Ghetto News

It was no ordinary press junket. The 15 newsmen paid their own way on a chartered Boeing 737, and each day for a week they visited a different big-city black ghetto, from Cleveland to Watts. Organized by Whitney Young, executive director of the Urban League, the tour included Washington Post Editorial Writer Ben Gilbert, Columnists William F. Buckley Jr. and Joseph Kraft, Newsweek Editor Osborne Elliott, John Herbers of the New York Times, and TIME Washington Correspondent Jess Cook. Cook's report:

Young explained to us before the trip began that "I felt that before I really unleashed all my feelings about the media, I really ought to make one more try." He called it a "sensitizing tour," and organized it partly to convince the national press that he has moved the league into a position of greater militancy and cooperation with grass-roots black movements. Far more important, he wanted to expose this group to the physical setting, the chaotic swirl of self-help activity and the continuing problems of the nation's depressed areas. The result was a bewildering, moving, and highly educational experience.

Sociological v. Practical. At each stop, we were met by guides from local black organizations and escorted through schools, economic projects and job training centers, as well as into homes and bars at night for "rap" sessions that lasted well into the morning. In Chicago, we listened to Jesse Jackson, heir-apparent to leadership in Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In Cleveland's Hough ghetto, the group stayed with families in ghetto apartments. In San Francisco, a motel manager emptied enough rooms of prostitutes to crowd the group in--and got himself beaten up by their pimps in return. The pimps who stayed were anxious to talk, mostly about police abuse of their rights. Bill Buckley listened for a while before informing them that "there's a contradiction between the sociological and practical approach to this situation." There were other good-natured exchanges, though, as when one hipster patiently explained to Buckley that "high siding" means having fun.

More frequently, the tourists were greeted with suspicion, hostility and a feeling of frustration with the national and local press. Leading the travelers into a Watts toy factory, Robert Hall, co-founder of Operation Bootstrap, announced: "I've brought some big newsmen along so they can write some more about what's not going on." One Watts resident was not having any: "We're tired of being treated as news fodder," she said. "Why are you here?" Atlantic's Michael Curtis answered: "Don't you think there is some value in finding out what the problem is?" Practically in chorus, the audience responded angrily, "Baby, everyone knows what the problem is."

Much of this was conscious baiting, but even more of it was an expression of frustration at endless stories and reports followed by little or no action. As LIFE's Jack Rosenthal noted, "The frustration is not so much with the press as with the public, which doesn't respond. There is a natural tendency to blame the messenger for failure to get the message across." Some reporters refused to be drawn into the arguments. "I refuse to bore you with my opinions," Bill Buckley remarked imperiously to one hostile audience. But the continual hostility brought out occasional flashes of anger in other reporters anxious to defend the press. At one dinner Look's George Leonard, author of numerous sympathetic studies of the ghetto, finally exploded at accusations: "Goddammit, that isn't true. The press has told it like it is time and again. Why haven't you read my stories?" He banged his fist on the table. One black tried to soothe him: "There's no use you getting frustrated, too. After all, our survival is involved." Immediately, another yelled: "No, goddammit, I've been frustrated all my life. Why shouldn't they be frustrated a little while?"

One of the most bristling receptions was at the headquarters of the San Francisco State College Black Student Union, where minds were closed even to angry give and take. "There are only two places the media people have been at," announced one of the hosts. "Racism and nowhere." That was as deep as that particular dialogue ever went. The meeting was of value only as a measure of the consuming bitterness of the extremists. The Oakland Black Panthers went even further, canceling their meeting at the last moment unless they were offered a fee.

Surprising Unity. It is doubtful that the journalists' good intentions changed the black mood of making demands, which has both a tactical and a cathartic value. Robert Hall, after a day of putting on and putting down his guests, admitted when pressed: "Yes. I suppose I feel that there's hope. But why should I say that to you guys?"

The reporters agreed that they had learned quite a lot. "I'm an editor," Michael Curtis reflected, "and my job is behind the desk. This brought me jowl to jowl with people and places I would otherwise have never seen. These people have decided to take charge of their own lives." Said John Herbers, a veteran civil rights reporter: "The situation changes so fast you have to keep going back. I was surprised at the extent of activity in these communities. Also surprising was the unity among them on what their purpose is, despite organizational fragmentation."

The ghetto is not yet ready to throw the white newsman out. But if this tour proved anything, it is that that time may be getting nigh.

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