"When Competition Influences Judgment"

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

The New York Times
June 19, 2000, Monday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section C; Page 13; Column 1; Business/Financial Desk
HEADLINE: MEDIA; When Competition Influences Judgment
BYLINE:  By JAYSON BLAIR

The scenes, in some form or another, appeared all over television and
in the newspapers: lurid images from amateur videotape showing young
women having water poured on them, being groped and having their
shirts ripped off by a marauding group of men who sexually assaulted
at least 50 women near the southern end of Central Park.

Some news organizations blurred the faces of the victims. But on five
news programs and in one newspaper, The New York Post, the women were
clearly identifiable, several with their shirts taken off and others
with no clothes at all during the attacks after the National Puerto
Rican Day Parade on June 11.

Most news organizations have policies that greatly limit the
identification of sexual assault victims because some view the crimes
as having a stigma attached to them and because victims are less
likely to come forward if they believe the crimes will be made public.

But the coverage last week showed how competitive heat can overtake
news organizations in a 24-hour news cycle and how questionable
ethical decisions made by one outlet can influence others.

The decision to run the identifiable images led to debate in some
newsrooms and angered several women's rights groups, which complained
that showing the women's faces only added to their humiliation.

"It was a traumatic situation, and there is a stigma attached to sex
crimes," said Nancy Millar, the president of the National
Organization for Women's New York City chapter. "Running their faces
is just adding insult to injury."

After an onslaught of complaints, most television stations pulled the
unaltered pictures and The Post apologized in a statement.

The amateur videotape was bought by, or given to, at least five New
York news stations last Monday afternoon, the day after the attacks,
which had begun to capture international attention. That night, four
stations -- WNBC, WABC, WCBS and the Fox affiliate, WNYW -- ran the
tape.

WABC and WNBC used clips that primarily showed the attackers. The
faces of the women could not be seen. But WCBS and WNYW aired more
graphic pictures in which the nudity was blurred but many of the
women's faces were left unaltered.

In one instance, WNYW played video in slow motion of a woman with no
shirt on, crouched behind a wall, screaming and trying to hide.

Paula Madison, WNBC's news director and vice president, said she had
received the first tape about 4 p.m. last Monday, but decided to
withhold many of the more graphic details until after the tapes could
be properly edited.

"I figured I could get beat, but that is O.K.," she said. She added
that competition could not drive every decision or it would "erode
the public's confidence in your ability to tell the news in a
comprehensive and responsible fashion."

But interest in the story continued to rise. Last Tuesday morning,
the story appeared on the front pages of The New York Times, The Post
and The Daily News. None of the newspapers used images in which the
women could be identified.

But WCBS, WNYW, the WB affiliate WPIX and the UPN affiliate WWOR
continued to run the tape without blurring the victims' faces. That
morning, producers at New York 1, the city's 24-hour news channel,
received a tape of the events -- more than 10 hours after it first
appeared on other stations -- and quickly scanned it and placed it on
the air, showing close-ups of two of the women's faces.

Minutes later, a viewer wrote an e-mail message to New York 1 that
read: "These women had already been publicly humiliated once -- why
humiliate them again by putting their faces on television, showing
them sobbing and trying to cover themselves?"

The video ran about three times that morning before Steve Paulus, New
York 1's senior vice president and general manager, pulled it and
ordered the women's faces blurred.

"We wanted to be competitive with the other guys," said Peter Landis,
the news director at New York 1. "There was a bad judgment call to
put it on the air before upper news management determined how to
present it properly."

Mr. Paulus sent out a memo in the afternoon reiterating the station's
policy against identifying victims of sex crimes. It also said that
what other stations were doing "doesn't matter to us; we shouldn't
have used it."

But the competitive pressure lingered and also influenced The Post, .
That afternoon, hoping to beat out other print competition, The Post
obtained images from its corporate cousin, British Sky Broadcasting.
And on Wednesday morning, the newspaper published three pictures in
which victims could clearly be identified, including the woman
cowering behind the wall.

"Since these images were played many times on television, we felt
there was little to be gained by altering them," Xana Antunes, The
Post's editor, said in an interview on Wednesday afternoon. Ms.
Antunes added that the paper was careful not to print the names or
addresses of the victims but spent little time worrying about the
images.

"On further reflection, we will take additional steps to protect the
victims' identities," she said in a statement released later that
afternoon.

And TV stations' news programs had all taken the unaltered images off
the air by Wednesday.

In a brief conversation, Susan Sullivan, news director at WNYW, said
that in the heat of competition her producers had not thought about
editing the tape to protect the identities of the victims.

"As soon I saw the tape run, I caught it, and we began obscuring the
faces," Ms. Sullivan said.