Some Progress Reported in Talks With Ohio Inmates : Uprising: TV station agrees to live broadcast of a surrender. But, as hopes move up and down, no prisoners capitulate.

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — Hopes for a resolution of the seven-day prison uprising here were moving through a familiar up-and-down cycle on Saturday.

Authorities got a Cincinnati TV station to commit air time for a live broadcast of inmates surrendering at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, but as the hours passed there was no surrender to televise and authorities later asked the crew to leave the grounds.

Instead, the National Guard moved in three bulldozers in response to reports that the barricaded inmates were tunneling.

Still, negotiations continued amid indications of progress. Authorities announced Saturday evening that they believe all five remaining hostages are “alive and well,” said Janis Lane, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Negotiators also supplied food, water and medication to the hundreds of inmates inside L Block. It was the second such shipment since the uprising began. Lane said the late afternoon delivery was “a humanitarian gesture.”

Other cellblocks in the prison, which had more than 1,800 occupants at the time of the Easter riot that launched the crisis, remain under tough restrictions on movement, officials said.

A conduit to the media has been a key item on the inmates’ list of demands. On Thursday and Friday, state officials and broadcast outlets acceded to prisoner demands for live coverage of inmate representatives airing their grievances. Each time, a hostage was released.

The body of one of the eight original hostages, all corrections officers, was discovered the day after a sheet hung out a window by the inmates announced a death would result if their demands were not met. At the top on their list was access to the press.

On Saturday, a hostage negotiator and a state corrections department spokeswoman walked to an olive-green tent in a muddy field set up for press briefings and appealed for volunteers to televise a surrender.

They said that whatever television station donated the use of its camera, crew and satellite dish would have to abide by several conditions, including making its audio and video available to all other stations (plus a full tape for the state), promising to refrain from identifying the network or station involved and restricting commentary to a discussion of what could be seen on camera.

“This is what we negotiated with inmates, and we’re trying to keep our word,” said Sgt. Frank Navarre, a Dayton (Ohio) Police Department hostage negotiator who is advising the prison’s team. “The reason they want the live film is for their protection, to show that they are orderly and they are not (being) hurt.”

Navarre told TV news crews that “if we don’t have the live coverage, I think we can work around it. We’ll have to work hard, though.”

When one TV crew member said he might be able to get a decision “today” from his supervisors, Navarre shot back: “I don’t need today. I need it now.”

Columbus, Ohio, television station WBNS broadcast Friday’s recitation by an inmate seeking the right for black Muslim inmates to wear distinctive religious garb and carry prayer beads. The inmate, who identified himself with an Arabic name he had adopted, also criticized Warden Arthur Tate.

During that broadcast, WBNS anchorman and reporter Bob Orr offered voice-over commentary, and the station identified itself. WBNS declined to volunteer under the restrictions imposed Saturday.

Other stations also refused. “Our management was quick in deciding that we would not be part of this,” said Chris Yaw of WKRC in Cincinnati. “You handicap yourself.”

WLWT in Cincinnati agreed to participate after negotiators agreed that the station could break away from surrender coverage for commercials and for coverage of the verdict in the Los Angeles trial of police officers accused of violating the civil rights of Rodney G. King.