Shoe-Leather Man

New York's 25-member city council was badgered into an unprecedented special session this week because of the insistent door-pounding of a short (5 ft. 7 1/2in.), scurrying radio-TV reporter who feels there is nothing wrong with electronic journalism that a lot of shoe-leather reporting cannot cure.

The busy badger: WRCA's Gabriel Pressman, 33, who a fortnight ago plunked his camera equipment and crew down before a public hearing at City Hall in defiance of the city council's ban on TV. Ordered out, Reporter Pressman replied: "You'll have to eject us." Then he tried to force the council's hand by asking it to vote on whether he could remain. Pressman's request was denied; he and his crew were bounced by the sergeant at arms. But the furor brought top New York broadcasting brass together for a showdown with the council.

It was not the first time that able, intense Gabe Pressman has made trouble for the authorities. Touring Europe on a Pulitzer traveling scholarship at 24, Columbia Graduate Pressman tried to crash the trial of Hungarian Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, was told there were no seats left. He produced pictures showing empty seats in the courtroom and was admitted, one of the two U.S. correspondents at the trial (the other: U.P.'s Ed Korry). Back in the U.S., Pressman got a job as a City Hall reporter for the New York World-Telegram, then, 2 1/2 years ago, joined NBC's Manhattan station WRCA to become its first roving radio-TV reporter. "I've covered everything from the Andrea Doria sinking to the catching of a boa constrictor in a Bronx supermarket," says Pressman, who packs a 20-lb. tape recorder as habitually as a city room legman packs a batch of copy paper. "I'm not out to prove I'm superman but to show there's a need in radio and television for on-the-spot coverage." On call round the clock, he averages an 80-to go-hour workweek, has broadcast more than 2,500 on-the-spot news stories. One of the best: an eyewitness account of a 1955 Harlem gun battle between Manhattan cops and a cornered fugitive.

When news breaks, Reporter Pressman roars to the scene in the station's Ford Thunderbird or Chevrolet station wagon, both of which are equipped with telephone and recording equipment. "These give reporting a new dimension," says Pressman. "Local news broadcasting has suffered too long from slavish dependence on wire services. It has its own tremendous advantage of personalization and immediacy."

Since his eviction from City Hall, New York City's councilmen have given him two old-fashioned reasons for their action. "They say TV coverage is 'disruptive' and the council members will 'ham it up,' " he explains. "I told them their ethics and integrity ought to be a matter for them to work out with themselves. But it was no dice. Now I feel it's my missionary duty to see this thing through." This week the council invited Pressman and representatives of all three networks to a formal session devoted to the admission of radio-TV crews to cover all sessions.

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