Anthrax raises issues for local stations; Scares force news directors to set or change policies

For Michael Sipes, it took the powdered sugar doughnut incident to convince him that yes, an anthrax threat is very much like a bomb threat. On Oct. 12, an NBC News employee tested positive for anthrax, setting off a wild weekend in which public health officials across the country were bombarded with reports of suspicious white powdery substances. And wherever the hazardous-materials truck went, TV news trucks were in hot pursuit. Kansas City was no exception. That Friday, when hazmat responded to a non-emergency call from The Kansas City Star, three news crews covered the incident, including KMBC, Channel 9, where Sipes is the news director. (The white substance in a coin wrapper turned out to be a talcumlike powder routinely used to make coins easier to handle.) Over the next four days the list of possible anthrax reports grew longer and nuttier. Salt found on a restaurant table. Powdered detergent next to a washing machine. The one that beat all, though, was the story of the Overland Park woman who reported an unknown white powder in her backseat just after dropping off her kids at school. Upon questioning, the woman recalled the children had eaten powdered sugar doughnuts that morning. Though at least two TV stations received that report, neither passed it along to viewers. By then it was dawning on local news managers that reporting every anthrax scare might make an already nervous public more jittery - and worse, rouse hoaxsters. "It got to the point Monday where I was about to pull my hair out," Sipes said. "We were feeding unwarranted concern." After three boys were arrested at Indian Hills Middle School in connection with an anthrax hoax, Sipes drew the line. On Tuesday he told Channel 9 staffers not to air anthrax reports unless someone tests positive. (That hasn't happened in the Kansas City area.) Yet Sipes left open the possibility that the station would report on future anthrax scares if, as in the case of Indian Hills, they proved to be disruptive. "If they're evacuating the Claycomo plant, yes, we'll cover that. But a letter in a mailbox, no," Sipes said. Reaction was similar at the three other local news stations last week, as managers found their philosophy on reporting anthrax scares evolving by the day. By Wednesday the Indian Hills hoax had become the focus. Anthrax the menace was now anthrax the nuisance. "Everybody here is aware of the potential for creating a situation where fake announcements of threats happen," said Don North, news director for KCTV, Channel 5. "We don't report the vast majority of bomb threats, either." Yet several anxiety-filled days passed before this consensus emerged among news managers. Why didn't it seem obvious sooner? The news managers pointed out that hardly anybody knew much about anthrax until two weeks ago, and even then the messages were decidedly mixed. A 1998 report by ABC, which was repeated by other media, reported that "one billionth of a gram of anthrax" could kill. Other outlets, however, emphasized how hard it would be to contaminate one person with anthrax, let alone thousands. This made it hard to put anthrax into perspective. So did the gusto with which area hazmat crews responded to those first anthrax reports. It was no surprise that TV news people would find irresistible the sound of multiple sirens and the sight of emergency trucks rushing to the scene of potential bioterrorism. But these early reports lacked a happy ending - or any ending at all - and this only fueled more fear and more false alarms. "With a bomb scare, the bomb squad goes in, has a look, comes out, says, 'No bomb,' and people go back to work," said Laura Clark, news director of KSHB, Channel 41. "You really can't determine on the scene if it's anthrax or not." Some critics say local newscasters should have known not to cover anthrax threats in the first place. "This was local TV news at its worst," said Craig Allen, an assistant journalism professor at Arizona State University. Allen's opinion carries some weight. A 20-year veteran of local TV news, he often defends his colleagues when other media critics do not. ABC, CBS and NBC had good reason for reporting the anthrax story - they were targets of the anthrax mailers. Newscasters in places like Kansas City, Allen said, had no such excuse. "They localized a national story, and they shouldn't have," Allen said. "They were like lemmings running off the end of a diving board." In his colleagues' defense, KMBC's Sipes noted that these have been trying times for the news media. Since Sept. 11 he has had to reassess his station's policy on everything from images of the World Trade Center attacks to reporting takeoffs of B-2 bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base. "Every time we turn around we have to make an editorial judgment we've never had to make before," Sipes said. It would seem that local TV news is asking its viewers for something TV news rarely displays itself: patience. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com