the scanners, and he immediately called the station and stopped that. "It's against FCC regulations," he said. It is, also, unverified information, he explained.

2. KRON would not cover live, or insert live by tape, anything which shows the tactical movements of the police department in an ongoing situation. Goldstein felt you really don't lose anything by not showing tactical movements of police, and it was a more responsible position.

Goldstein said that in the future they might not carry such stories live. He said once stations had done their public service and warned people to stay away from the area, he was not sure how valuable the rest of the information was.
"If you stack it up against the possible consequences, then what you're left with is: Are you going to be beaten by the other stations? Or, will you be perceived as not covering breaking news?" he said.
He admitted he was wrestling with these questions. He thought about telling the staff to put out the bare facts and then bail out --- covering the story on tape and airing the tape once it is over. Each event has it's own specific elements.

Public safety needs are important, but so is the public's right to know.

""In every hostage situation with live capability, radio and TV people must ask ourselves 'Is there a remote possibility this could be monitored by the person inside?'" said Kevin Keeshan, Managing Editor of KGO-TV.
He said you must decide whether going live was going to benefit the public greater than the possibility the people inside will be harmed.
"I don't think we should issue a blanket policy against going live. But, the police say if we are going live we should just give basic information," said Keeshan.

The hostage negotiator was so adamant about the dangers of live coverage, he reportedly told representatives of the media that if more people had died, he would have blamed the press for the killings.

The police couldn't understand why the news teams all had to go live at 4 o'clock, when hardly anyone is watching. "It was a good question and we all had to think about it. The police had no problems with us covering the situation. However, they were concerned about reporting it live," he said.

Most hostage negotiations are pretty much the same: the negotiator tries to get the person's confidence and then wear him down. If the officers can't talk the disturbed person out, they try to put him in a position where they can move in on him.
If the television reports are saying things opposite to what the negotiator is telling the gunman, the whole process breaks down. "In the future, stations in this market will seriously weigh whether going live is going to jeopardize the lives of the people inside," Keeshan said.

In the Berkeley event, there was confusion among the police officials about what to do about the media.

News executives said the command post was too far from the scene to be an effective command post, so the only person there was the PIO. And, the PIO later admitted he was spending a lot of his time talking to out-of-town radio stations.
Another problem was police did not control access to the hostages as they escaped from the bar throughout the night. "As far as I know, there were no police officers at the hospital. There were hostages doing live shots as early as 1:45 a.m.," Fuller said.

Police may draw stations in to the hostage dramas. Some hostages demand they be able to talk to a reporter or even appear live on television.
"The police called us early on and said the gunman was demanding time on Channel 5 and would we be available to help. We said, 'Yes,'" said Fuller.
At one point, the Berkeley police asked Fuller to call the gunman to get Dashti talking. The news executive called, but the crazed carpenter never answered the telephone.

There was discussion about whether television news departments needed guidelines for specific hostage situations.

David Bartlett, President of the Radio Television News Directors Association said the association tried to stay out of the "guidelines business."
He said, "Our general approach to all of these questions, whether it is a hostage situation or an invasion of privacy situation or many others, is that as soon as you get into the guidelines business you get into the exceptions business."
He believed no two cases are sufficiently alike to be good guides for the next one. And, he argued therefore guidelines were at best neutral, and at worst, unhelpful.

"In the case of a hostage situation, the police would much prefer there be an absolute blackout and no reporting on it at all until the ceremony to award the policemen their medals of merit. We don't play that game," he said.
Bartlett's test was "journalistic relevance." Is a particular piece of information or particular line of inquiry relevant to the story?

Bartlett said journalists should evaluate what they would or would not include on the basis of relevance to the story not on the basis of convenience to police or serving the public interest.

"Let's face it. Our job is to tell stories. We don't make this stuff up. We just report what happens," he said.

Bartlett said one of the most important things in going live in any breaking situation was to avoid speculation. He believed calling the gunman "deranged" would be acceptable. "What are you going to call him? Think about it. What's the reporter's option? Calling the guy 'deranged' would be perfectly appropriate. His actions on the record showed he was 'deranged,'" Bartlett argued.

However, he maintained that a reporter speculating on what the police might be getting ready to do would be journalistically irresponsible, whether there was any life in danger or not.
"Our job is not to speculate. It is to report fact," he said.

Fuller's advice after covering a hostage situation and living through the backlash: "Use common sense. Be careful what you do, and insist the local police agency sit down and be very direct about what they do and do not want reported."
However, he did not feel hard rules should be established on covering a hostage incident. "Then you are giving away your journalistic responsibility to someone else," he warned.
He thought it was conceivable that somewhere in the country you could end up working with a police department which might give you wrong information.
"If you do only what they told you and exactly what they told you to do, you could end up doing a disservice," he argued.

News executives who had just been through the hostage situation were inclined towards caution.
KRON's Goldstein said police can't tell you what to do, but they can give you guidance, and then you use your common sense.
"If an expert says to you, 'Based on my experience with hostage situations, I don't think you should call this guy "deranged" on the air.' I'm not going to call the guy "deranged." What journalistic difference does it make?" Goldstein said.

Part of the problem with extended coverage is it's tough in the field to fill the air time and to make the editorial decision as to what to say and what not to say.

Goldstein's instructions to reporters: "Treat it as though a member of your family was involved."

There was a meeting recently between representatives of the news media and the Berkeley police in which the incident was discussed. The public safety officials had developed four recommendations to keep in mind during a hostage situation.
"We might not always follow these, but they are good food for thought," said Fuller.

The department's proposals:

1. Do not release the condition of victims. It could undermine negotiations. Police said when a gunman learns of a death, since he is then looking at a capital crime, he could feel there is nothing to lose, and kill his remaining captives.

2. Do not release a suspect's demands. During the Berkeley confrontation, the gunman felt police weren't taking him seriously. His demands were bizarre. For instance, one demand was for San Francisco Police Chief Frank Jordan to appear on KPIX and drop his pants.

3. Do not comment on the suspect's state of mind. It may not be necessary to characterize the mental condition of someone committing an act as desperate or unusual as this.

4. Do not report police movements. The gunman may be stimulated to more violence, or police efforts to bring the event to a close may be greatly hindered. The element of surprise is gone. Whatever modest rapport which may have been established is threatened.

On air talent must clearly understand what's expected of them. Fuller said it was important not to report the position of other possible victims who may be hiding in the building waiting to be rescued.
"Anything that would endanger the lives of anybody on the scene would be the highest on our list of things not to do --- that could come from anywhere. It could be one of the things the Berkeley police suggested, or information heard on the scanner. It could be something as simple as reporting you see three people walking down the street," he said. You must know where the gunman is and what his vantage point is before you can tell what is dangerous to do, he added.
Fuller suggested station executives consider having a management person on the scene to assist with coverage. "On something this big and this important, you need someone on the scene who can make decisions, besides the reporter, producer and cameraperson, " he said.
In this case, nothing that big happened after 1:30 a.m., but if it had, there wouldn't have been time to go to the phone and to call in for instructions.

It is important --- critical --- for reporters to know what the station managers expect of them in a live situation. The anchors are sitting there asking, "What's going on out there?" And, it's the reporter's job to describe what he or she sees. His reporter made the point that if they didn't want him to describe something, he needed to know in advance that there are certain things which are taboo.

When the hostage taking is political, media coverage is usually one of the criminals' main goals. And, some kidnap victims say coverage has helped protect them.

"There have been a number of cases in which the hostages have pointed out that the reason they weren't injured was that the hostage holders were getting exposure, which is one of the things they wanted," said former network chief Bill Small, who was a professor of Journalism at Fordham University at the time of this event.

Small said when he was at CBS and NBC the guidelines for hostage situations said where there was life threatened, you didn't go on the air with certain kinds of material.
"For example, in plots against the life of the President, if the Secret Service asks that you hold up on the story, they will. I don't mean they will kill the story, but they will hold it at the moment it places a life in jeopardy," he explained.
He added there was a long history of television cooperating with law enforcement in kidnapping cases.
Small recalled when the editor of an Atlanta newspaper was kidnapped, he later said the fact the story was on radio kept the kidnappers from turning on him.

Hubert Williams, President of the Police Foundation in Washington, suggested that because of the widespread use of live reporting, the media and police should discuss potential situations and have an understanding of each other's needs.
He felt the police had to engage the people holding the hostages in a manner in which the police can exercise control.
"To the degree that their actions are made known to the hostage holders, it causes the police to lose control, and diminishes the chances they will have a successful release of the hostages," he warned.
He felt there was a clear need to balance the needs of the media to get the information to the public, and the needs of the police to get the hostages back safe and sound.
"If these needs have to clash, the safety of the individuals should be a priority," maintained the police leader.

He maintained broadcasters should work with police public information officers to establish workable guidelines.
He admitted you can't expect the police to do it alone. Their response will be to protect their own interests.
"Police don't understand the media's needs and sometimes feel the media is doing something improper, when they are only fulfilling their role," he added.

Williams' suggestions included:
1. Establish a point of information or a command center.
2. Designate a person who will provide updates at specific time periods.
"It gets to be more complex if they demand air time," he said. He thought workshops with the media and police to come up with suggested guidelines could be beneficial to all involved.

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