In the Aftermath

Despite incidents of sensationalism, inaccuracies and distortions, newspapers, radio and television, on the whole made a real effort to give a balanced factual account of the 1967 disorders Despite this effort, the overall effect was, we believe, an exaggeration of both mood and intent.

--President's Commission

on Civil Disorders

This backhanded slap, coming just a few weeks before the assassination of Martin Luther King, was a sharp reminder of television's great and grave responsibilities in times of national crisis. Thus, when the explosive news event occurred, TV's mood and intent were one: cool it.

In the first shock wave following the killing, rival stations in many cities met to implement new guidelines. As expressed in a code signed by broadcasters in San Francisco, it was agreed that "the potential for inciting public disorders demands that competition be secondary to the cause of public safety." In most instances, this meant no live coverage of riots, and instructing TV crews to be inconspicuous by traveling in unmarked cars and filming from rooftops and through windows.

Chicago's WMAQ, aware from painful experience that TV newsmen have become prime targets for rioters, last week assigned 35 bodyguards to accompany film crews into the ghettos. Boston Mayor Kevin White, following the practice of Chicago and Los Angeles, set up a rumor-control center in his office where TV newsmen checked their facts with the mayor and his aides, who manned telephones linked to the police department and storefront command posts in the Roxbury ghetto. In Washington to offset the impression given by smoke-shrouded aerial photos that the capital was an inferno, WTOP televised a wall-size map showing that the fires were confined to a relatively small area. When Baltimore Comptroller Hyman Pressman made a heated speech demanding that the looting be stopped "by gunfire" if necessary, all the TV stations elected to junk the film.

Hard Lessons. Not all broadcasters were that responsible. As troops moved into Washington, radio and TV newsmen reported that "tanks" were rumbling down New Hampshire Avenue, when in fact they were simply personnel carriers. More recklessly, at the peak of the riot scare, rock-'n'-roll station WABC in Manhattan broadcast on-the-street interviews with Harlem agitators. Cried one: "We were planning to burn down your part of town anyway, but now we can take the whole thing this summer! I want to kill anybody I know who is against anything that's good!"

Generally, though, by applying lessons learned the hard way during the riots of past summers, the newscasters made a concerted and largely commendable effort to prevent the fire next time from happening now. In Los Angeles, for example, where the 1965 outbreak in Watts was a case study for broadcasters in how not to cover a riot, KABC refrained from running any footage of riots on its local newscasts. Says News Director Baxter Ward: "I'll keep an inflammatory scene out no matter how newsworthy it is. I figure we can be newsmen the rest of the year, but we want to have something left to cover after the riot."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.