Columbine School Shooting

Appendix

 

 

 

 

Posted May 17, 1999

Guidelines for Interviewing Juveniles
Al Tompkins, The Poynter Institute For Media Studies

Understanding how young people see the world around them often demands that we hear what they have to say. Adults aren't the only ones with worthy views of news. But interviewing young people raises some of the most challenging questions faced by journalists.

Especially in breaking news situations, juveniles may not be able to recognize the ramifications of what they say to themselves or to others. Journalists should be especially careful in interviewing juveniles LIVE because such live coverage is more difficult to control and edit. Juveniles should be given greater privacy protection than adults.

The journalist must weigh the journalistic duty of "seeking truths and reporting them as fully as possible" against the need to minimize any harm that might come to a juvenile in the collection of information.

When interviewing juveniles, journalists should consider:

Journalistic purpose and quality of information

Minimize harm

If you conclude that parental consent is not required, at least give the child your business card so the parents can contact you if they have an objection to the interview being used.

Explore alternatives

The Golden Rule for interviewing children:

"Do unto other people's kids as you would have them do unto your kids." (From participants of "Children, Families, and Social Issues Seminar"-The Poynter Institute 1998)

 

 

 

Phoner Guidelines for 9News, KUSA-TV, Denver

Created after the Columbine Shooting

 

When using a caller on the air, it is imperative that KUSA-TV determines the person's relationship to the story and we must establish a confidence that the caller is in a position to offer legitimate eyewitness or insider information about the news event.

 

It is our policy to use the following guidelines before we put a telephone call on the air:

 

1. Eyewitnesses are more reliable if the station initiates the call. In breaking news, use the Internet, Pro Phone or the Criss Cross to find people in the area of the news event who might have an eyewitness account of what is happening.

 

2. If a telephone caller contacts 9News with breaking news information, the staff person must try to establish the motive of the telephone source and take those motives into account when evaluating the integrity of the call.

 

3. If you receive a telephone call from someone who claims to have urgent information, ask for a telephone number so that you can return the call in an attempt to verify the information.

 

4. Be skeptical of a caller who contacts the station and is asking or willing to "go live". Most callers are actually searching for more information when they call the station in a breaking news event.

 

5. Ask questions that will verify the telephone caller's proximity to the breaking news and investigate if the telephone caller can identify individuals who might be involved the news event.

 

6. Remind all callers not to use names of individuals on the air and not to implicate anyone as a suspect or victim during the course of the telephone call.

 

7. Do not let telephone callers make inflammatory statements on the air. If they do, challenge the accuracy of the statements.

 

8. When in doubt, DON'T! If you are not sure about the authenticity of the caller, get the information and a return telephone number. Pass the pertinent information along to the control booth. Find someone in the newsroom that can further research the validity of the telephone call.

 

9. Evaluate whether the caller is putting himself or others in jeopardy by talking on the telephone or by going on live television with information.

 

IO. Do not let the pressure to "get on the air" affect the decision-making or validating process. Accuracy is everything!

 

Phoner guidelines developed by 9News, KUSA-TV, Denver.

 

 

 

 

The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation

 

Lessons from Littleton, RTNDA99 Guidelines for Covering Bomb Threats in Schools

 

AFI'ER LITTLETON: COVERING WHAT COMES NEXT

 

A serious and perhaps defining debate occurred in newsrooms after the Littleton, Colorado school shootings. "How do we responsibly cover the after-effects of Lit4,qon!@hoo

-bngs?"

 

In the wake of the shootings, school systems across America dismissed classes and sent kids home while bomb squads and bomb-sniffing dogs search lockers and school classrooms.

 

Newsrooms were confronted with their own longstanding policies against covering bomb threats. Often these well-intentioned policies were established because of concerns that reporting such threats would breed others. The question facing journalists after Littleton was 'Do we stick by the 'don’t-report' rule even as suspects are arrested and in some cases schools are closed?"

 

CHECK LIST FOR COVERING BOMB THREATS

 

•  You should ask yourself the following questions: What is my journalistic duty in reporting this story? What do our viewers need to know? What is the threat to life or property? What are the consequences of the event itself? How significant is the evacuation and the interruption of normal life in your community? What is the impact this event has on law enforcement or emergency crew's ability to respond to other calls? What else is this story about? What is the story behind the story? (In some cases, racial slurs and were sprayed on school walls.)

 

•  Think about the possible consequences of your actions and decisions. Reporting a false threat could lead to copycat threats. Reporting arrests might discourage such threats by showing the consequences for threatening others. However, reporting a bomb threat may raise the public's level of insecurity even when it is not warranted. Repeated broadcasting of bomb hoaxes can have the effect of 'crying wolv with the public becoming less responsive when actual danger arises. However, reporting on the volume and range of threats could inform our viewers and listeners about the pressures our police and schools officials are under. It could be important for the public to understand why officials react as they do.

 

•  Be careful about the tone of your coverage. Avoid words like “chaos”, 'terror" and “mayhem”; they are subjective words. Play it straight. Tone down your teases, leads and graphics. The tone of what you report should not contradict the careful reporting of facts you include in your stories.

Think carefully before 'going live" in covering these stories. You have less editorial control in live situations. The emphasis on "live" may warp the attention these stories deserve.

 

 

 

•   Think carefully about the placement of the story in your newscast. A lead story carries different weight from a story that is deeper in the newscast. How can you justify the positioning of your coverage?

 

•   Cover the process more than the events. What thought are you giving to the bigger issues involved in this story? How easy is it for schools, the phone company or cops to track down a threatening caller? How seriously are violators treated? Have you ever followed one of these cases through the legal system to find out what happens? How many bomb threats did police handle last year? How many resulted in prosecution? How many of those prosecuted went to jail or were actually punished? What was the extent of the punishment? Do your schools have caller ID systems in place? Do they or should they record incoming phone calls?

 

•   Minimize harm-we sometimes cause harm in the process of performing our journalistic duty, but it should only be harm we can justify. Special care should be given when covering juveniles. You should carefully consider whether placing a prank phone call warrants naming a juvenile. In one instance, a TV station could not talk with the juvenile suspected of placing the prank phone call, so the station interviewed the suspect's teen-age brother. What harm do we cause by sending a news photographer to a school that has been threatened by a caller?

 

•   How do you explain your decisions to your staff How much discussion have you had in your newsroom about your coverage before and after an event? What experts or persons outside your newsroom could you contact for their perspectives about how you should treat this story? Thoughtful stations hold these conversations about coverage before they are faced with a crisis. Front-end decision-making that includes many voices in the conversation results in fuller and more thoughtful coverage.

 

•    Do you explain your decisions to your viewers? Do you justify the position of the story in the newscast? If you decide to name minors do you tell your audience why? Do you explain your decision to run certain information or why you choose to leave information out?

 

These guidelines are included in the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF) workbook for electronic news managers, reporters and -producers. The guidelines were created by Al Tompkin, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, St. Petersburg, FL.

 

The RTNDF workbook contains television and radio case studies, guidelines for difficult decisions and sample codes of ethics. The workbook, video and audio tape are distributed at RTNDF's 'Newsroom Ethics: Decision-Making for (2uality Coverage Workshops." For more information about RTNDF's journalism Ethics project contact Kathleen Graham, 202.467.5216.

 

 

 

 

The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation

Lessons from Littleton, RTNDA99

 

Guidelines for Covering Hostage-Taking Crises, Police Raids, Prison Uprisings, Terrorist Actions

In covering an ongoing crisis situation, journalists are advised to:

 

•  Always assume that the hostage taker, gunman or terrorist has access to the reporting. •  Avoid describing with words or showing with still photography and video any information that could divulge the tactics or positions of SWAT team members.

 

•  Fight the urge to become a player in any standoff, hostage situation or terrorist incident Journalists should become personally involved only as a last resort and with the explicit approval of top news management and the consultation of trained hostage negotiators on the scene.

 

•  Be forthright with viewers, listeners or readers about why certain information is being withheld if security reasons are involved.

 

•  Seriously weigh the benefits to the public of what information might be given out versus what potential harm that information might cause. This is especially important in live reporting of an ongoing situation.

 

•  Strongly resist the temptation to telephone a gunman or hostage taker. Journalists generally are not trained in negotiation techniques and one wrong question or inappropriate word could jeopardize someone's life. Furthermore, just calling in could tie up telephone lines or otherwise complicate conunuriication efforts of the negotiators.

 

•  Notify authorities immediately if a hostage taker or terrorist calls the newsroom. Also, have a plan ready for how to respond.

 

•  Challenge any gut reaction to 'go live" from the scene of a hostage-taking crisis, unless there are strong journalistic reasons for a live, on-the-scene report. Things can go wrong very quickly in a live report, endangering lives or damaging negotiations. Furthermore, ask ff the value of a live, on-the-scene report is really justifiable compared to the harm that could occur.

 

•  Give no information, factual or speculative, about a hostage taker's mental condition, state of mind, or reasons for actions while a standoff is in progress. The value of such information to the audience is limited, and the possibility of such characterizations exacerbating an already dangerous situation are quite real.

 

•  Give no analysis or comments on a hostage taker's or terrorist's demands. As bizarre or ridiculous (or even legitimate) as such demands may be, it is important that negotiators take all demands seriously.

 

•  Keep news helicopters out of the area where the standoff is happening, as their noise can create communication problems for negotiators and their presence could scare a gunman to deadly action.

 

•  Do not report information obtained from police scanners. If law enforcement personnel and negotiators are compromised in their communications, their attempts to resolve a crisis are greatly complicated

 

•  Be very cautious in any reporting on the medical condition of hostages until after a crisis is concluded. Also, be cautious when interviewing hostages or released hostages while a crisis continues.

 

•  Exercise care when interviewing family members or friends of those involved' in standoff situations. Make sure the interview legitimately advances the story for the public and is not simply conducted for the shock value of the emotions conveyed or as a conduit for the interviewee to transmit messages to specific individuals.

 

•  Go beyond the basic story of the hostage taking or standoff to report on the larger issues behind the story, be it the how and why of what happened, reports on the preparation and execution of the SWAT team, or the issues related to the incident.

 

In covering a pending raid or law enforcement action, journalists are advised to:

 

Be extremely cautious to not compromise the secrecy of officials' planning and execution. If staking out a location where a -raid wiU occur or ff accompanying officers, your reporters and photographers should demonstrate great caution in how they act, where they go, and what clues they might inadvertently give that might compromise the execution of the raid. They should check and double-check planning efforts.

These guidelines are included in the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF) workbook for electronic news managers, reporters and producers.

 

 

The guidelines were created by Bob Steele, The Poynter Imtitute for Media Studies, St. Petersburg, FL.

 

The RTNDF workbook contains television and radio case studies, guidelines for difficult decisions and sample codes of ethics. The workbook, video and audio tape are distributed at RTNDF's 'Newsroom Ethics: Decision-Making for Quality Coverage Workshops." For more information about RTNDF's journalism Ethics project contact Kathleen Graham, 202-467.5216.

 

 

 

 

The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation

Lessons from Littleton, RTNDA99

 

Guidelines for Interviewing Juveniles

 

Understanding how young people see the world around them often demands that we hear what they have to say. Adults are not the only ones with worthy views of news. But interviewing young people rai§es some of the most challenging challenging questions faced by journalists.

 

Especially in breaking news situations, juveniles may not be able to recognize the ramifications of what they say to themselves or to others. Journalists should be especially careful in interviewing juveniles LIVE because such live coverage is more difficult to control and edit.

 

Jjuveniles also should be given greater privacy protection than adults during live and taped interviews.

 

The journalist must weigh the journalistic duty of “seeking truths and reporting them as fully as possible" against the need to minimize any harm that might come to a juvenile in the collection of information.

 

What alternatives can you use instead of interviewing a child on tape? What rules or guidelines does your news organization have about interviewing juveniles? Do those guidelines change ff the juvenile is a suspect in a crime and not a victim?

 

What protocols should your newsroom consider for live coverage that could involve juveniles? How would you justify your decision to include this juvenile in your story to your newsroom; to viewers or listeners; to the juvenile's parents?

 

When interviewing juveniles, journalists should consider:

 

•  Journalistic purpose and quality of information. What is my journalistic purpose in interviewing this juvenile? Does my need to involve them in the story outweigh the potential risk to them?

 

•  What is the juvenile's understanding or ability to understand how viewers or listeners might perceive the interview? Are you gathering information for a story or planning to broadcast the interview? If so, does the juvenile understand how the interview will be used? Will it be shown on television or heard on the radio? Will it be live? Will the child's face be shown? Will you broadcast his/her voice?

 

•  How mature is this juvenile? How aware is he/she of the ramifications of his/her comments?

 

•  What motivation does the juvenile have in cooperating with this interview or requesting it?

 

•   How do you know that what this young person says is true? How much of what this child says does he/she know first-hand? How able is she to put what he/she knows into context? Do others, adults, know the same information? How can you corroborate the juvenile's information?

 

•   How clearly have you identified yourself to the juvenile? Does he/ she know he/ she is talking to a television or a radio reporter?

 

•   Are you using words the juvenile understands? Are you explaining concepts that might be unfamiliar?

 

•   What harm can you cause by asking questions or taking pictures of the juvenile, even if you never include the interview or pictures in a story? What harm can you cause by broadcasting the juvenile's voice on the radio? Have you taken precautions in your story to protect the child's and his/her family's privacy, and to avoid associating the child with the negative aspects of the story, such as a crime?

 

•   How would you react if you were the parent of this child? What would your concerns be and how would you want to be included in the decision about whether the child is included in a news story?

 

•   How can you include a parent or guardian in the decision to interview a juvenille? What effort have you made to secure parental permission for the child to be included in a news story? Is it possible to have the parent/ guardian present during the course of the interview? What are the parents' motivations for allowing the child to be interviewed or for requesting an interview?

 

•   If you conclude that parental consent is not required, give the child your business card so the parents can contact you if they have an objection to the interview being used.

 

•   What are the legal issues you should consider, such as the legal age of consent in your state?

 

•   The Golden Rule for interviewing children: "Do unto other people's kids as you would have them do unto your kids.' (From participants of 'Children, Families, and Social Issues Seminar"-The Poynter Institute 1998)

 

These guidelines are included in the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF) workbook for electronic news managers, reporters and producers.

 

The guidelines were created by Al Tompkins, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, St. Petersburg, FL.

 

The RTNDF workbook contains television and radio case studies, guidelines for difficult decisions and sample codes of ethics. The workbook, video and audio tape are distributed at RTNDF's 'Newsroom Ethics: Decision-Making for Quality Coverage Workshops." For more information about RTNDF's journalism Ethics project contact Kathleen Graham, 202.467.5216.

 

 

Note: The video appendices in the accompanying file are from the CD Rom, Columbine High School Shootings, April 20, 1999, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Report, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, 2000.