Officials to Media: Verify Stories

By Rita Ciolli | STAFF WRITER

September 15, 2001

City officials criticized the media Friday for reporting inaccurate stories about miracle rescues and actual arrests, while reporters and news directors complained of the unusual difficulty of verifying information in the chaos surrounding the aftermath of the terrorist attack.

"If we could all be a little more patient and verify information before we put it out, we won't raise hopes unnecessarily and we won't create a situation in which decisions are made that can endanger lives," said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at a news briefing.

Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen was harsher in talking about erroneous reports Thursday that five firefighters were found alive in a buried sport utility vehicle and that up to 10 police officers were found alive under a collapsed tower. In these instances, TV reporters, often more than 10 blocks from the site, used information from interviews with rescue workers.

"Because someone has a coat on with a yellow stripe and it is black, you should not assume that person is speaking for the New York City fire department," said Von Essen, ordering firefighters not to talk to the media. "It is not helpful," he said. "You're not doing your brother firefighter or anyone else at the scene any good."

Later in the day, Tom Antenen, NYPD's deputy commissioner for public information, said, "What's happened here is that none of those rumors that have swept through the media have proved to be factual. Not one. Not one."

But members of the media said they are trying their best. "What we are doing is double and triple checking everything that is going on to make sure the information is accurate. But it's hard," said Dan Foreman, news director of WABC/7. "Sometimes their people don't have the information, or communications are down. And sometimes, frankly, the officials are unwilling to get you the information."

Reporters also suggested that police were keeping them too far away from the Trade Center site. And they noted that while they usually have access to a police press office with about 20 public information officers on each shift, there is only one cell phone line available to that office now.

Compounding the usual adversary relationship between media and city officials was the destruction of the city's emergency operation center at 7 World Trade Center. Now when reporters locate an official spokesman for one of the agencies, the official has no way to contact the scene to get an answer.

Marsha Kramer, a reporter for WCBS/2, said it was impossible to "call ground zero" to get confirmation of what was happening. "So when two or three rescue people, guys coming directly out of the pit, tell you something, you are going to believe them." She noted that WCBS corrected the SUV survival story as soon as an official denial was made.

Emergency officials said late Friday afternoon that the city was establishing a new, improved command center.

Francis McCarton, a spokesman for the Office of Emergency Management, said the current command center will move to a larger location with more telephones and personnel. But he said "the media needs to take a step back and give us a chance to confirm things."

Staff writers Graham Rayman, Joshua Robin, Sean Gardiner and Hugo Kugiya contributed to this report.