TV Re-Enactment of Police Shooting Angers Officer

Crouching and pointing his finger like a gun, reporter Paul Bloom dramatically re-created the shooting of San Diego Police Officer Diane Hall for KNSD-TV (Channel 39) viewers on last Monday night. With the camera following him, he strode down the street describing the previous night’s events, finally mimicking Officer Edward Rosenbloom gunning down the 23-year old man who shot Hall.

Watching at home, Rosenbloom was shocked.

“I couldn’t believe someone could re-enact something that people would take as fact, when it was so wrong,” Rosenbloom said. Still angry four days later, he called Bloom’s report a word that can’t be used in a family newspaper.

Rosenbloom reeled off a string of factual inaccuracies in Bloom’s report, including the location where the majority of the incident took place. Most importantly, Bloom said Jimmie Ray Reeves, Jr. shot Hall, who was saved by a bulletproof vest, by crouching over her and firing “point-blank” at her with Rosenbloom’s gun.

In fact, Reeves and Rosenbloom were on the ground locked in a struggle when Reeves fired the gun as many as 13 times.

“He made it sound like I dropped my gun or let him have it,” Rosenbloom said.

Beyond any factual inaccuracies, Rosenbloom was angered by the tone and style of the report, as well as Bloom’s dramatization of events. At the beginning of the report, Bloom said this is “apparently” what happened, but never mentioned any sources.

“To say, this is what happened, this is a re-enactment, to me is saying that it’s factual, when it is not,” Rosenbloom said. “The word re-enactment means redoing a story exactly, at least that’s how I interpret it, that it’s a play by play, instead of saying something like, ‘from the information we’ve received at this point.’

“If you ask me, he was trying to scoop everybody,” Rosenbloom said.

Ironically, Bloom’s reports tend to be generally sympathetic to the police. Homicide Lt. Dan Berglund, who investigated the shooting, called Bloom a good reporter. But Berglund, who agreed with Rosenbloom’s account of the events, also questioned Bloom’s use of the re-enactment technique, a regular feature of Bloom’s “Crime Watch” reports.

A re-creation leaves a “stronger impression” in the viewer’s mind than simply describing events, Berglund said. “People can visualize events, or at least they think they’re visualizing events, when it is often erroneous.”

Even re-creations that are factually accurate can leave the viewer with a false view of events, Berglund pointed out. If an incident that happened at night is re-created during the day, for example, it can give someone a distinctly different impression of events.

“What they are showing the public may provide them with a mental picture of what happened when that is not the case,” Berglund said. “The public may think we’re misleading them, and that bothers me.”

Bloom didn’t return phone calls Friday, but according to Channel 39 News Director Don Shafer, a re-enactment “adds a dramatic edge” to a story. “It makes it more interesting to the viewer.”

Although outside of Bloom’s reports the technique is rarely used locally, “60 Minutes” and other shows often use re-enactments, Shafer pointed out. Still their validity is often debated within the industry.

Shows like “60 Minutes” have months of research to use for background. Bloom’s report followed the shooting by just one day, at a time when the police department was supplying the media with only sketchy information.

“I think he conveyed the truth,” Shafer said. “Minutiae,” like whether or not Reeves was crouching when he fired, “doesn’t change the basic facts of the case,” he said.

Shafer, who said the station is more than willing to put Rosenbloom on the air to discuss his version of events, admits that dramatization should be used sparingly.

“It takes a special kind of reporter to pull it off,” he said.

Last year, that wacky prankster Bob Burgreen, the San Diego Police chief, made an imaginary phone call to his counterpart in Los Angeles.

“Look, you’re going to have to increase your vice squad, oh, at least by half,” Burgreen said. “And you’re going to need more women, too.

“Yeah, you’ve gotta a guy coming up there by the name of Michael Tuck . . . “

Ho ho. Burgreen’s joke call was one of several pranks and blunders included in last week’s version of the annual San Diego News Photographers Assn.’s outtakes party. Photographers from Channels 8, 10 and 39, along with print photographers, submitted some of their favorite clips.

There was a vast array of the usual bloopers, from Channel 39 reporter Rory Devine signing off a newscast with “Happy Birthday all you mothers out there, you deserve it,” to a Los Angeles anchorman refering to “orgasms in the water” instead of organisms.

Some of the clips were classics, including former Channel 8 anchorwoman Allison Ross refering to the Prime Minister of England as Winston Churchill.

In one shot, Channel 8 anchorman Stan Miller, looking nothing like the happy-go-lucky guy Channel 8 viewers usually see, turns and yells at the newsroom, asking for quiet.

“I can’t even hear myself read,” he shouts.

A small voice is heard in the background, while Miller glowers. “Uh, Stan, I think you mean, I can’t even hear myself think.”

Advertisements and increasingly high-profile assignments have fueled speculation that Hal Clement may be in line to take over Channel 8’s 5 p.m. newscast, should Miller be dumped. “I think a lot of Hal and I think a lot of Stan and there haven’t been any decisions made to make a change,” News Director Jim Holtzman said. . . .

As part of its move toward a news-talk format, KPBS-FM (89.5) has hired Janice Windborne as its new news director. Most recently, she was the capital bureau chief for a statewide network of 11 public radio stations in Minnesota. The station expects to phase out classical music, which already has been whittled down to a two-hour daily slot, and become all news-talk within a few months. . . .

From Ben Burtt, the principal director of “Blue Planet,” the new film at the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater: “I was sent out to direct a thunderstorm, sort of a pretentious assignment.” . . .

By the end of last week, Channel 39 had received more than 2,000 stamped, self-addressed requests for earthquake pamphlets after the NBC movie “The Big One.” . . .

XHTZ-FM (Z90) has jumped on the bandwagon, making a tape for the armed forces in the Middle East. And as special treat for the women soldiers, according to a press release, the program “included some special fashion tips on how to accessorize desert camouflage uniforms for the holiday party season.”