The Overworking Press

To the hard-working newsmen, the first commandment of the profession is: get the story. Following this time-honored tradition under the hard eye of a demanding editor, a good reporter or photographer, haunted by the thought of being scooped, will use any trick of brain or brawn that he can devise. When more than 300 reporters and photographers are thrown together to cover one of the biggest stories any of them ever covered, all the tricks piled one on another can produce a near riot. Last week, as the U.S. press covered Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's tour of the U.S., that is precisely what happened.

In the Stonestown Shopping Center supermarket near San Francisco, while Traveler Khrushchev calmly thumped cantaloupe and tweaked grapefruit, the eager journalistic pack suddenly erupted all over the meat and groceries. One photographer, battling for a superior position, fell into the refrigerator butter case; another mounted a display of luncheon meat; another stood oxford-deep in packaged cheese. A cameraman shorter than his peers leased (for $5) the shoulders of a store clerk and spurred his two-legged steed up and down the aisles, crying: "Faster! Faster!"

"Stop This Thing!" Photographer Burton Glinn of Magnum climbed the meat counter for a better view, ignored the butcher's outraged order to stop tenderizing his chops, was finally brought down by a rolling block from the butcher himself. Still another duty-bound photographer hurdled the baby-stroller of a startled matron, landed on a moving conveyor belt, and aimed his camera as the belt carried him relentlessly toward the checking stand. "Somebody stop this thing!" he yelled. "It's wrecking my shot!" Farther across the store, in the midst of the cascading canned goods and shattering glass, a woman shopper shook her head in awed incredulity. Said she: "I've never seen men act like this before."

San Francisco was only a rehearsal. The big show came in Coon Rapids, Iowa, where Millionaire Farmer Roswell Garst, who enjoys the glare of publicity, had invited the full herd of newsmen down to the farm. Apparently confident that he was dealing with orderly men, Farmer Garst issued eight pages of agricultural information to the press (sample: "When corn is down to 30% moisture, it has reached maximum dry weight") that was totally silent on the subject of reportorial conduct. The moment they set foot on Garst property, the newsmen turned it into a battleground.

"Get Back There!" Barred from following the official party into a cornfield reserved for Khrushchev's inspection, reporters and photographers went into an encircling movement through the tall corn, materialized suddenly under the noses of Garst and visitors. "Get back! Get back there!" bellowed Garst, surprised and angry. "Bring those horses in here; ride 'em down." he commanded a mounted troop of Greene County Pleasure Riders. "Get back there or I'll kick you out. even if your name is Harrison Salisbury." he threatened, and as good as his word, he planted a sturdy Garst brogan on the leg of The New York Times's reporter--probably the mildest mannered of all the trespassers in the corn.*

Down the line, correspondents deployed for a frontal assault on Garst and guests, who were wading through a trench of ripe ensilage. Livid with rage, Garst hurled handfuls of it at the advancing skirmishers. When a tractor growled into sight carrying a fresh load, Farmer Garst ordered it dumped on a clot of photographers.

"We'll Turn the Bulls." "Get clubs!" roared Garst, as newsmen boiled toward the feed lot. By then, nearly everyone was involved. At the feed lot, Garst's son Stephen armed three hired hands with pitchforks. "Arrest that helicopter!" barked a National Guard officer, observing a chopper-load of journalists overhead. Said Premier Khrushchev, grinning at the free press of the U.S.: "We'll turn the bulls against you."

The battles of the supermarket and Coon Rapids could be explained readily enough in terms of newsmen going after the story. But in their wild and uncontrolled scramble, the Khrushchev-tour reporters defeated their own purpose. A reporter who was able to shove his way into earshot for one line of a conversation often was elbowed far out of line before the next sentence came out. Some, turning to electronics, brought along pocket recorders, played back their takes later only to hear nothing more than their fellow newsmen bawling at one another. Some old-line pencil and paper men wryly admitted that some of the most complete stories were turned out by reporters who sat in front of television sets far from the shoving mob.

*Salisbury ignored the incident in his story, but elsewhere the Times identified the victim as one "Harriman E. Salisbury."

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