Covering a Massacre

When Charles Whitman began his 96-minute reign of death last week, it was 11:48 a.m. Within five minutes, Austin's TV and radio station KTBC aired the first bulletin on what turned out to be the biggest Texas news story since the Kennedy assassination.

Because the station, owned by Lady Bird Johnson and her daughters, is affiliated with all three major networks, KTBC initially found itself responsible not only to the community but to the nation as well. Seconds after the first bulletin, the station tipped off U.P.I to the story, then readied a brief voice report for the noon CBS-TV newscast. Meanwhile it was rushing crews to the scene. At 12:20, TV News Director Neal Spelce began nearly two hours of live telecasting from near the tower.

Warnings to stay away and pleas for blood peppered Spelce's running account. Photographer-Reporter John Thawley abandoned his camera and raced out to help rescue wounded victims while bullets spattered around him. He was not hit. (The only newsman who was: A.P.'s Robert Heard, shot in the left shoulder.) Meanwhile the story was prompting calls to KTBC from as far away as Canada requesting brief radio reports. With incredible patience, station staffers provided 250 different such "line feeds." It never hindered their own coverage. Police identified the dead Whitman at 1:24; a KTBC reporter had the news at 1:25.

Almost without exception, other Austin newsmen had also done well. Ten minutes after the first report, the afternoon Statesman had seven reporters on the University of Texas campus, put an issue on the streets by 2:45 with a full rundown from start to Whitman's finish. Next day the Statesman's morning partner, the American, devoted five pages to the story.

But KTBC's far-flung service earned the widest applause. "We are not normally a blood-and-guts operation," Spelce hastened to explain afterwards. "This is a state government, state university-conscious town. It was the first time in years we have shown a closeup of a dead body." But, he also said, "this was a highly unusual day for us."

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