Since Watts, television stations have learned that the presence of lights, cam eras and reporters often inflame riot ers; and overdramatic coverage attracts more rioters to the scene. This summer the networks instructed their news staffs to be as unobtrusive as possible in riot areas, to travel in unmarked cars, to avoid the use of lights, and to cap their lenses when it was obvious that people were performing for the cam era. The Justice Department asked for cooperation in withholding news until violence was under control (TIME, July 14). Broadcasters were also told to check out rumors carefully before putting them on the air.
How did it work? In some cities, TV newsmen closely followed these guidelines and won praise from police and public officials alike. In New York, the stations balanced shots of East Harlem rioting with interviews with Puerto Rican moderates and Spanish-speaking police. In Detroit, TV held off reporting violence for twelve hours; only when it became obvious that the situation was out of control did the news go out. Reporters went out of their way to interview bewildered, law-abiding Negroes whose homes and property had been destroyed. The three TV stations in Cincinnati agreed not to interrupt regular programs with alarmist bulletins. "We did not put on television anything which we felt would inflame an incident," says Sam Johnston, general manager of WKRC-TV. "We gave no vocal platform to any of the agitators."
Squelching Rumors. TV coverage in Milwaukee was exemplary. The three stations made a pact to withhold news of the riot overnight in order to give it a chance to cool down. When CORE Leader Cecil Brown Jr. called a press conference during which he spread a false rumor that an innocent Negro had been shot to death by police, the stations covered the speech but did not run it. "All that screaming is a lot more provocative than just quoting someone," says Carl Zimmermann, news director of WITI-TV. But like enterprising newsmen, the stations do not plan to waste all the riot footage. "Some of the stuff is hair-raising," says Zimmermann, "but I think the community should witness it. So we plan to do a documentary on Voices of the Inner
City and balance it with interviews with moderates."
Elsewhere, however, TV coverage was just as riotous as the ghettos. Anyone who stood on a street corner of Newark and screamed loudly enough was sure to get on the air. "Television seems to have the knack of picking people off the street who were the most volatile and leading them into making the most violent kind of statements," complains Newark Police Director Dominick A. Spina. The stations made no attempt to sort out the various agitators they put on-camera or assess their importance. "They picked on every black face who proclaimed himself a leader," says Donald Malafronte, administrative assistant to Mayor Addonizio. "Casuals who had never raised a voice in community affairs all of a sudden were spokesmen on television." TV newsmen disobeyed instructions to stay behind police lines. On one occasion, a policeman chasing a looter tripped over a television cable. "We're lucky his gun didn't go off," says Spina.