TV’S HONOR: HOW HIGH A BODY COUNT?

Dying for your country is one thing, but dying for your TV station may be just a tad much to ask.

“A human life is not worth a hostage situation,” said KNBC consumer reporter David Horowitz on Friday, reacting to a decision by his station’s news director that could have placed Horowitz in added peril.

What is KNBC’s integrity worth? One body, two bodies, three, four, a dozen? “I don’t know the answer to that,” news director Tom Capra replied Friday.

On Wednesday, though, Capra made a swift decision that seemed to elevate station honor over the lives of consumer reporter David Horowitz and everyone in the studio--perhaps a dozen people--at a time when Horowitz was forced to read a statement to the camera with a realistic-looking toy gun at his back.

The incident occurred at 4:42 p.m., just as Horowitz was beginning his report on the KNBC newscast.

Gary Stollman, the man pointing a replica of a .45-caliber pistol at Horowitz, had wanted his long, meandering, ambiguous statement read on the air. He threatened to shoot Horowitz if it wasn’t read.

In another room, though, Capra ordered the newscast off the air and replaced first with a network logo and then a series of program promos.

Thus, the statement that Horowitz read did not go on the air, as Stollman could have seen for himself on a nearby in-studio monitor.

Whether he did realize the statement wasn’t being broadcast isn’t known. But if he had, and the gun had been real, perhaps he would have started shooting, wounding or killing Horowitz and others in the studio. Not knowing what Stollman’s reaction would be, Capra took an enormous gamble.

Capra had to make a rapid decision without benefit of hindsight. “I would have acted the same way today,” he said Friday.

“I concur with my news director’s decision,” KNBC general manager John H. Rohrbeck added Friday.

Capra isn’t Ollie North and KNBC isn’t exactly the Marines upholding America’s honor or the White House following a no-deals-with-terrorists policy. It’s a TV station whose civilian employees did not knowingly sign on for hazardous duty.

Wasn’t Capra being callous?

Acting other than he did, he replied, would “send a message to every terrorist in the country that it’s OK to take over television. My first reaction is to not let them take the air, because if you do, they’ll never let you go. Once they’ve started on your air, they never stop. You’ve lost control. If you go black, the situation is under control.”

Tell that to Horowitz and the others who were within range of what everyone thought was Stollman’s real gun.

When Horowitz said at a KNBC press conference Wednesday that Capra’s decision to go black could have cost him his life if Stollman’s gun had been real, Capra replied: “Well, yeah, you could have been killed, but the television station wasn’t held hostage.” Let’s hear it for the old station.

Horowitz added, “I could have died because the television station wasn’t held hostage.” Capra then told him that he could “always get out of the business.”

Suddenly, at KNBC at least, being a consumer reporter is a dangerous assignment.

“His statement speaks for itself,” Horowitz said Friday about Capra. “If he feels that way about human life, what can I tell you? I happen to believe in humanity and the preservation of human life at any costs.”

Rohrbeck said he wasn’t sure that Capra “really created any more risk” by going to black. “If this individual (Stollman) had discovered that we were off the air, more than likely it would have led to a period of negotiation to get him back on and give us more time to get police on for protective action.”

However, Rohrbeck acknowledged that there was no assurance that Stollman would have begun negotiating and not shooting. What’s more, how did reading the statement off the air allow the police more time than they would have had if it had been read on the air? As it turned out, Stollman put the toy gun down after Horowitz finished and was immediately taken into custody.

“I find it amazing that people are questioning (Capra’s decision),” Rohrbeck said. Does his amazement also extend to Horowitz?

“I felt that David understood the reasons why we had to go off the air,” Rohrbeck said. “But I’m sure that a certain reaction may be generated (by Horowitz) that is different for someone that doesn’t have a gun in their back.”

So, it seems that KNBC again would put lives in added jeopardy to satisfy a principle.

“You can’t hand over a broadcasting facility to a terrorist,” Capra said. No one would disagree with that as policy written down on a piece of paper. But reality sometimes intervenes.

Using Capra’s logic, perhaps American journalist Charles Glass should have been willing to take a bullet in the head rather than tape a propaganda statement written for him by his terrorist captors.

Here’s another view. Increase security. But if someone does manage to slip in and threaten everyone there with a gun, let him do what he wants. Let him deface the network logo, read political propaganda, utter obscenities on the air, anything. It’s a small price to pay in valuing human life over station honor.

As Horowitz said: “I don’t want to die for KNBC.”