>> in his book "on the trail of the d.c. sniper, fear and the media" dr. cencer reports that fear generated by the local news media turned the d.c. sniper case into a national issue. borders books and music in fairfax, virginia, hosts the 45-minute lk. >> i'm going to give you a little snippet from the book and leave lots of time for questions. if you want to sit, there are three seats up there. it's not going to be as entertaining as not sitting down. ok. of after a long road through personal and professional setbacks, joe mohammed, accompanied by lee malvo,

arrived in montgomery county maryland in early 2002. after having already killed five people and wounding several others in a month long arc of robbery and revenge, through the southwest and the south that included prior interlewds in maryland, the two snipers began the rampage that would draw worldwide attention with an errant shot through a michael's craft store on october 2. 2002. later that day, they would kill their first person, and the next day, five more. nearly all in the confines of montgomery county, maryland. over the next three weeks, four more murders and three unsuccessful attempts tobago place with woundings, mainly in virginia, between d.c., and richmond. but conclude willing back in montgomery county. mohammed and malvo wop captured at a maryland restaurant some 50 miles northwest of d.c., ending the manhunt.

but my book does not chronicle the story, although there's a chapter on it to orient people, but what it does is take a look at the newspaper men and women who covered it and there were more newspaper men and women than this actually were police in the task force, trying to track these men down. the media that 2000 strong, turned out an inexhaustible supply of words, images and sounds to explain what was occurring, an initial way to address this explosion is to begin with the continuous coverage available on tv. studying these broadcasts of two hours or more, of breaking news, allows an excellent but not fully typical vantage into the -- into understanding in general what the press tried to do. post other coverage had minutes, hours, or even days between the appearance news material, but continuous coverage, wall to wall, as the journalists like to call it, created something of a plot and took the viewer if to

some kind of a chronological -- intense chronological time, to literally you felt time pass. it's really visceral watching these elements of continuous coverage. chronology gives way to your sentiment or your feelings. this coverage was done and redone eight times in the 23 days of the event, from the very first day to the very last day. and so what i want to do is take a look at this continuous coverage and then we can of course, of a wards, talk about other elements of the coverage as you wish. some of the coverage ran for 12 hours straight. but always, there was a basic structure. stations came on the air, we allowed fanfare, heralding important and significant investments in the sniper case. the logic of the initial announcement was that something important had happened.

but by continuing the live broad was, they were implying something else would occur. at least there would be new information, and on the whole, this never was realized, except in the very last case. new information was scarce, because of the nature of these shootings, as there was little one could accurately say about what had occurred. you could see the victim, but you had to idea what was going on on the other side of that bullet. ballistics evidence took a long time to process. the police were very tight lipped. good images were even difficult to attain, because there was really no action and balls the shootings were long distance and the police kept pushing the police line further and further out, so that you could see actually less and less. at some scenes, reporters rented rooms and hotels over the site, so they could get a better view than was available. consequently, news outlets had little to go on and intended to

recycle what they had over these hours. new material trickled in and replaced older information, so that of after several hours anyway, changes would occur, but this was a long time in coming. indeed, the broadcast tended not to end, but simply to fade out. as steve howard, then vice-president for the news of the local abc said, the station said on until it saw no prospect of any new development that would have forced it back in the air very quickly, which means it just kind of trickled out and petered out in the end. in short, these broadcasts -- somebody over there, coming through the mic. in short, these broadcasts were generally -- everybody sitting here, if only people would call me. in short, these broadcasts were very demoralizing efforts.

i wanted to do one of these cases in some intensity, so that you get a sense of what it's like, and it's the october 7t october 7th shooting of a junior high school student in buoy, maryland, out to the east of d.c. there had already been the six murders on october 2, and october 3, and a wounding on october 4. now, this incident builds being on all those shootings. but in addition, another pack are to contributed to the anxiety that was felt. charles moose, montgomery county police chief, had reassured the public the preceding friday, now, the 7th is a monday, preceding friday, asserting that the schools were safe. many would later believe that this assurance was a red flag in fact to the snipers. ok. so here's a fairly intense -- this is part i'll probably read, sort of get the elements all

right. you'll see how it develops. at 8:09 a.m., aron brown arrived early at benjamin tasker junior high and was shot down by the shooters north of the school. he had been dropped off by his aunt, a nurse, and was severely wounded. fortunately his aunt saw the attack, saw what was the matter, got him in the car and drove him immediately to a, you know, one of those intro medical facilities and then they helicoptered him to -- first to one facility and finally to children's hospital in d.c. the principal heard the staff, the staff heard -- heard the shot, the staff heard the shot and ran outside and saw the car zooming off. nonetheless, of course, there was the clatter on the police band and right away, the local channels knew that something was going on. by 8:45 a.m., this is 30 minutes plus later, coverage began. in the first 40 few minutes, the

station scrambled to get their reporters into position. the local abc channel was the first to of move to substantial coverage and relied upon its correspondent that was covering the police in rockville, which is a long way, 50, 60 miles away. however, it was 9:26 a.m., 40 minutes later, before anyone got to benjamin tasker junior high from abc. impressive, the nbc affiliate, it was just a dominant player in local news then and still now on tv, did have live shots right away. they had a helicopter up at 8 foof 5:00 p.m. and they were use -- 8:55 a.m. and they were using their task reporter at the same time as the live shots. they didn't have anyone on the ground and in fact, channel -- the nbc canal did finally have someone on the scene at 929

hamm, which was moments after the abc channel. fox also had a helicopter up at 8:53 a.m., just a little bit before nbc would, but really, no one gets on the ground from any of the local channels until almost 9:00 a.m. and the last to show up is cbs, which has actually a more experienced team, the local cbs team has a more experienced team, but they don't even have a shot, it's 9:15 a.m. the reporter arrives and is calling in his reporting. it's almost 10:00 a.m. before all the channels are up, so it took them from 8:09 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. to really get going and another 45 minutes or 50 minutes to show up with someone on the scene. in the meantime, in the meantime, anchors provided the center of the broadcast.

they had all this breaking news idea, but they didn't have any news, so what they did was, and what they would do in every case, is they would move from source to source, reporters, interviews, officials, on and off camera, whatever they could get, always coming back to the anchor. all this produced a staccato that actually did increase your, you know, the intensity, your intensity, but mainly anxiety, because no news was actually forth coming. it was jumping around, but it's hitting a dry spot in every place. i mean, the anchors are trained to speak in neutral and calming tones, but i think in this particular case, it was counteracted by the medium itself. so the anchors were kind of left on their own to speculate about stuff, and i don't think that

helped very much either. so in other words, the basic idea, the basic idea of how it was supposed to work was undermined by the lack of information, yet they'd done on the air. and one particular channel really communicated in a direct way. cbs local with anchor veteran news man mike buchanan, events directly considerable anguish. through his body part, he was adjusting his tie, holding his head and generally you could see how upset he was and he expressed this upset very directly, that the community had already been through so much with 9-11 and with anthrax, and that how could the community take any more. so the structure and buchanan made it more upsetting, and he was really concerned. when he interviewed a police spokesperson, who was giving

available information, he asked, "basically, corporal, in a fairly aggressive tone he said this, you do not have any lookout or anyone under suspicion," that wasn't reassuring that he's asking this question and he's getting no, we don't. his on-site reporter, gary reels, added with his voice seeming to crack, the news that there was almost a serial exodus that was occurring from the junior high school. regardless of the school policy, which asked the parents to just wait, let's do this in an orderly way, obviously parents began to arrive and take their kids home. there was a stream of kids, i mean, they're showing this now on camera, a stream of parents coming in and hysterical kids coming out, and the parents, i'm sure, were not exactly -- well, you know they were not exactly calm themselves. but as if that weren't enough, something really big happened, which i think simulated

anybody's anxiety. at 9:25 a.m., fox announced that six or seven police cars had sped away at high speed from benjamin tasker. unconfirmed reports stated that they were responding to a second shooting. viewers watched from the helicopter's perspective, the high-speed deployment of a police convoy, about seven cars, that preceded to a wal-mart a few minutes away. at 9:30 a.m., fox could report that customers wentering and leaving the store and though ambulances were there, they weren't -- their sirens were not on. because those in the media were on edge then, you know, the issue had been overstated and it would continue. now the nbc affiliate, at 9:35 a.m., only five minutes later, concluded nothing was occurring, and the cbs channel also, but at 9:38 a.m., said, well, nothing is happening. it stirred people up.

but to show you how things could actually spin out of control, one of the most amazing things i've ever seen on television, i was seeing it much later, abc underlines its anxiety for the watchers. at 9:31 a.m., brad bell, who was on the ground at benjamin tasker, noted the report of another shooting. four minutes later, the anchor confirmed that now two shootings had occurred. this is 9:35 a.m. and already at 9:30 a.m., fox has said no, but if you just happen to be watching abc, this is what you got. at 9:42 a.m., the station put up a map, new shootings, that had little x's, one at benjamin tasker and one at wal-mart with the shooting. the anchor with an ominous tone said it's spreading. the second shooting was discredited, but not of before the coverage had whipped up everyone's blood pressure, that's for sure.

however, it's not as though the regular coverage, the rest of it, wasn't anxiety producing enough. the -- following the wal-mart incident, reporting seemed to have even fewer caveats and hesitation and much greater focuses on scenes that produced concern. one of the main themes of the reporting through the next half-hour until 10:00 a.m., were children at benjamin tasker, various camera angles produced parents and various offspring streaming out of the building. to all appearances, this seemed to be fleeing and flight. reporters conducted some interviews with terrified parents and children, with the latter shaken and grateful to be going home. in one nbc interview, the child said he was happy that dad camp to get him. his father added that god and the country will prevail. the police and the country were doing all they could. it's a vote of confidence, but -- it is very stressful reporting. i'm not suggest, by the way,

that it wasn't a stressful period. i'm just suggesting that the foot was full down on the accelerator pedal, and we can talk about, you know, my judgment on these questions if just a bit. this confidence in fact about god and country was little in evidence as other reporters mentioned how little the police had to go on and how this event had created great fear and concern. mike buchanan took the pessimistic view that if this case were connected ballistically and confirmed to be lengthed to the sniper, the police would be even more deeply worried. according to buchanan, even the search for the white box truck, the focus of police attention, would be futile. at abc, brad bell noted that false alarms, like wal-mart, indicated the tension. and in response to a question by the anchor, about whether the police had any evidence, bell replied that no one was saying anything, all eeriely similar to prior shootings. the broadcast continued exactly

the same way, all the wave to evening news at 5:00 p.m. no more information, lots of anxiety. so let me give you a quick wrapup of all eight of them together. if you took all eight of these continuous coverage events, starting in october 3, and winding through the wounding of iran brown, what you would find at first, at the first, was basically, confusion and disorganization. television covered the victims. the neighborhoods, and the police. there was not much order to it. the drag nets mounted, providing fodder for television, but the story became more police story in the next few incidents. while at first the networks had been critical of the police, the great activity that followed in the middle two weeks countered some of the pessimism, generated

by not locating the perpetrators, because they couldn't locate the perpetrators. however, over time, toward the end, the last week, when the police couldn't find anyone, right of off the bat, right from the beginning, coverage was negative. coverage was suspicious. in fact, one particular case, you may remember it, with they had a siege at the -- at a richmond gas station, a very late in the day, when actually they arrested two guys who had absolutely nothing to do with it, and this proved, -- i mean, this set off the journalists actually on a very negative tone about how desperate the whole thing had become and indeed, by this point, all the channels doubted the efficacy of the drag net. in contras, finally, the capture at the end of the sniper's reign produced a police story with a happy end egg. according to veteran reporter,

frank sisno, the pattern may be found in other stories. while the sniper story did not follow clearly in this order, it clearly contained all of these elements and added to its only finally relief. the ultimate lesson of continuous coverage was a morality play. evil doers brought to justice. in a nation conditioned to a war on terror, described in just those terms, this event could be understood and applauded. but if the short term, and on a daily level, the failure to capture the snipers, and the uncertainties as described in this coverage pervade more fear and more fear and that to a certain extent is where i have taken this book, which is to say, you know, the over all thesis is to say that the press said it was -- let's put it this way. it's very reasonable to be anxious. it's very reasonable to be upset. in my view anyway, the press tended on the far side of that,

rather than down the middle or where it might have gone and i'm willing to discuss this more with you and i thank you for listening to this extraordinarily compressed effort to try to give you a sense of the book. so thank you. [applause] >> talk about the television coverage, and of course they're doing that in a hurry-hurry right now. can you compare how the local newspapers covered this. >> yes, i'd be glad to. well, essentially, the local newspapers covered this very similar, with two very important connections. essentially, the "washington post" and "washington times" did it differently than the baltimore sun or the richmond times dispatched and other smaller papers in the area.

the "washington post," yes, it did sound more or less the same, but the "washington post" covered the story with extraordinary intensity, extraordinary focus and so in addition to covering the crime story in pretty p the same way that i just described the television, they covered a number of other items. they covered the funerals of the victims and in covering the funerals of the victims, they, you know, the language of owe bit waries and the language of death is not -- it's seldom critical unless you're talking about a big public figure and in this case, the victims were lionized, made heroes, and in a sense, it bolstered the community in juxtaposition to the other stuff that was negative, so there were many elements of the post-coverage, which at least mitigated against some of the mother fearful. interestingly -- the most interesting thing in my entire

book, i think, was the way the "washington times" really, after starting off pretty much like the rest of the press, within three or four days of its beginning coverage, became very focused on giving risk asses assessments on how risky was this, and one of my favorite contrasting stories is both the "times" and the post cover, you know, restaurant week, those of you who live in the area, know restaurant week is a fixture of d.c., and the post covered restaurant week is nobody is there, and the "washington times" covered it, it's packed, you should go, and if my mind, i only can speculate about why the difference, why the "times" was so different, the "times" is more in the past tense, because right now, it's not what it was, but back then, it was a -- the paper was substantial

circulation, but it saw itself, at least i would argue, as a national paper for conservative point of view, more than a local paper, so its metro section was quite anemic, just measured by the number of pages. the metro section was much, p smaller and metro coverage was less. so they -- you know, they were going of to have a particular tack and it's not in my mind, it's not an unreasonable tack, their approach was if fact to emphasize, you know, let's figure out what is the risk here that we are facing, and so yes, those two papers were different, but i think the post was strong -- was more balanced, but still more on the fear side, and the "washington times" sticks out as -- well, they're the only ones who ran a story, basically providing the evidence that more people died from accidents in the same period, in the metropolitan area, than from being shot, i'm not -- i don't want to -- i mean, i certainly don't want to be on camera

saying that's no big deal. it's a very big deal. but the "times" coverage was very much different than the rest. >> the schools, especially the montgomery county schools, to sort of contras that the journalists did. and you said they were much more reasonable, they were much more calm, but do you think it's because they had something to do? i mean, the reporters had nothing to do except get everybody hysterical, but the school system had to make decisions, had to do things. do you think that kept them calm or do you think it was really something in terms of being different about the school system? >> >> well, i mean, they both had something to do, i think. , with you there is i think, an intrinsic difference. i studied the three big school systems that ring the washington metropolitan area that have almost 500,000 students and tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of parents and relatives associated with the system.

so it's a -- it was an effort to understand what another social organization, how another social organization understood the event, and when you look at it, the schools tended to be scared, nervous, anxious, really worried that somebody would be shot. nonetheless, they were more in the coping mechanism department. and my view is that the papers did what they did for reasons we haven't yet discussed yet, because of, you know, their -- how they perceived their social function and their commercial necessities, and the schools did something very, very different. they were much more coping. i like to tell this story that's in the book, about the principal of mclean. so people were nervous, of course they were. so anyway, those of you who know mclean high school, which is in virginia, well, basically across from montgomery county,

to get there, the main way you get there is you go down this two lane road and make a left-hand turn -- or a right-hand turn, into the school and that produces a gigantic traffic jam right there, when school begins, and they have a police officer out in the middle of the street directly traffic, and of course, the traffic was at least twice, three times usual because, you know, people weren't letting their kids go on the bus, they were driving their kids, everybody was trying to drive in there, and so the principal was worried about this, so you know, if you're really scared, do you do this. the principal comes out and is standing next to the policeman who help direct traffic and the police said what are you doing out here? he said cutting your risk factor by half. so i mean, but it was, you know, humor, but it was still humor, and i do think the schools were motivated, fundamentally differently, because of the risk.

>> we were all who lived here at the time, scared. it was frightening to pump gas, to go to the a.t.m. when did you get the idea that you would investigate this, and what prompted you? was it tv, was it now, was it the arrest these guys? >> having a repoet control was part of it. at the time, we were probably less fearful than we actually should have been. our wallison was running cross-country, and we figured a moving target, let him go run if he wanted to. and so you know, basically, from the very beginning, i think i thought yes, there was a risk but i didn't -- i didn't -- i don't like to be beaten by the risk personally, although maybe i should. and i think, you know, so i was

less cautious, maybe than i should have been, but i did think that as i was watching the press, i was waiting on somebody, besides the "washington times," which i only work on if retrospect, because i was not reading -- i was just reading a little, but i was mainly not doing the research until later, so he was mainly watching tv across a wide spectrum and i was thinking surely somebody will say what the risk far to is here. somebody will at least point that out, but not hearing that, i kind of was attuned to it, and you know, i felt this way for a long time. i wanted to write about television for a really long time and i felt this hypothesis was a reasonable one to pursue, was -- what was the slant of the press. you know, if you really took a good look at it, what was it. i'm a huge -- i think you know, i'm a huge fan of the press, and the book goes out of its way actually to dispute the notion that what -- that the press is

politically motivated, it goes way out of its way to say that, because that's the general drift of the literature. the general drift of the literature is what's wrong with the press, they're all liberals, and i have no doubt that they actually are liberals, but i do think that the press makes every attempt, like everybody else in most other professions, to provide, you know, by their own standards, and i think the press tries, i'm not talking about opinion areas, of course they try to tell their opinion, but the people who are journalists, they try to push that out, but i did think that this was something worth pointing pout and i still think, you say what's the most important thing about this book? it's to suggest to the working press that they need to be more cautious about this, and i think you can find the same kind of, what i would say, amping up in the swine flu, in the financial crisis, there's a tendency to amp up the risk and i'm anxious, in a subtle way, i'm totally

opposed to censorship, and anything that smacks of it, but i'm a of professor and i believe in the power of rhetoric and arguing and this is my little chip on that, so really, i appreciate the question, very good to get to explain myself a limb. -- a little. yes? >> the changing role of facebook and twitter, and how that plays today, and can you speculate whether that would have contributed to the fear factor or possibly allowed people to feel a better sense of security, knowing that some of the events might have been captured as they were occurring? >> that's a terrific question. number one, the book couldn't be done now, because you would have to account for the internet and

facebook and twitter, and it would just overwhelm anybody. i don't know how you do it. in 2002, there was social networking and there were blogs, but about 98% of what was said on this subject on blogs, was just a repeat. they would tachy an article and put it on. i was already reading those articles, so it wasn't anything to do, but again, speaking as an old foggie, i am truly, truly concerned about the unfettered, unedited, uncontrolled social networking which can be for good or for ill. on the other side, i can say that i was delighted that the pulitzer award went to an internet site which suggests that there might grow in the internet serious journalism with

serious standards being applied of control. but i do think we've reached a point where if you want attention, mary jane, you've probably been in a better position to say than i, if you want attention, one of the best ways to do it is to shout really loud, and i'm concerned that the whole -- that shouting drowns out civil discourse. i know, i'm getting -- this is a great example of civil discourse. you can say your opinion, i can say mine and we're not going to get mad at each other and i feel that a lot of social networks is at the highest decibel level possible, so yeah, i do think -- though i don't think i could have done the book, because this -- just to give you some idea, just watching an hour of television, those of you who have tried to watch an hour of television and clocked the images, the words, and the overall impact, takes three, four, five hours of watching,

taking notes. at some point of watching it, you have nothing, you have to take notes and it's an incredibly difficult to do, and you can imagine following a blog with all those, you know, just utter impossibility, so maybe i've written the last thing on the history of the media that's actually comprehensive. it might not be possible to look at it all, in the future. yes? yes. susan. >> would there be any interest in what you've set out here by people who were actually in the media. >> do i expect that it would be interesting to anyone in the media? i think -- no, i think they'll all be using it like the red book, they'll all have it. what could censer say?

you know, i am really hoping so, but the one thing i would say about the media, is that they have really daily jobs. i mean, every day, there's another deadline, every day there's several more dead lines. it's really hard to get, you know, your feet under you and read a book and think about it i mean, it's so different than the world of the academic, where that's what we actually do. we have time to, you know, gather ourselves. so i hope they will, but there are actually some people who have lived and worked in the media, they're probably -- in this audience. they're probably in a better position to say than i am, but i hope like -- i mean the thing has been reviewed in a lot of places or at least blocked, mentioned in a lot of places where you can get a little of it in a hurry, so maybe it will be discussed, but yeah. well, you know, it's hard to have an impact. anything that's written. >> which is why i asked the

question. i didn't know if like anybody had called you and said this is interesting. people find it interesting but people in the media that had given, you know -- >> to, not yet. a little bit. it was blocked yesterday -- last week, by somebody very much in touch with the media, so you know, perhaps, and he really got it in the sense it's four paragraphs long, she really got -- if i had only four paragraphs to say it, what i would say to the media, so you never know. ok. yeah. >> i'm -- this move toward reality tv and what you're sort of pointing out here in terms of the narrative, and the perhaps fictionalization or not of these events. do you see historically a change in like tv in terms of relationship between f.c.c. and

reality, -- fiction and reality moving along, or has it always been kind of leading into one another? >> that's a real easy question. what is the -- well, there's no doubt, there's no doubt, if you take a long enough time period, i mean, the early mass media was heavily driven, heavily driven by fictionalized accounts. when -- papers are basically an elite medium for a fairly late until you get to the industrial period. they're expensive, only the elite read them, and it can be tough sledding even to read them as a historian. they can be pretty dense. but in the middle of the -- by 1830, the papers are beginning to be produced cheaply, and to a very large audience. and to attract that large audience, let's just say the papers which really were

commercial or very narrowly partisan in nature, begin to develop a wide range of things that they -- that they can write about, and some of those are just, you know, it's barreling forward something completely fiction am, but in a factual place, so it has more moments. i think that -- and then, you know, you could say it reach a peak in the yellow press at the turn of the century, but what i like to call the "new york times" moment of the late 19t 19th, early 20th century, where the "new york times" notion of kind of a very sober journalism, all the news that's fit to print kind of moment, infiltrated all the press slowly over the course of the first half of the 20th century, and the mass media became much more

reliably telling the truth as they saw it anyway. i'm generalizing wildly of course, and what i would say is that if there's been -- if there's been a change, there might have been a retreat from that, because that kind of sober journalism is getting pushed pretty hard by, well, first, i don't think radio -- i don't think i would say radio did that much to push it, although the most famous case is "the war of the worlds" and people took it as the truth and there were all sorts of explosions, i don't mean explosions, but people running out in the street saying the end is coming, but generally, it's the arrival of tv, and then the arrival of cable, then the arrival of blogs and the arrival of social networking, all of which undermined to a certain extent, what i call that "new york times" moment, across the political spectrum. i'm month talking about -- not talking about politics, i'm

talking about just an incredible intensity and the production of so much news by journalists on the scene. i mean, that's something that really does -- that's a really big change where you have your own journalists actually there to do the reporting. that's a huge commitment to fact. so i don't know if that helps. >> your book seems to be what the media can learn from this event. were can the schools -- what can the schools learn from this book and why isn't that as sexy to everyone? >> first i have to say, if there is a hero of the book, it is jerry weiss, the superintendent of schools of montgomery county. i think -- i used to say, if i ever ran a large complex organization, i would try to model myself of after him. it turns out, i run a

medium-sized complex organization. it's really hard to do. what he did. he is the most fact based planning i've ever seen. he had had all his division heads, all his division chiefs, butts in the seats at 6:00 a.m. every morning of this crisis, transportation, the psychological services, the people running the buses, all sorts of stuff, giving a report and they were making policy based on gathering tons and tons of information, and then the other side of it, unbelievable transparency. unbelievable ability to get these decisions out with an explanation to the parents, the teachers, and other auxiliaries that needed to know it and i was very, very, very lucky, because montgomery county -- actually, prince william and fairfax counties, the other part of that circle, they did almost the same

stuff, but i don't think it was as rigorously done, but it may have been. the reason i'm so convinced about montgomery county is they kept unbelievable records, which he let me use. so i have seen the morning reports. i have seen the various reports that went in to those meetings that they had. i have seen the messages that they sent out, i have seen the logs of their e-mails and their voice mails. i mean, it's -- it was an incredible trove of material. i really hope that they will deposit it in a proper library, in their own files, so it would be retained into the future as a remarkable thing. yes, there's a lot to be learned, but it's learnable by anyone running a large complex organization. the most important thing is to make your judgment on the information involved and he was able to keep out in front. there was one very vocal part of the parenting community that was very difficult.

even though they were trying to cope with the situation, and get the kids to have a normal school dayals they possibly could, the sports parents were really, really anxious to get their kids back in the field, especially, this is happening football season, everybody is dreaming their kid is getting a scholarship someplace and football is being cancelled, and you might remember, i mean, might have been a good idea by a superintendent, but it backfired tremendously that they sent the teams out into southern virginia to play games, you know, away from the area. that was his response. and one team actually ate at the ponderosa where jeffrey hooper, the next to the last victim, was wounded and that cancelled that immediately. there was no more games. i don't know if any parent had a kid on the bus out in southern virginia, but we avoided those areas, but were still trying to go do a lot of the same things,

and -- i hope that helped. i was trying to make it as specific as i could. i think we have time for more. >> just from the standpoint of covering this story, obviously, it was something that needed to be done. from looking at a broadcast media perspective, where you have a lot of managers, editors, people like that sitting around newsrooms, watching tv's, they all see what one another are covering, do you see them as going maybe beyond covering this story and reacting to one another, kind of create willing a feeding frenzy? >> yeah. it's a really -- it's really something that theoretically, should be in the book that's not in the book. it's the thing most often asked, do they feed on each other, do they build on each other, and the answer is for sure, but finding out about that proved to be very difficult. i wish i had made more of an effort. here's what i would experience with i talked to journalists. i interviewed about 75 journalists. i would say well why did you write so and so and they would