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Dominate Breaking News: When an upset, armed individual is threatening to kill someone, the police commanders supervising the emergency response and the news executives in charge of covering the situation have many sensitive decisions. The anchors, reporters, photographers and producers must be able to report live for extended periods wihout saying anything that could cause injuries or deaths. Here are several case histories. |
| Live Hostage Coverage: What Do You Report? | |
| 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.. | |
| Archbishop is Held Hostage, Police Request Stations Stop Live Shots | |
| The showdown stretched over nine hours, eventually it ended peacefully. A similar confrontation occurred in Florida. | |
| Police Seek Power to Control Live Shots | |
| California broadcasters fought an effort in the legislature to give law enforcement control over when television could report live from emergencies. | |
| A Barricaded Man Asks To Talk To A Reporter | |
| It happens periodically. There is a dangerous suspect, sometimes with hostages, and he wants to talk to the news media before surrendering. A detective lie bleeding in an apartment in Chicago and the armed man who was holding him demanded to talk with a reporter. The police turned to veteran WLS-TV reporter Paul Meincke for help. | |
| Prison Riot: Do You Yield Your Air To Inmates? | |
| The prisoners demanded a chance to speak live on television. Do you give them control of your station --- or do you reject them and risk the lives of their hostages? | |
| Ohio Prison Riot: When Television is Part of the Story | |
| This was a dangerous, constantly shifting event. The rampaging inmates were far from stable. The corrections officials had little understanding of television and were desperate to resolve the crisis. | |
| Did Police Misspeak --- Or Lie --- In Miami? | |
| A serial murderer was known to be in Florida. When police surrounded a
houseboat, they asked for an embargo on live coverage, saying it could reveal the movement
of officers and endanger them. Reporters asked whether this was the killer. No it wasn't, said police. And officials said there was no body on the boat. Neither statement was true. As the reporters' sources indicated, it was indeed the killer and he was dead. The news managers had to decide whether to run the story despite the official denials. |
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Live Hostage Coverage:
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Around midnight, a mad gunman
invaded Henry's Publick House and Grille, a college bar in Berkeley. This was
in the fall of 1990. Extensive live reports were aired 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.
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| 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. |
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| Did the coverage
endanger lives? Fuller believed he and his people behaved as responsibly
as they could, knowing what they knew then. Did the KPIX reporting jeopardize lives as the hostages claimed? He felt that the hostages were extremely angry with the station and they wished there
had been no coverage. |
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| Gunman and hostages
watched the coverage Deciding what to cover includes balancing the possibility of a deranged person monitoring live broadcasts. At KRON-TV, News Director Al Goldstein said you have to assume the hostage-taker is
watching. While his station 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:
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. |
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| Public safety
vs. telling the story 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. 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 was watching.
Most hostage negotiations are pretty much the same: the negotiator tries
to get the person's confidence and then convince him to relax and surrender. 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. |
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| Police may not be
fully prepared for news coverage 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 Public Information Officer. And, the PIO
later admitted he was spending a lot of his time talking to out- of-town radio stations. |
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| TV drawn in Police
may involve stations in hostage dramas. Some hostage-takers demand they be able to talk to
a reporter or even appear live on television. |
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| Is there a need for
guidelines? 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." "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 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. 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. 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. |
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| Use common sense and be
careful 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." A cautious approach may save lives News executives who had just been through the hostage situation were inclined towards
caution. 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." Later, police had suggestions There was a meeting 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. The department's proposals:
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. 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 air talent must clearly understand what's expected of them. It is important --- critical --- for reporters to know what they report. 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. Fuller's 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. Coverage may be needed When the hostage taking is political, media coverage is usually one of the criminals' main goals. Some kidnap victims say coverage has helped protect them. Small said that 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. 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 thought broadcasters should work with police public information officers to
establish workable guidelines. Williams' suggestions included:
October 20, 1990 |
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Archbishop Is Held Hostage,
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| The Archbishop of San Antonio was held hostage
for nine hours in the summer of 2000. A man held his 4-year-old son and a waiter hostage for 11 hours at a Disney World hotel in Orlando. News managers were careful in their coverage and cooperated with law enforcement. Man held, threatened Archbishop It was a little after 10:30 a.m. when San Antonio stations broke in with special reports that Archbishop Patrick Flores was being held by a man who appeared to have a grenade. This was a well known, well respected person who was in a very dangerous position. Newsroom managers quickly rolled their live trucks and began wall-to-wall coverage. |
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| Police asked live
coverage be stopped An hour into the coverage, police officials asked the news managers to discontinue live reports from the scene. "The police said, 'The hostage-taker is watching television, and he is getting
very agitated by what is going on here.' The police asked us not to show live
transmissions from the scene," said Simonette. |
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| Stations suspended
live shots from the scene "We all pulled the plug on live shots from the area, including the helicopter," said Byron Grandy, News Director of KMOL-TV. The police asked them not to do any more live reports from the road in front of the
area. At KSAT, Defino was in the control room, when she received a call from the police PIO asking that the live shots be halted. The request from police included not broadcasting any personal information about the
suspect. Defino told the staff members they wouldn't talk about the suspect, his family, his
demands, or the negotiation process. |
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| Police made different
requests to different media Simonette said the police never asked
KENS not to use anything about the family. Police were dealing with a fluid situation, and the PIO may have been told to try to
control the situation as much as possible. The police monitored the stations. The newspeople were very sensitive to the deep emotional attachment people felt to this
Archbishop. |
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| Guests, community
reaction sustain ongoing coverage Without going live from the scene
(from the ground or the air), it was a challenge to keep viewers informed about what was
going on. When the crews shot video of the suspect's wife and children arriving, the tape was
held by Defino in the control room. She didn't want it on the air at that point, but
certainly didn't want to lose it. Plus, Defino said what was being reported was not crucial to the story. At one point, Defino paged the PIO and told him that other TV and radio stations were
carrying information about the suspect. The religious leader survived. |
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| Photographers held
their positions all day KSAT kept two photographers stationed
outside the Archdiocese watching the two exits. They had the video of him coming out, because they did not move the two photographers
all day. "It was great day of news because it ended the way it ended. He walked out and you could see that he was fine. At 10 p.m., we ran the video we were withholding all day. We could show the suspect's family, and report the details of who he was, and why he did what he did," she said. |
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| Suspect was watching
KSAT The following day, several news conferences, including one by
the Archbishop, were carried live. |
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| Lessons learned in a
hostage crisis Take time to think in the beginning.
Get organized before it happens. Utilize all your technical capacity. |
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| Gunman in Florida
standoff called station In Orlando, a man who was going through a divorce, took hostage his 4-year-old son and a waiter in a Disney World hotel. As police moved into position and evacuated guests from the hotel, the gunman called
WKMG-TV. |
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| Man's request of live
access rejected The man claimed to have several weapons and a bomb.
"Right after we went off the air, the man called us right back to add some details! We recorded part of that conversation as well. We didn't run any of his sound until 5 p.m., after the Sheriff held a news conference, and explained they had pulled the plug on his TV. We wanted to make sure he wasn't watching us," said Burns. The hostage-taker wanted to be on the telephone live on the air. An interview was taped. Any number of things could have happened if it was live. The day after the incident, a station reporter got an exclusive interview with the
waiter who was held hostage. |
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July 10, 2000
Police Wanted To Ban
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| This passage was part of an early draft of a
proposed law as submitted by its sponsor in 1996 in Sacramento. After intense debate, it was killed in committee. But, broadcasters feared a similar bill might be introduced again. |
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| Police sought all the
power California police and their political allies pressed to have law enforcement be able to decide when television could report live in a hostage crisis or in a tense situation where a suspect was barricaded inside a building. The bill would have given the incident commander on the scene of a "law enforcement emergency" the authority to order television and radio stations to either cease or not begin live broadcasts. As far as law enforcement was concerned, the issue was supposedly public safety. For the broadcasters, the issue was freedom of the press and many, many practical questions about the officials and their proposed powers. The broadcasters tried to explain their specific problems with the idea. The idea was to give the law enforcement representatives the perspective and insights of two veteran newsmen. The session was confrontational. "It is unfathomable to me that they don't understand that the decision as to whether to go live or not is an editorial decision that is protected," said Jim Sanders. The advocates claimed this was not censorship, and it was just a reasonable adjustment
of current procedures. Lives versus live reports? The ban advocates argued theirs was a public safety point of view. They were unable to point to a California case where law enforcement personnel had been
injured, or negotiations extended, because of television coverage. Bauman asked the group whether anyone ever called the newsrooms in Los Angeles and
asked them not to go live. Television executives routinely avoided coverage that could endanger anyone's life. The KCRA news executive referred to an incident in Sacramento where police confronted
four gunmen with 30 hostages . KCRA's reporter stood miked and ready to go once the Sheriff said it was okay. Finally,
after 5 p.m., the Sheriff said it didn't matter whether they went live or not, so they
went ahead. Officials and news executives must communicate. Bauman's point: Pick up the phone and call me. He felt the police wanted to pass this law in lieu of training, and in lieu of having a
relationship with the news managers of the television and radio stations. Jim Sanders agreed that news managers wouldn't refuse high ranking officials who felt
police and/or public safety may be endangered in some emergency. Police wanted the power to decide There were two very different viewpoints here. Besides the First Amendment concerns, the broadcasters argued that there
were no verifiable standards in this bill that an officer could use to evaluate a
"situation which could jeopardize the safety of persons involved or could prolong the
incident." Powers said the fact that such legislation was even proposed sent "a chilling message." He believed it would have put pressure on officers to halt live broadcasts of every crime scene. No official would have any incentive to allow the broadcasts, because they
could only lose if they allowed a live broadcast and something happened to an officer. The advocates maintained this idea did not disrupt the guarantees of
freedom of speech and press. They argued that narrowly tailored restrictions were legal. Police were uninformed about how the news teams work The law enforcement officers had very little understanding of how broadcasting works,
Bauman said. Another officer complained about the media "filming" this and
"filming" that. Bauman believed the legislation was driven by fear of the technology on the part of law
enforcement. Sanders agreed. Establish avenues of communication Bauman said the relationships between law enforcement and the media have deteriorated. There is a lack of communication in many communities, coupled with a complete fear of the technology. Good relations are beneficial to both parties. Bauman pointed to the Sacramento police chief who had regular meetings with news
executives. The meeting was primarily to see where relations stood and to air grievances. If there
were any recent incidents, they talked about it. Sanders believed having good relationships with police officials and sheriffs was key. Broadcasters must behave responsibly. Think before you go live, he urged. Sanders said, "To me a live truck is like a loaded gun. You don't goof around with it. You must stop and think about it. Does the potential warrant the limited benefit?" Bill failed in committee Four committee members, who were targeted by the California Broadcasters Association for lobbying by news executives, abstained from voting on the bill. That was what made the difference. News managers were relieved that it didn't make it out of committee. "I am very pleased to see that it failed," said David Duitch, News Director
of KXTV, Sacramento. Powers warned that similar legislation would probably be introduced again next session.
He added that the bill could be brought back to life if there was an incident where
police or hostages were hurt because of live coverage. May 6, 1996 A Barricaded Man It happens periodically. There is a dangerous suspect, sometimes with hostages, and he
wants to talk to the news media before surrendering. Here are the specifics of an incident in Chicago. Suddenly a reporter was in the middle A bank robbery suspect asked to speak to a reporter after shooting a detective and barricading himself in an apartment. The police turned to veteran WLS-TV reporter Paul Meincke for help. It all happened very quickly. A hostage, the detective, was lying inside bleeding and
badly wounded.
"Something went wrong" An armed man held up a bank branch based inside a grocery store and escaped with $239,000. He was now hiding at a friend's condominium. An FBI task force made up of federal agents, Chicago police and county sheriff's deputies surrounded the building, and prepared to try to capture the suspected bank robber. A police detective, disguised as a delivery man, knocked on the door of a third floor
condominium. Police appealed to reporter Meincke was on the way to another story, when the desk beeped him. Meincke did a live cut-in at 11:30 and a wrap-up at noon. The PIO asked if he would be willing to do it. "At that point, we didn't establish any ground rules for what I should or should not say. He merely briefed me on what the suspect had been saying," said Meincke. The suspect, a tax accountant, was ranting about the Bush administration wrecking the
economy and IRS agents hounding his clients. The reporter briefly alerted the newsroom that he was going in. They were well aware that the suspect could be watching television and could react to
whatever he saw on the air. The police had established their command post in the neighboring apartment. Meincke
could see the FBI negotiator talking on a cell phone with the suspect. Meincke was taken to the bathroom of the apartment that had become the command post. He
put down the lid on the toilet, sat down, and on a cellular phone spoke with the suspect. When he said he had no way to provide for his family, the reporter asked him if he robbed banks. He replied, "I don't look at it that way." Meincke took notes on the conversation, watching the negotiator for a signal. A short time later, police moved in and the suspect surrendered. Two squad cars escorted the ambulance carrying the detective and they rushed him to the trauma specialists at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Reporter briefed reporters Meincke met with the police spokespeople before meeting with his fellow reporters. Meincke talked to the reporters. Some of this discussion was on the air as it happened.
"It was such a unique experience. You are seldom --- if ever --- cast in that
position, and then your fellow reporters are asking questions of you," he said. Reporter's role was not promoted The news managers were careful not to hype the role the reporter had played. The station has several late afternoon newscasts. At 10 p.m. that night, they had Meincke again explain what he did and what the suspect
said. Meincke said he would have been embarrassed if the station had touted his involvement. "I was a tool, and we all knew it. But if we can achieve something for the greater good, then let it happen. I don't think it damaged our profession in any way," he added. This was a time for a reporter to treat the story as
dispassionately as possible. Looking back on the affair when we spoke with him, the reporter believed everything was
done properly. He felt there weren't many guidelines for what to do in a situation like this. "If you have the time and the opportunity, the first thing you want to know is
what the safety precautions are for your employee," said Graves. A week later there was another hostage drama. September 10, 2001 |
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Do You Yield Your Air to Rioting Prisoners
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| Rioting inmates at the Tennessee State
Prison in Nashville in 1985 held five guards hostage, and threatened their lives unless
the station exedcutives turned over control of the airwaves and allowed the inmates to air
their grievances on live television. In the end, executives at all three stations agreed to the inmates' demands and broadcast an impromptu prison news conference live. "We had to decide: do you risk the precedent that is going to be set by yielding
to extortion? Do you risk the lives of the hostages being held by the inmates?" said
Mike Kettenring, President and General Manager of WSMV-TV, Nashville. |
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| Inmates understood
how to use television to pressure officials The inmates were upset about new uniforms with
leg stripes and the long-term problem of overcrowding. The rioting started at a prison
outside Nashville and spread quickly to three other institutions. At all four facilities where there was rioting, the inmates demanded to talk to the news media. But, only in Nashville did they insist on live coverage. "The inmates realized that if they put lives in jeopardy, they could get live coverage. It wasn't lost on them that they could raise the stakes to a point where we felt we had to play the game with them," said Kettenring. Since the request for the news conference came from Department of Corrections
officials, as part of their negotiating to regain control of the prison, there was really
no way the station executives felt they could refuse. It was an extraordinary adjustment. At all other times, the television
operations are totally under the control of the broadcasters. Many powerful people and
organizations fail to gain access to the stations' programming. Many more persons and
organizations with modest financial resources are unable to present their messages. |
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| Prison officials used
media presence to calm inmates Correction Department officials drew the reporters and their station executives deeper into the action. Reporter John Seigenthaler, Jr. was covering the story for WSMV when the officials came out and said they wanted three reporters --- one television, one print and one radio --- to go in and talk to the inmates. Seigenthaler "won" the coin toss and went inside without a camera. The officials hurried the newspeople through the prison and took them to the main yard
where the inmates could see them. The officials requested the live news conference, and they made clear they
wanted it right away. He called the photographer outside the prison and told him they were going live and to
start bringing the gear in, and then contacted his bosses at the station. |
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| Hostages were
released as news conference began Nine inmates participated in the news conference. It lasted about 20 minutes. All three stations broke into programming to take the live feed. Seigenthaler did a
brief introduction saying the prison officials had asked the stations to allow the inmates
to speak on live television. Seigenthaler was reluctant to antagonize the inmates with hard questions until
he knew the hostages were safe. That night, managers at WTVF-TV expanded their newscast to an hour and re-played the
entire prison news conference during the second half of their program. |
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| Unfair burden? WSMV's
General Manager felt the riot developed because of the existing conditions in the prison. Other news managers supported the decisions of the involved executives. "You've got to make your decision based on that particular situation," said
Chris Schmidt, News Director at WREG-TV, Memphis. After it was all over, the Nashville executives advocated planning a response in advance. Their suggestions included:
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Ohio Prison Riot:
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| The riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional
Facility began with a fight. About 450 prisoners held eight guards hostage. While the
National Guard and SWAT teams took positions outside the prison, rumors circulated that
dozens were dead and their bodies horribly mutilated. News managers were suddenly thrust to the center of the story when the inmates asked for a television broadcast. |
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| Prison officials were
unsure of their tactics, television procedures It was a dangerous,
constantly changing event. |
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| Request for live
coverage "One of the original 19 requests from the prisoners
was that our anchor, Bob Orr, do a live broadcast from the prison with the prisoners
reading a list of demands --- in exchange they would release a hostage," said WBNS
News Director Paul Dughi. The station executives were worried about turning over control of their airwaves to
prisoners and giving editorial control to corrections officials. All three local Columbus affiliates, as well as other stations around the state, carried the inmates' broadcast. Setting up for live disrupted regular reports Unfortunately for WBNS, while Orr was working with corrections officials arranging the
live broadcast, he was unable to continue his reporting duties. The WBNS crew was in and out of the prison yard with the satellite truck as negotiators
tried to reach an agreement with prisoners. "There is no question corrections officials were using us in the negotiations. They moved the satellite truck in to show the prisoners they could get a satellite truck there, then moved us out. Of course, they weren't telling us anything that was going on behind the scenes at the time," said Dughi. |
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| Was it a pool
situation? Much disagreement arose over whether it was a pool
situation once the prisoners asked for live coverage. However, Tom Burke, News Director of WCMH-TV was critical of WBNS's handling of the
events leading up to the broadcast. Dughi maintained that being taken into the prison as the station to do the broadcast
didn't give them a significant competitive advantage. He said once they got on the air, everything they had was available to everybody else. |
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| Pool problems
continued By the time the broadcast happened, managers at WCMH and
WSYX were under the impression it was to be a pool feed. However, a WBNS mike flag
appeared in the shot. The broadcast was originally set for 10 a.m. They were in place at 8 a.m. But they
didn't know when it was going to happen, and when it finally did, they received 60 seconds
notice. Dughi said the decisions they made were made under fire. |
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| Don't trust prison
officials Dughi learned they couldn't trust the negotiators or the
corrections officials. For example, one thing that held up the broadcast was corrections officials called WBNS
and said the prisoners weren't getting the station's signal. "We were on the air, and the corrections officials tried to tell us what we could
say on the air. They said, 'Tell Bob not to talk right now.' They told us it was a
critical time and they wanted to make sure they had the prisoner's attention," Dughi
said. "We jumped through hoops to try to pull off all of this, and they mislead us through the whole process," he added. |
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| A problem of
semantics Another key lesson: You must be careful when using certain
broadcast terms and assuming others know what they mean. In trying to set up the second broadcast that same night, WBNS management had no
problems doing the broadcast, and had no problem with certain restrictions, but they had
to maintain editorial control. It turned out the prison leaders didn't understand what "editorial control"
was. After the issues of the clean feed and editorial control were resolved, the
negotiations weren't at a point where anything was going to happen. |
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| Communications broke
down further Early the next morning, the negotiator called Dughi at
home saying they needed Bob Orr again right away. Orr, who had been there around the clock
for four days, was taking a break. He wasn't scheduled to be back until Monday morning. When asked why WBNS wasn't there to do the broadcast, corrections officials replied it was an issue of exclusivity. The implication was WBNS didn't want to share the story. At least one station reported WBNS was holding up negotiations. WLWT, Cincinnati was subsequently asked to do the next pool broadcast. Dughi said it was a case where communications broke down at all levels during
discussions with corrections officials concerning the live feeds. |
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| Rumors abound Much of the time, official release of information was modest. Often the only prison representatives speaking to the reporters were press relations people. One result of all the official silence was that rumors flourished. |
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| The most enduring rumor was that large numbers of bodies were in the gymnasium. A prisoner who had been transferred claimed to have seen bodies. Prison officials refused to confirm or deny this. | ||||
| The live surrender When the inmates finally came out, it was a long process. Stations pre- empted huge amounts of time to cover it live. WCMH stayed with it the entire seven-and-a-half hours, squeezing the live picture back
in the upper right corner of the screen. Dughi said you must be prepared for criticism, no matter what you do. |
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| An expensive story to
cover To give you an idea of how expensive it was, the Columbus news directors had some figures they were willing to share. WCMH spent around $70,000 to cover it. The extended live coverage resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenues. WCMH lost about $65,000 in local revenues in just that one day. Use your cooperatives to bring down the cost of satellite time. Can you take a generic live shot every now and then, instead of doing your own for each show? |
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| Coverage
considerations Bill Payer, News Director of WSYX-TV, had covered prison riots before. He had a good idea of the resources this story would need. His advice in case you are faced with one like this: 2. Make certain your people have plenty of cash. 3. Provide decent work space. 4. Beware of rumors, even when they come from police sources. 5. Take pains to catalog your tapes. The material must be organized and logged in a retrievable fashion. 6. Create a graphic for your coverage, and name it immediately. 7. Try to control your overtime by organizing your efforts. Following the riot, Payer planned to put together a more formal disaster plan that specifically addressed prison riots. May 10, 1993 |
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Did Police Lie --- Or
Misspeak
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| "It seemed as though every single law enforcement officer in South Florida swooped down on this houseboat." | "There were a lot of rumors and 'sightings' that we were filtering through all week. We had to make sure we were telling the public confirmed information." | "How do you mis-understand there is a
dead body upstairs --- and then let the misinformation be disseminated for the next two
hours?" |
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| Ramon Escobar WTVJ-TV |
Cheryl Stopnick WFOR-TV |
Alice Jacobs WSVN-TV |
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| "No matter how efficient you think a public information officer is at a police department, don't take it for granted." | ``I want to apologize to anybody in the media who may have been confused or inconvenienced." | ``For us to put out information that is wrong is hurtful to the public and is wrong ... I can't think of any circumstances that justify putting out misinformation in this case.'' | |||||
| Roberto Vizcon WSCV-TV |
Richard Barreto Police Chief Miami Beach |
Jose Garcia- Pedrosa City Manager, Miami Beach |
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It was eight intense days in Miami Beach in the summer of 1997, from the moment fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot until suspected killer Andrew Cunanan's body was found.
When police surrounded a houseboat and eventually found the suspect's body, news executives felt misled by a police statement that no body had been found by the elite Special Response Team that entered the houseboat. A man's body had been lying in clear sight in a bedroom.
Here is the story of the challenge of covering a massive stakeout, and trying to confirm what police claimed was not true.
Most Wanted search ended in Miami
There were many challenges for news executives when the hunt for suspected killer Andrew Cunanan centered on South Florida.
Little official information was available.
Internationally known fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot to death on the street near
his home. The police carefully controlled the release of information through news
conferences. One-on-one interviews were hard to get.
At the same time, there were many supposed sightings of suspected serial killer Andrew
Cunanan.
What do you report that advances the story, yet is responsible?
A week after Versace was shot, a large law enforcement team surrounded a houseboat. One early claim was that perhaps a man on the boat had fired a shot.
Police requested an embargo on live coverage. They said they wanted to
avoid a suspect(s) inside seeing police movements on television, endangering officers'
lives.
You are covering one of the biggest police actions in years. Traffic is tied up for miles. News helicopters are hovering above. Do you pull the plug on your live coverage?
Police: No one is in there.
Sources: He's in there, and he's dead.
After a four-hour siege, an assault team searched the boat.
The Miami Beach Police Department public information officer did live interviews saying
that not only was there not a body inside the houseboat, the media had blown this out of
proportion.
However, reporters on the scene saw high-ranking officials arrive. Well-placed sources
began to say that not only was there a body, it was Andrew Cunanan.
How much confirmation do you need before you go with it?
Police released as little as possible
Having reliable, highly placed sources was vital.
Almost from the very beginning of this story, it was hard to work.
When Versace was shot in front of his home, WTVJ-TV was the first to
report the Cunanan link.
A red truck taken after a cemetery caretaker was murdered in New Jersey while Cunanan was
fleeing was discovered in Miami Beach.
"We matched the VIN numbers of the vehicle that was found in the parking lot to
William Reese, the man who was killed in New Jersey. We have three or four reporters who
have some incredible sources, and they really worked their sources on this one,"
explained Ramon Escobar, Managing Editor of WTVJ.
The authorities were very slow to reveal information about the Versace
execution.
"The shooting happened at about 8:45 a.m. By 9:30, police knew it was Cunanan, and
yet they didn't release it officially to the press until an 8 p.m. news conference,"
said Cheryl Stopnick, Assistant News Director of WFOR-TV.
It was the pattern of things to come in the days following Versace's murder. Stopnick said it was basically a media blackout.
"Police stopped answering our questions and stopped returning our phone calls --- and it wasn't just us --- it was everybody." |
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Cheryl Stopnick
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"In the week that followed the murder, and we needed information, they said they couldn't comment. Cunanan was still in our community, potentially lining up his next victim or trying to steal a car. We did a whole piece on the media blackout --- how they were not responding to our questions, and how the public had the right to know if there was a serial killer here," she said.
Stopnick said there were cases where police refused requests from local
media for interviews, but did interviews with network programs such as Today
and PrimeTime Live.
"The story was affecting our people. There was national interest, but if they were
going to choose to do one media over the other, they should be talking locally to people
who are potentially at risk. The police had just decided they didn't want to
deal with us anymore. That was wrong, and we called them on it," said Stopnick.
Part of the problem was that it was a multi-agency effort.
In light of the lack of official information, reporters continued to work their sources
within the departments who were giving information off the record or on background.
"We discussed carefully what might be speculation and what might be fact. Sometimes
we had things we didn't go with because we couldn't get it confirmed from a second source
or an official source. You don't want to go on the air with rumors or speculation, but you
want to give the public something, because people were fearful," she said.
The siege began in the afternoon
Police surrounded the houseboat on Collins Avenue at about 4 p.m.
"We were getting reports of a burglary or shootout at a houseboat on a waterway that
bordered the main street where there are a lot of high rise condos and hotels," said
Stopnick.
It was clearly not a routine burglary or shootout.
"It became quickly apparent it was something more when many different law enforcement
agencies began showing up. They blocked off this very busy thoroughfare for several blocks
on either side of the crime scene, and they were not allowing people to return to their
homes," she said.
"Our photographer was the first to get there and he was actually inside the perimeter
of the crime scene. He went across the street into one of the hotels, and had a vantage
point from the penthouse directly across the street. He could shoot everything as it was
going on," she said.
He couldn't get the tape out until it was over, but he had a good camera position because
he responded early.
"It seemed as though every single law enforcement officer in South
Florida swooped down on this houseboat, so we knew something was going on," said
Escobar at WTVJ.
The whole area was chaos.
They weren't letting anyone in.
When WTVJ sent other reporters, they had to fight to get into the scene.
On one side were hotels, and on the other was the canal where the
houseboat was.
"We sent a reporter on the other side of the canal --- in the house that was directly
across from the houseboat. The FBI and law enforcement went house to house clearing out
media, claiming they were 'in the line of fire.' But it was private property. We even
called our lawyer on this. We told her not to move, and the people in the house allowed
her to stay in the house," said Escobar.
She did phoners.
"She saw the other side of the houseboat, and could see movement, and could tell us
if there was anything going on," he said.
Police asked for a coverage embargo
Between 5 and 5:30 p. m., police began faxing requests to the
television stations for an embargo of live coverage.
"It is our policy that we do not honor blanket embargos. We assess each embargo on
its own merits, and we make a decision on a case-by-case basis," said Escobar.
"We were already on the air, and I did not see any purpose for an embargo. What I did
feel was legitimate was their request for us not to broadcast live any police (Special
Response Team) movements towards the house," he said.
The SRT, the equivalent of a SWAT team, responded in this kind of
situation. No one would knowingly reveal police positions and movements.
"That we agree with. It has always been our policy. But you must reiterate it to your
staff members. In the heat of the moment, they can get excited. We put the message out to
all the crews that we were not going to broadcast live any movements by the Special
Response Team," he said.
"The key here is the booth. You have to tell the booth, and constantly remind them. You want your people in the field to shoot everything. We want them to shoot the SRT movements. We got video of them going into the houseboat. But we played the tape back later," he explained.
"It is a shoot and ask questions later approach. It is the producer and director in the booth whose responsibility it is to make sure you are not broadcasting police movements live." |
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Ramon Escobar
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Police stormed the boat
When the SRT went into the houseboat, the police officials again asked
the stations to limit coverage from the scene.
"We were on the phone with the police and on the phone with the control room,
deciding when to go ahead and say that they were in the house. We held up until they were
in the house, and for a few minutes afterwards. But one of our competitors went on the
air, so we decided we should go," said Stopnick.
Police were still asking them not to air it. But the WFOR managers felt it
was time to continue with the story.
"They called back later and said that we had violated the embargo. My response was
that we honored the embargo and waited until the police officers were inside the house ---
and we waited a few minutes beyond that --- but at some point we must serve the public. We
must tell people what is going on with a story we have been covering for several hours. We
stand by our decision. No one's life was placed in jeopardy because we went on. Then,
after we did, other stations went on the air, too," she said.
Police claimed the boat was empty
At 8:45, the Miami Beach Police public information officer was live by
phone with WFOR. He said nobody had been found.
"He also made it clear that they were going do a more thorough search, but as of that
point, they had found no one," Stopnick said.
Cunanan's body was in plain sight, sprawled on a bed in the upstairs master bedroom. A .40-caliber handgun was there. Its serial number was the same as that of a weapon stolen from a man Cunanan was believed to have killed in the Midwest.
Metro-Dade Police tactical officers later said they located the body of
a white male dead from a gunshot wound within two minutes of making entry --- and reported
that to the Miami Beach police.
``Once we went in and identified that there was a deceased male in there and nobody else,
that information was relayed [to Beach police] and the scene was relinquished back to
their custody,'' Metro-Dade Police spokesman Denis Morales told the Miami Herald.
"Whether he (the Beach PIO) misspoke or he had incomplete information, I don't know. I don't think he outright lied to us, because he went on with every TV station and said the same thing," Stopnick said.
By then it was around 9 p.m. WFOR and the other network affiliates still
had two hours until their newscasts.
"Everybody was still out at the scene. There was going to be a news conference by
police at some point, so everybody was still working the story," she said.
WFOR newsroom managers began to stand down and plan for the coverage at
11.
"We hit all of our reporters again at the scene, wrapped it up by about 8:55,
promised more coverage at 11, and then re-grouped to get our coverage on for 11.
Even if there had been no body in the houseboat, this was a major police action and an
inconvenience for thousands of people. This was huge story regardless," she said.
When they got the word it was "clear," WTVJ news managers also
went back to regular programming. They kept the crews at the scene and were monitoring the
situation, keeping the camera trained on the house.
"We stayed at the scene, because you never know. This story was so bizarre that we
had no idea what was going on. We wanted to protect ourselves, so we stayed.
It just seemed weird. For what looked like the Fifth Armored Division to descend upon a
houseboat for a regular burglary? That did not make any sense to any of us. Then, to go in
and have nobody there? It just didn't add up," said Escobar.
Some WTVJ managers had taken a break to grab a quick dinner, when they
were informed that a WTVJ reporter had a source who told her there was a body inside, and
it might be Andrew Cunanan.
"There had been four helicopters hovering over the scene, and my first thought was
that the police were under a lot of pressure and had tried to clear out the media,"
said Escobar.
WTVJ pressed for confirmation
WTVJ had eight people who had been working the story since Versace's
murder.
"We went around the room and asked who had a source they could call to try to confirm
this," said Escobar.
"We only had one source who told us flat out that it was Andrew Cunanan, that he had
killed himself and he was in the house. It was a very reliable source from one of our best
reporters. That one I was comfortable with. But our standard is to go on the air with two
very reliable sources. We had secondary sources, but they were people who had heard it
from someone else. We didn't feel those were appropriate," Escobar