Don't Blame the Newspaper p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Federal agents' botched raid came a day after the Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald began publishing a series on the religious cult sp.

THE WACO TRIBUNE-Herald had no role in the planning or timing of the botched and bloody federal raid on a Texas cult, its editor says.
In the desperate search to answer what went wrong in the Feb. 28 raid ? which ended in the deaths of four federal agents and possibly 10 cult followers of David Koresh ? some fingers have pointed at the newspaper.
Federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the "Ranch Apocalypse" compound a day after the Tribune-Herald began publishing what was to be a seven-day series detailing allegations of sexual and physical abuse against cult leader Koresh as well as noting the substantial arsenal he and his followers had amassed.
For a month, the ATF had asked the Tribune-Herald to hold off on the series.
Initial press reports said that the ATF had moved up the raid because of the newspaper story but, in the long days of siege that followed, authorities backed away from that contention.
There have been suggestions that when the raid was about to start, Tribune-Herald reporters were alerted.
These suggestions dovetail with other questions about security for the operation, which apparently was no surprise to the heavily armed cult. In a telephone interview, however, Tribune-Herald editor Bob Lott said that the newspaper bears no responsibility for the raid and its consequences.
"I see no cause and effect relationship between our stories, which were published on Saturday and Sunday [Feb. 27 and 28] and the disaster that happened Sunday," Lott said.
The newspaper had no arrangements at all with the ATF during the planning or execution of the raid, according to Lott.
Tribune-Herald reporters Mark England and Darlene McCormick spent eight months researching David Koresh, who changed his name legally from Vernon Howell, and the Branch Davidian cult located on a ranch 10 miles from Waco.
In late January, Lott said, a Tribune-Herald editor was approached by ATF agents who had learned of the impending series and asked the paper to delay publication.
"They said they were investigating [the cult]. They were afraid we would tip off their investigation or somehow interfere with their operation," Lott said.
As it happened, the newspaper at the time had put publication on hold for other reasons, which Lott declined to specify.
About a week before publication, ATF agents again asked the newspaper to hold off on the series.
As before, the ATF was maddeningly vague about what, if anything, it intended to do, Lott said.
"We never were told of the scope of the raid. We were told they were seeking warrants, I believe. They were going to take some sort of action, but we were never told what ? or when," Lott said.
After several days of debate, the newspaper decided it had waited long enough.
"We knew the situation at Mount Carmen [the cult's ranch] had been going on for quite a while," Lott explained in a March 1 note to readers.
"It was a dangerous and sinister thing the public should know about. We're not talking just of stockpiling of weapons, but such things as sexual exploitation of young girls and other abuses of children in the name of religion. Local authorities knew about the situation and, as best we could tell, had done next to nothing," Lott wrote.
A day before publication, Lott said, "We did something we don't normally do: We told [the ATF] on a Friday that it was going to begin on a Saturday."
Lott also noted that the first stories "carefully avoided even a hint of our knowledge that the ATF might be involved."
A few hours before the ATF agents' raid, a Tribune-Herald reporter was tipped that something was about to happen, Lott said. A Waco tv news crew also was on the scene when the raid began.
"I cannot yet say who the actual source was," Lott said. "I have been told [by editors] it was not the ATF."
ATF officials in Waco also denied alerting the media.
Cult leader Koresh ? who says he is Christ ? gave a Dallas radio station a somewhat Biblical explanation of why the cult was ready for the raid: "I knew they were coming before they knew they were coming."
Five Tribune-Herald reporters and two photographers were sent to the scene.
At the start of the raid, two of the reporters came under gunfire, although it could not be determined if they were targeted, Lott said. No one was hurt, he said.
For the Monday paper after the Sunday raid, the Tribune-Herald printed the remaining five parts of the series about Koresh, entitled "The Sinful Messiah."
Indeed, even as the huge numbers of journalists descended on Waco to report on the long standoff, almost all of the world's knowledge about Koresh and his Branch Davidians comes from the series published by the Cox Enterprises-owned 45,182-circulation Tribune-Herald.
The series documented his claims to be Christ with a divine right to have sex with followers' wives as well as allegations that he has had sex with underage girls in the cult.
Perhaps most tellingly, a long section in the first article of the series detailed the contents of the cult's arsenal, including assault weapons, night-vision scopes and home-manufactured "grease gun" machine guns.