TVA ASKED TO HOLD BACK WATER TO PREVENT FLOODING

http://www.thedailytimes.com/Local_News/story/TVA-asked-to-hold-back-water-to-prevent-flooding-id-035735

SYDNEY WHO?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been in and out of Memphis several times during 1968 in support of striking sanitation department workers.  The “I AM A MAN” signs the strikers wore when protesting had become well known across the country and around the world. 

In the WMC-TV newsroom at 1960 Union Avenue the day-to-day chores of covering, processing and airing the news had taken on new meaning, new structure, and new texture.  But nothing had prepared us for the night of April 4^th. 

Dr. King and some of his assistants had arrived again the day before.  Dr. King had spoken at a strike rally at Mason Temple the night before, delivering his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” address.  I had edited the news film of that address the night before for the 10 PM newscast I was producing.  As it turns out I had, indeed, selected well from photographer Bernie Mintz’ work and had aired the famous portion.
Now, for the 6 PM news April 4^th we had moved forward with the story.  As was usual in those days I watched the 6 PM news from home, taking an hour “lunch” before returning to produce the 10 PM news. News Director Norm Brewer was in the studio anchoring the first 15 minutes of what was, in those days, called the “news strip.”  So was Assistant News Director Don Hickman. Photographer Paul Bateman was in the building.  

About 6:15, just as Norm was exiting the studio from his portion of the newscast Paul met him in the lobby.  Paul had just taken a phone call from Congressman Dan Kuykendall in Washington, D.C.  The congressman had heard Dr. King had been shot.  Paul told Norm, who then rushed to the newsroom, ripped the bulletin from the UPI wire, and took off for the studio. 

Watching at home over my dinner I heard our first “This just in.”  I looked at my wife, threw my fork over my shoulder, and said briskly:  “I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

The newsroom was crazy when I arrived.  Photographers were dispatched to the Lorraine Motel and to St. Joseph’s Hospital where Dr. King had been taken.  Information was sketchy at best.  Then I remembered the station’s production manager (and my former boss) Phil Slavick was in St. Joseph’s Hospital with some minor foot problem.  I called Phil’s room and told him what had happened.  I asked if he could find a way to limp out of his room, go downstairs to the emergency room, and find out what was going on.

Phil tried.  He limped out of his room, down the hall, avoiding all the time the glance of hospital personnel.  He made his way down two flights of stairs to the emergency room.  Just as he opened the door to the ER a big policeman grabbed him and “escorted” him back to his room.

So we continued to do what we could with the story.  Norm and Don would take turns interrupting programming with bulletins.  NBC (our network) would do the same.  As I worked in the newsroom I’d watch all of this on a monitor.  We’d interrupt and then NBC would interrupt.  Each time we’d “return to regular programming already in progress.”  This began to strike me as strange and not at all appropriate.  That’s because our “regular programming” that night was all comedies.  So each time there was a “bulletin” at the end the news person would say: “That’s the latest on the Dr. King assassination and the subsequent unrest.  We now return you to our regular program already in progress.”  The problem was that program was a comedy and the immediate audio following the bulletin was laughter.

I made myself a private promise right then and right there:  “If I’m ever in charge and something awful like this happens I’m taking the “air” and keeping it.”  Later in my career, at CNN, I did just that to a big outcry but also to a big result.  But that’s another story.

It was a trying night for everyone in that news department (and, of course, for millions of people across the nation and around the world).  I had interviewed Dr. King a week earlier and asked him about threats against his life.  He had said at the time he wasn’t afraid to die and that he had “been up on the mountain.”  In retrospect he had been working on his “Mountaintop Speech” then and was trying out some of the lines. 

During the evening the newsroom was swamped with television, radio and network requests for what we in the news business call “Phoners.”  One of us would adlib “the scene” in Memphis to a radio station in Los Angeles, a TV station in New York City, a network in Canada, Europe, etc. All of us were doing that as we could, even the sports director.  It was crazy. 

The only laugh generated during that awful night came during one of those phoners.  Requests for phoners were coming in so rapidly often one or more of us would have 2 of 3 phones in our hands at the same time adlibbing the same report to 3 newsrooms elsewhere.  I even had one where a Canadian network had asked if anyone in our newsroom spoke French.  When I said no an interrupter was put on the line and my live phoner was interrupted in French as I went.  But that only laugh (later…the next day, the next week, the next month) came when I picked up a ringing phone, yelled “News.  Byrd” and heard on the other end:  “Long distance calling. Go ahead.   (pause) Hello, this is Sydney.”  I said rather sharply: “Sidney who?”   It was Sydney, Australia.

The night went on and on and on.  Eventually I was assigned to edit film for the NBC Today Show.  Way back 4 months before, when the sanitation workers strike began; I began saving every inch of film on the story.  In those days so much film was shot and processed we saved only what we aired – the “ins.”  What didn’t air – the “outs” was thrown away.  But I started saving the “outs” of the sanitation workers strike…saving them without bothering to tell anyone else.   I was born and raised in Memphis.  Now I was a journalist in Memphis.  This night had become the biggest news event I could remember in my home town. 

So I began to edit for The Today Show.  I edited scenes from the Lorraine Motel. I edited scenes from St. Joseph’s Hospital.  I edited scenes of the unrest in and around Memphis. I edited “sound bites” from various people.  Then, about 2 AM April 5^th, the morning after, my foot struck one of the boxes of “outs” under my edit bench.  I looked down and suddenly realized what I had.  I yelled out to the newsroom: “Hey, look what I found.”

The assassination story wound down.  The unrest wound down somewhat. James Earl Ray was caught, brought back to Memphis, and admitted his guilt (more on that angle in another story).  The TV station realized what a treasure we had in the “ins” and the “outs” of history on film.  The next year interns from Memphis State University were assigned to the newsroom for about 6 months to help put the “ins” and the “outs” back together in order.  I supervised.  Then all of that regrouped film was sent to the Memphis Public Library where historians, documentary producers and others make use of it.  Whenever I see a documentary on the events surrounding April 4, 1968, I remember those boxes of “outs” under my edit bench.  Many of the documentaries you see today on Dr. King include much of that material....film I saved because it just seemed important despite the rush of work at the time.