TV on the Spot

As the cub reporter of U.S. journalism, TV scored a double coup last week: not only did it jump quickly onto a big news story, a nightlong seizure of Utah's state prison by 511 inmates, but it helped to bring the story to a happy ending.

In Salt Lake City, 14 miles north of the sprawling grey prison buildings, KTVT President Ben Larson whipped into action when he got the first report that prisoners had jumped a guard, wounded him with knife stabs and taken over everything but the administration building. The inmates also grabbed 29 hostages, including twelve members of a visiting Mormon church basketball team. While the prisoners ran amuck, smashing doors and windows, setting fires, Larson rushed a mobile unit right into the grounds, 2 1/2 hours ahead of rival KUTV. A KTVT camera in the administration building picked up shots of prisoners at the end of a corridor behind bars that marked off their territory.

Price of Surrender. KTVT* stayed on the scene and on the air through the night --and thousands of Utah citizens stayed up to watch. The cameras caught many intimate tableaux--an inmate being carried out after a heart attack, the release of a handful of hostages, including a trembling attendant who had been forced to pump the stomachs of prisoners groggy with narcotics and rubbing alcohol. Then the prisoners named the price of surrender: their grievances, over such matters as bad food, harsh treatment, must get publicity and an investigation by Governor George D. Clyde. The convicts snatched at Larson's idea of putting their spokesmen on a national TV network as the best means of airing their complaints. KTVT, an NBC affiliate, arranged for the network to carry such interviews as soon as Today reached the air at 7 a.m., E.S.T. Ironically, a snarl kept the interviews off the network, but the prisoners, not knowing this, began to give up.

Just as the leaders were turning in their guns, the sound failure was fixed and KTVT hit the NBC network with an extraordinary 18 minutes in which Commentator Tom Wayman's skillful questioning drew the story out of three convicts and the governor. Mumbling like Marlon Brando understudies, the convicts described their "diffewculties." Asked if he had a weapon, one protested without a break in gum-chewing rhythm: "I didn't have no weapon. I just had a knife and one of them .22-caliber things." Why was one inmate beaten up? "He was not too popular. He was classified as a rat if you wanna put it that way." Governor Clyde, standing shoulder-deep in convicts, agreed that the grievances were "submitted in sincerity" and "they'll be considered." As the camera pulled back, a convict muttered something inaudible, and the broadcast ended with this exchange:

Governor (testily): "You can be heard."

Convict: "Hurt?"

Governor: "No, heard."

Convict: "Hurt, too."

* Owned since July 1953 by TIME Inc.

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