TV helps him die in the spotlight

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By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 12, 2001

As the nation's TV outlets wallowed in a trough of emotionalism and tragedy while covering Timothy McVeigh's execution, you couldn't help wondering: Who exactly came out on top here?

Was it network television's morning news shows, which pushed aside their usual mix of celebrity interviews and diet tips for hours of coverage Monday featuring blast survivors, family members, attorneys, friends, counselors, ex-wardens and anybody else even remotely connected to the case?

Was it the survivors, family members and friends of those killed in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, who somehow managed to remain courageous, thoughtful, precise and insightful, despite the media circus that enveloped them?

Or was it McVeigh himself, who once said that his brazen act would burn in our memories long after his death?

Sure, NBC and ABC tried to sidestep his shadow by sending Today show anchor Katie Couric and Good Morning America host Charles Gibson to Oklahoma City instead of the Terre Haute, Ind., prison where McVeigh met his fate. (Jane Clayson, lightweight co-anchor of CBS's The Early Show, did make the trip to Indiana).

And none of the big network TV anchors -- Rather, Brokaw or Jennings -- participated much in Monday morning's coverage -- perhaps TV's lackluster attempt to have its wall-to-wall reportage while pretending to hold back a little.

The three big networks also ran long tributes, backed by sentimental music, featuring the photos, names and ages of all 168 people McVeigh killed (ABC also aired a video diary assembled by three relatives of people who died in the blast).

But in an age of media saturation, nothing could take the spotlight from the execution of America's most successful domestic terrorist.

Just as he wanted.

Hobbled by an insatiable appetite for emotion, headlines and melodrama, the nation's TV news outlets couldn't help but play along, despite a towering complication: No one had a scrap of footage showing the main event.

Most of the big networks began continuous coverage with the 7 a.m. start of their morning shows -- already prime venues for the mix of emotionalism and somber reportage that this story would require. Cable outlets CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, C-Span and Court TV also offered extensive reports.

Locally, WTSP-Ch. 10 dug up a 1999 interview with McVeigh's mother, Mickey Hill -- replaying controversial comments in which she downplayed her son's crime by saying"there are more people killed in a plane crash than in Oklahoma City." The station admitted it couldn't track down Hill for new quotes; she had moved away from her Pensacola home after WTSP's initial story aired.

To its credit, local Fox affiliate WTVT-Ch. 13, perhaps aware that much of this coverage was available elsewhere, didn't begin airing the network's wall-to-wall reports until around the official announcement of McVeigh's execution.

"I was glad to see him die," said a tearful Gloria Chipman, whose husband, Robert, was killed in the bombing, speaking to a Fox News Channel camera recording her sorrow. "And I'm sorry to say that."

A wide parade of talking heads also made the rounds, including lawyer Alan Dershowitz ("The U.S. government became the instrument of McVeigh's assisted suicide," he told Good Morning America). Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno denounced McVeigh as a coward while speaking to NBC's Today show by satellite from Miami.

Predictably, the all-news cable channels dived deep into the McVeigh story with 3-D computer models of the execution chamber and point-by-point descriptions of the execution. CNN's Christiane Amanpour noted protests from many of our European allies that have already banned capital punishment.

With no footage from the execution, TV outlets instead aired a news conference with 10 media observers who watched McVeigh's death, featuring a mix of TV and print types that showed how differently people -- even trained journalists -- can see the same event.

CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts said that McVeigh "died with his eyes open." Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith recalled how McVeigh strained to see the assembled journalists and seemed to have lost his trademark arrogance.

"The atmosphere in the press room was almost one of wonderment," noted Linda Cavanaugh, a reporter for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, "watching a man die in front of you."

ABC News made the biggest gaffe of the morning, accidentally displaying a false final quote from McVeigh saying his execution made it "168 to one." Anchor Diane Sawyer apologized for the mistake; producers prepared the quote after being tipped off that McVeigh might use those words before his death (he actually said nothing).

Despite the length and breadth of coverage Monday morning -- Fox ducked out at 9 a.m. for Live With Regis and Kelly, ABC hung in until 9:30 a.m. and NBC wrapped up with the 10 a.m. end of Today -- the lack of execution footage seemed both odd and fitting.

Odd because, in an age where everything from Survivor's pig killing to President Bill Clinton's admission of marital infidelity has been televised, seeing this extreme act of government shielded from public view felt a little backward, perhaps even cowardly.

Fitting, because the media's frenetic coverage of everything around Monday's execution -- including endless replays of footage showing blast survivors and rescue workers stumbling through wreckage -- mirrored our own squeamishness and ambivalence about the death penalty.

Once again, TV news excels most at telling us what we want to hear.

- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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