Home Videotape at 11!--Newsworthy or Not

Is this the way it’s going to be in the post-Rodney G. King era--endless home videos of acrimonious police arrests showing up in newscasts regardless of their news value? Will camcorders usurp the role of police review boards?

If so, the trend is off to a roaring start.

On the screen, a young police officer is nervously aiming his baton in a threatening manner and occasionally swinging it at a big-bellied giant of a man who is moving around on the ground, seemingly under duress, sometimes raising his arms in a defensive position. The officer even delivers a kick.

The LAPD vs. Rodney G. King?

No. This time the setting is not Los Angeles but just north of Santa Cruz, and the suspect is not a black motorist subdued after a high-speed chase but 44-year-old George Nichols, a white man being arrested last July in connection with a child molestation investigation. Later, Nichols was found to be wrongly accused, and he is now threatening to sue the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department, which has denied using excessive force on him.

The incident was partially captured on a camcorder operated by Nichols’ wife. The videotape surfaced just about everywhere on TV this week, as if its mere existence made it worthy of being telecast.

In advance of the footage being shown Wednesday on KCAL Channel 9, anchor Pat Harvey read this headline: “Sheriff’s deputy arrests and beats the wrong man.” And on CNN, anchor Frank Cesno said that the video showed a sheriff’s deputy “beating a suspect.” CNN made it a twosome Wednesday by coupling this story with its update on the King case, and in doing so seemed to be saying that the King and Nichols incidents were closely related, if not interchangeable.

Hardly, it appears. Instead, this looks like a case of guilt by association.

If there were anything approaching a beating or police brutality in this latest incident, there was no evidence of that on the video. It showed Deputy Todd Liberty striking Nichols only a few times--and seemingly in response to Nichols’ refusal to obey Liberty’s commands to get prone on the ground.

In contrast, George Holliday’s videotape of the King incident is quite shocking. Unlike that video, in which King at times appears to be helpless on the ground while being clobbered by baton-wielding police officers, Nichols can be clearly seen sitting and moving around while being shouted at and then struck by Liberty. Based solely on what the video shows, Liberty appeared to be acting properly in using the level of force that he did.

There are two separate issues here, one being the wrongful arrest of Nichols, who was ultimately taken into custody on a charge of obstructing an investigation. The charge was later dropped. That’s a story that could have been reported without the video.

The second issue--the one raised by airing the video--is that of alleged excessive force on the part of Liberty, and it is not directly related to the first. One could conclude from the videotape that Nichols could have avoided being hit by cooperating with Liberty and settling the molestation allegation later.

There was no word on why the Nichols video was released to TV at this time. Some observers feel that the move may have been instigated by proponents of review boards for both the Santa Cruz police and sheriff’s departments. If so, they knew that TV would bite.

TV news executives rarely pass up a good picture showing lots of action. Yet there is nothing on this latest videotape that appears to be particularly incriminating. That being the case, there is no justification for showing it, even if Nichols was being wrongly accused. With camcorders and anti-police feeling both on the rise, the times demand sensitivity by the media, not self-serving, knee-jerk news judgment.

Late but Live: “You’re looking at a man who is floating down the Rio Hondo Wash.” That was Linda Alvarez as she anchored KNBC Channel 4’s live chopper’s-eye-view of Wednesday afternoon’s dramatic rescues of two teen-agers from the turbulent, swift-moving waters during a flash flood. Cutting into its syndicated “Jenny Jones” talk show, Channel 4 was the only Los Angeles station to cover the rescues live.

Well, sort of. Shortly after 3 p.m., KABC-TV Channel 7 responded to Channel 4’s competitive advantage by cutting into “The Oprah Winfrey Show” for live chopper coverage of where the second of the two rescues had occurred about 10 minutes earlier.

Thus, viewers were treated to pictures of, well, water. But, most significantly, they were live pictures.

And later that night on Channel 9’s newscasts at 8, 9 and 10, there was Joe Avellar reporting live in the dark from the spot in El Monte where the last rescue had taken place--a mere six to eight hours earlier.

If you need to be reminded why Channel 9 and other stations engage in these charades, it’s because they believe that affixing a “live” label to a news report conveys immediacy and excitement.

Anything for a show.

A One an’ a Two: Speaking of shows, that’s the agenda for “Southern California’s Most Wanted,” the KCBS-TV Channel 2 “Action News” crime segments whose reliance on tingly, dramatic music appears to violate 12-year-old written standards for CBS newscasts.

It’s a gray area whether using a camera to re-create crime scenes--as “Southern California’s Most Wanted” does--constitutes a violation of CBS news rules against staging news. However, network policy on music in newscasts is much clearer, specifically banning its inclusion in hard-news stories “for aesthetic background purposes.”

Exceptions to the no-music policy include “historical” documentaries. But if segments of “Southern California’s Most Wanted” are historical documentaries, then Saddam Hussein is Mother Teresa.

Music and news are incompatible, and for a very good reason. Music alters perceptions; it puts a spin on reality. In the case of “Southern California’s Most Wanted,” it creates a false sense of drama that has no place in a newscast.

News should be reported and interpreted, not dramatized.

Most Wanted: Not by Channel 2, which inexplicably refused to renew his contract recently. But award-winning reporter Chris Blatchford has signed with Fox-owned KTTV Channel 11. The hiring of Blatchford and gavel-to-gavel telecasting of the Rodney King beating trial are optimistic signs that Fox magnate Rupert Murdoch may not be the quite the tawdry news monster he’s made out to be.