TV Obscures Smith Accuser’s Identity in Testimony--Usually

The graphic, emotional testimony of the woman who has accused William Kennedy Smith of rape was televised throughout the nation Wednesday, but in an effort to protect her identity, broadcasters and cable operators tried to keep her face off the screen--not always successfully.

The woman, identified by on-air graphics as the “alleged victim,” was seen as a big gray dot with a breaking voice on Cable News Network, the major commercial networks and some local stations, while another cable service, Courtroom Television TV, showed her as an unrecognizable mosaic.

Even NBC, the first national network to reveal the woman’s name on an evening newscast earlier this year, used the quavering gray blotch to cover her face Wednesday. NBC spokeswoman Katherine McQuay said the blot would be network news policy throughout the trial.

Despite the attempts to obfuscate, her face did flash past the gray smudge on at least two occasions on CNN, giving viewers a glimpse of the woman who took the stand to detail what she called a sexual assault at the Kennedy home in Palm Beach, Fla., last March 30.

CNN spokesman Anthony Masterson said the wavering gray spot was created by a Palm Beach production company that superimposed it on the pool feed supplied by Courtroom TV and then turned the picture over to CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC for transmitting. CNN, which devoted most of its air time to the rape trial Wednesday, also built a 5.8-second sound delay into its live coverage so that any mention of the woman’s name could be excised at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Masterson said.