Newspaperv Exonerated p. 44

By: Mark Fitzgerald

SPJ report says the Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald did not tip
off the followers of David Koresh to raid on cult compound
THE WACO (TEXAS) Tribune-Herald did not tip off the followers of David Koresh to the Feb. 28 raid on their cult compound, concludes the Society of Professional Journalists' report on media behavior during the 51-day Waco seige.
In its long-awaited report, the SPJ Waco Task Force also rejected criticism that the Tribune-Herald exacerbated the seige with its ground-breaking series of articles on the Branch Davidian sect.
In general, the SPJ report found, the press acted responsibly under difficult circumstances of a story that began with the Feb. 28 botched raid which killed four federal agents and climaxed with the fiery April 19 death of 82 cult members, including 15 children under the age of 10.
"To say that the media coverage contributed to the tragedy is not a supportable criticism," the report declared.
Nevertheless, the SPJ task force did fault the press ? especially broadcast media ? in a number of areas.
For one thing, the report says, there were simply too many reporters on the scene making too much of too little news.
"Although the Waco story deserved meaningful coverage, the task force believes that too many news organizations overcovered this story to the detriment of other stories in their own communities.
"This raises the ethical issues of the long-term commitment of scarce human, financial and technological resources on any individual story. News organizations must not get trapped by the tyranny of competition or the lure of the dramatic. They should not stay with a story merely because others are staying with it. Neither should they over-cover a story just because they have committed resources to it."
In the tedium of the seige, reporters too often reacted to their enforced isolation from the news scene ? and manipulation by both authorities and a media-savvy cult leader ? by reporting rumors and unsubstantiated information, the report said.
"Just because the information pipeline was constricted or warped by self-serving newsmakers, the media were not absolved from their responsibility to provide full, truthful, factual and contextual reporting," the report says.
Indeed, the SPJ report reserves some of its harshest criticism for what it says was the press's acquiescence to government secrecy during the affair.
In addition to keeping journalists far from the story's front lines, the government sealed search warrants and other key documents and held secret court appearances.
"In case after case there was no meaningful protest from the news media to this serious threat to the the free flow of information," the report said.
Local media, such as the Tribune-Herald, needed all the help they could get from big media organizations in their fight for access ? and mostly failed to get it, the report charges.
"SPJ, the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and most major media organizations were not as proactive as they could have been in intervening on behalf of journalists covering Waco when help was needed on the access front," the report said.
In terms of news coverage, the SPJ report gave generally high marks to newspapers and average ? or failing ? grades to broadcast.
It singled out the Tribune-Herald not only for its initial series on the Branch Davidians, but for the 45,000-circulation paper's invaluable assistance to out-of-town media.
The report essentially clears the Tribune-Herald of the laundry list of criticism it faced in the immediate aftermath of the botched Feb. 28 raid by federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents.
It said the paper "exercised sound journalistic effort, appropriate independence and sound ethical decision-making in going ahead, against the request of federal authorities, with the publishing of a seven-part series on Koresh and the Branch Davidians."
The SPJ provides the first full explanation from the newspaper of why the Tribune-Herald delayed publishing the series for nearly four weeks.
Editor Bob Lott told the task force that "the major cause for the delay" was concern for the safety of Tribune-Herald personnel and property from possible reprisals from the heavily armed cult.
That is why the series was scheduled to run on a Saturday, Lott told the task force: There would be fewer people in the newspaper building on Saturday and Sunday.
Lott told the task force that in retrospect he would have run the series sooner ? a "healthy self-criticism" the SPJ report concurred with.
The task force also said there was no "concrete evidence" for accusations that the Tribune-Herald and Waco television station KWTX-TV tipped the cultists to the Feb. 28 raid or acted irresponsibly when they staked out the road outside the Mount Carmel compound.
The task force cited Texas newspapers ? notably the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ? for "strong reporting" of the seige.
On the other hand, it faulted some individual broadcast news organizations.
It said KRLD radio in Dallas and the CNN network endangered delicate negotiations between Koresh and federal authorities by airing live interviews with the cult leader.
The SPJ report was especially critical of a Dallas radio talk show host, Ron Engleman of KGBS, for broadcasting sympathetic messages to the cult during the standoff. The task force rejected Engleman's contention that he was immune to journalistic ethical considerations because he is not a traditional news reporter.
Like the seige at Mount Carmel, the SPJ report ? the professional association's first-ever formal investigation into press performance and ethics ? took far longer than first expected.
Suggested by Phil J. Record, special assistant to the editor of the Star-Telegram, the report was initially conceived to be a quick study by SPJ president Georgiana Vines, assistant managing editor of the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel.
As the Waco standoff stretched on, however, the task force decided to take on a more far-reaching job that included recommendations for reporting future seiges.
The task force was chaired by Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute, and Jay Black, the Poynter-Jamison Chair professor of journalism ethics at the University of South Florida.
Its members were Record; Don Bolton, managing editor/joint operations at Ventura County (Calif.) Newspapers; Phil Robbins, director of journalism at George Washington University; and Becky Tallent, a mass communications doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State University.
Also, Sara Stone, associate professor at Baylor University in Waco; Jim Forsyth, news director of WOAI Radio in San Antonio, Texas; and Lori Reingold, news producer for KTRK-TV in Houston, Texas.