Trap at Wounded Knee

Any sharp confrontation between dissidents and authority makes journalists vulnerable to attack. The American Indian Movement's takeover of Wounded Knee has provided a classic case study. "It could have been settled in a week if it weren't for this horde [of reporters]," argued Interior Department Aide Charles Seller. Said Assistant Deputy Attorney General Charles Ablard: "The press has created a climate of undue sympathy for AIM." Sioux Tribal Council President Dick Wilson, whose resignation AIM leaders demanded, excoriated newsmen covering the occupied village for responding "only to dramatic violence and anarchy." Last week this criticism received an unlikely echo--from some of the newsmen on the scene.

Wounded Knee had become a kind of trap, particularly for television. It was obviously a major event that demanded thorough coverage. AIM leaders were so successful in getting their side of the story across, and so enthralled by the attention they were receiving, that they seemed willing to prolong the deadlock for the sake of still more publicity. Most newsmen watched helplessly as the thin line between covering and creating news wavered.

"The story has been managed all along," said NBC Correspondent Fred Briggs. A wire-service photographer went further: "We've definitely prolonged the thing." NBC Cameraman Houston Hall agreed, attributing the continued large-scale coverage to the public relations skills of AIM leaders. Indeed, AIM'S Russell Means, for example, cannily orchestrated events within Wounded Knee for the press's benefit. "Cameras over here," he called out one afternoon, directing photographers to where bunkers were being enlarged. Then AIM forces "arrested" four men attempting to enter their compound. Released a few minutes later, the men were paraded at gun point with their hands up past whirring cameras, then let go. Learning that one photographer missed a shot of the men leaving, AIM guards forced the "prisoners" to re-enact their release.

"I first started feeling the Indians were staging things on March 7," said ABC Producer Bill Brown. "While they were waiting for negotiations to continue, young Indians gathered in the tribal council house and lit a bonfire. It was 60DEG outside." Brown also thinks that on several occasions newsmen's questions influenced the improvised policy of AIM spokesmen. At one meeting, Brown recalled, "I put the question to them: 'Are you setting up a provisional government?' " Shortly afterward AIM leaders declared Wounded Knee the Oglala Nation.

The cooperation accorded the press by Means and AIM Leader Dennis Banks contrasted sharply with the behavior of the other principals. Chief Wilson made little attempt to clarify his position and was often inaccessible. Federal officials on the scene vacillated between minimal cooperation and the release of bureaucratic handouts. While newsmen did not slant their dispatches in AIM's favor, many did focus on the colorful material at hand--much of it handily offered by AIM.

Television-news executives in New York admitted the problems posed by Wounded Knee, but defended their coverage. Av Westin, executive producer of ABC Evening News, told his people: "If you think it's staged, identify it or don't use it." One night, Westin recalled, film arrived of the Indians decked out in war paint. "It was greatly pictorial," he said, "but it wasn't germane." NBC News Producer Dick Fischer admitted that "there's always a fear of being manipulated," but also stressed the story's importance: "Indians shooting at marshals. We have to cover that possibility." That may well be true, but the dilemma of newsmen's becoming part of the explosive event they went to cover remains unresolved.

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