Only the Facts Are Suspect

Give ABC News a hand for deciding to stop showing those hijacked airliners crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. At some point, rerunning such painful and traumatizing footage from Sept. 11 becomes gratuitous.

Now if the network can do something about its Los Angeles station crashing into innocent people.

Flash back a few days.

KABC’s “Eyewitness News” led its 11 p.m. Tuesday newscast with “breaking news.” So very, very breaking that it was broken well before it hit the airwaves. But it ran anyway because KABC wanted to crow about being first.

To a non-story.

Ethnic profiling is an ugly concept. Yet an obvious strong case can be made for authorities checking every lead in this turbulent period following last week’s terrorist attacks that killed thousands. The feds get some names, they investigate. There’s no excuse, though, for media doing possible harm by exploiting these situations.

Take it away, Irvine.

It was here, announced anchor Marc Brown, where the FBI was “questioning suspects they claim may be linked to the hijackers.” Brown meant last week’s airliner hijackers. And he added: “We have the exclusive pictures and details.”

There it was, the lethal E-word, a stake through the hearts of KABC’s competitors.

How embarrassing for them, not one of which had this blockbuster about “suspects” from Yemen being “detained” in Irvine that KABC repeated throughout Wednesday in slightly altered versions, wielding team coverage mercilessly.

Even though it turns out the men weren’t really suspects. And even though they were soon released, a little item the station initially mentioned vaguely. Because if these fellows were no longer being questioned, what was the story?

And what, under any circumstances, justified spreading thickly the stigma of guilt by displaying one of the men prominently and pinpointing the “suspects”’ place of residence?

Talk about calling a zit an alp. Driven by competitive pressures, this was a glaring case of impulsive, sloppy, dishonest, potentially damaging coverage under the sham of “breaking news.” It was a warning to all that despite last week’s exemplary work by most newscasters, predatory instincts still rage.

Why is there, among some of the media, an inability at critical moments to feel empathy and behave ethically?

A newscast producer should have been asking: Why are we showing this man’s face? Why are we showing a sign bearing the name of this apartment complex? Why are we even here?

A reporter should have been asking: Why am I doing this live stand-up outside an apartment door with its number clearly visible?

But enough. Let’s return to those red hot “exclusive pictures and details” before they cool off.

On the screen live just after 11 Tuesday was KABC’s chief Orange County man, Jaie Avila, standing in front of an apartment complex where he said he lived. “Around 7 o’clock this evening,” he reported, “residents noticed police cars, about a dozen, and unmarked FBI vehicles surrounding this apartment here behind me. They briefly detained three or four young men from Yemen who lived in the apartment.”

As Avila spoke, KABC rolled tape of a man, his hands cuffed behind his back, being led by police to a squad car and put inside, where he got his close-up through a window from the “Eyewitness News” camera.

Avila in a taped voice-over: “The FBI has been searching the apartment, where about three to six men live. They all speak Arabic and have told neighbors they attended UC Irvine.”

At this point, the detainee seen earlier was shown turning his head to avoid the KABC camera light shown in his face. Something to hide, buddy?

“When the agents showed up, the men were in the process of moving out,” Avila continued. “Police pulled over their moving van and handcuffed the men. Agents on the scene said the men are believed to be associates of three alleged hijackers who lived in San Diego before they took over American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon last Tuesday.”

The “agent on the scene” whom Avila interviewed on camera didn’t say that. “All we’re doing is following some leads that we received from San Diego,” he said. “Other than that, we’re not in a position to comment.”

Avila asked if there had been arrests. “No one’s arrested,” the agent replied.

Cut to an “upstairs neighbor” telling Avila that he saw the men loading possessions into a rental truck. “It definitely looked like they were ... moving out,” he said. Arabs on the move? Call in the cameras.

Next came pictures of authorities standing by a car, with Avila saying the FBI “searched the men’s vehicles, and were examining papers and receipts from the apartment.”

Now Avila was back live, reporting that the men were “detained briefly and asked about their immigration status.” Then he turned to one of the men he said had been released, identifying him by his Arabic name. He told Avila several times he had no connection to terrorists, complained about the way he and the others had been treated and couldn’t say why they were singled out.

“I’m not sure, man. They have a right to come and ask everyone, but not in the way that they ask us.”

Time for Avila to sum up: “He was one of the men briefly detained here, apparently, most of them, anyway, already released.”

Time for Brown to add: “Exclusive report.”

End of non-story? Hardly.

Another KABC reporter, Steve Alvarez, was at the apartment complex Wednesday for KABC’s 11 a.m. news, fronting essentially the same videotape package. He said the FBI had “information [the men] were connected somehow” to the terrorists, only then saying that all had been released and later adding ominously: “The FBI told us today they still have one possible link they are checking out before they clear these men.”

Alvarez was back with much of the same for the station’s 4 p.m. newscast, announcing the men had been “completely cleared” by the FBI. He did his concluding stand-up in front of an apartment door whose number was visible.

Perhaps the men actually had moved out en route to leaving the U.S., as Alvarez also had reported. Or perhaps they hadn’t. In any case, what was the purpose other than to imply something dark and mysterious had occurred here?

The men may have cleared, but “Eyewitness News” remains under suspicion.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.