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09/12/07
Panel: LR Central crisis provided defining moment for reporters
By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- The 1957 desegregation crisis at
Little Rock Central High School provided a first, defining
event for reporters covering the coming years of the civil-right
struggle, members of a panel examining the news coverage said
Wednesday.
The panel discussions came on the opening night of an exhibit
of documents and photographs outlining how The Associated
Press covered the crisis. The exhibit, "With All Deliberate
Speed: The AP in Little Rock," includes letters and memos
from reporters and editors throughout the country on the AP
coverage.
Fifty years ago this month, Gov. Orval Faubus used the Arkansas
National Guard to block nine black students from enrolling
at all-white Central High School. Crowds gathered outside
of the school, taunting the youngsters as they attempted to
enter. President Eisenhower ultimately sent in the 101st Airborne
Division to enforce a judge's order for integration, setting
off one of the first crises of the civil-rights era.
The AP sent Relman "Pat" Morin, a war correspondent
and Pulitzer Prize winner, to help cover the growing crisis
in Little Rock. On Sept. 23, 1957, Morin was one of the few
to see the nine black students enter the school for the first
time, the girls "dressed in bobby sox" and the boys
in "shirts open at the neck."
Morin also watched the angry, cursing crowd, dictating stories
from a nearby telephone booth. His short, descriptive sentences
ended up on newspaper front pages across the nation and world,
winning him another Pulitzer.
"Because he was in the right telephone booth, he could
give a second-by-second, minute-by-minute account of what
was going on," said Gene Roberts, a former managing editor
at The New York Times. "At one point ... the crowd saw
him dictating the story and came over and started shaking
the phone booth. Pat Morin was unperturbed. He just matter-of-factly
dictated his story."
However, race coverage went beyond local editors tearing AP
copy from noisy teletype machines, said David R. Davies, a
dean at the University of Southern Mississippi. He said the
story pitted editors against each other at regional and smaller
newspapers.
"The central tenet of journalism going back 100 years
is objectivity, that the facts can make up the story,"
Davies said. "But journalists saw, as (Arkansas Gazette
editor) Harry Ashmore put it, putting the words of the devil
and the words of a saint side-by-side don't necessarily match
up to the truth."
Central High also provided many television reporters their
first opportunity to cover race issues. Roberts, who wrote
a Pulitzer Prize winning book that examines civil-rights coverage,
called "The Race Beat," said the crowds provided
images and sounds to homes across the nation.
"America, over its hamburger and spaghetti, was open-mouthed
over what was happening," Roberts said.
Kathryn Johnson, a former AP civil rights reporter who covered
the movement from Atlanta, talked about befriending the family
of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. after giving him a ride
home after a speech. After his death, Johnson was the only
reporter allowed inside King's home, allowing her to see tears
fall down Coretta King's face as news of her husband's death
played across a bedroom television.
Johnson said she helped the family go through condolence telegrams
and even cooked for the children the day of the funeral as
Jacqueline Kennedy walked into the house.
"The only reason she shook my hand was because she probably
thought I was the Kings' white maid," Johnson said.
More than 240 people attended the panel discussion, held in
the Great Hall of the Clinton Presidential Center. One of
those there was Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock
Nine, whose calm walk past a screaming white crowd was immortalized
in a news photograph.
Eckford told an AP reporter she questioned if "the black
press was invited" to speak, as everyone on the panel
was white. However, she said there some comments that were
"more candid than they might have been 10 years ago."
Ellen Hale, a spokeswoman for the AP attending the event,
said the panel included Johnson, a confidant of the King family.
Hale described Johnson as one of "our dominant reporters
covering the civil-rights movement."
The AP exhibit at the Clinton School of Public Service will
be on display through the end of October.
___
On the Net:
The Associated Press: http://www.ap.org
University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service: http://www.clintonschool.uasys.edu/
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