Probing Press Performance p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Society of Professional Journalists will conduct its first formal investigation by examining press role in Waco siege sp.

THE SOCIETY OF Professional Journalists has chosen a particularly tangled situation for its first-ever formal probe into press performance and ethics: the botched raid on a religious cult in Waco, Texas.
"When this [standoff] is all over, we [in the press] are going to be very critical of the government, so, baby, we'd better be ready to be critical of ourselves, too," said Phil J. Record, assistant to the publisher and ombudsman of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Record made the initial suggestion that led to the appointment of the task force by Georgiana Vines, president of the SPJ.
Vines said the group has a wide-open agenda.
"There's some who think the purpose is to criticize everything that has happened," Vines said. "That's not true. What we're trying to do is sort out what happened: who did what ? and who didn't do what."
Record is one of the seven members of the study group headed by Martin L. "Red" Gibson, a professor at the University of Texas, who has specialized in teaching journalism ethics.
Record said the performance of both government law enforcement agents and the broadcast and print press raises many questions, among them:
?Did a journalist tip off the cult to the Feb. 28 raid in which four federal agents and perhaps as many as 10 cult members were killed?
?Should Waco Tribune-Herald reporters have been at the scene just before the raid was under way?
?Was cult leader David Koresh able to exploit the herd mentality of journalists in the first days of the raid?
?And conversely, is government control of the media now way out of line?
"There are no neutral eyes on the front, anymore," Record said in an interview March 15. "If the shooting starts tomorrow, there are no neutral eyes to tell what happened. We're being spoon- fed everything."
The SPJ investigation comes at a time when the press performance at Waco is under heavy criticism from some quarters, especially federal law enforcement agencies which themselves have been taken to task over the raid.
In a recent joint statement to their officers, the directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms warned that "unauthorized and inaccurate comments" from agents "hold the potential for jeopardizing the successful conclusions" of the Waco standoff and New York's World Trade Center bombing.
(At a recent press conference, the head of the New York FBI unit gave reporters his own theory of who committed the bombing. His statements were taken to task by FBI director William Sessions.)
On the scene at Waco, FBI spokesman Bob Ricks told reporters March 10 that press efforts to contact cult leader David Koresh "directly affect our ability to get the matter resolved."
As the armed standoff moved into its third week, Branch Davidian cultists inside their besieged ranch twice hoisted banners from the watchtower asking for contact with news organizations.
"God Help Us, We Want the Press," one read.
"FBI Broke Negotiations, We Want Press," read another hung out March 14.
In a related development, Texas Rangers launched an investigation into who, if anyone, tipped the cult to the raid. ATF officials have said the cult's withering armed response to the raid indicates cultists had been prepared for the attack.
In a March 15 story, Washington (D.C.) Times reporter Hugh Aynesworth reported that an ATF official in Dallas, Sharon Wheeler, had phoned several news agencies hours before the raid.
While Wheeler did not mention the raid or a Waco location, journalists interviewed by Aynesworth said they easily concluded the action involved the Branch Davidians, who a day before were the subject of the start of a long series of investigative articles by the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Record said the complicated developments at Waco require explanation from the press.
"If we hold other people accountable ? and we do all the time, while not holding ourselves accountable ? then we've got to hold ourselves accountable, or somebody else is going to end up doing that for us," Record said.
SPJ president Vines said task force head Gibson would like to conclude the report by the first week in April. Record, however, said he strongly believes much of the investigation cannot begin until the siege is concluded.
In addition to Gibson and Record, the following members were named to the task force: Dan Bolton, SPJ national ethics committee chairman; Laurie Reingold of KTRK-TV in Houston; Phil Robbins, director of the George Washington University journalism school; Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute; and Sarah Stone, associate professor of journalism at Baylor University.