announcer: you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming every weekend on c-span3. .ollow us on twitter for information on our schedule and keep on with the latest history news. announcer: this year marks the 50th anniversary of the chicago democratic convention. next, a panel discussion on how the media covered that chaotic 1968 presidential nominating convention, especially the street rioting and police response. northwestern university medill school of journalism hosted this event.

it is nearly two hours. formers an award-winning investigative reporter chicago tribune. she teaches courses in science writing and reporting and media law and ethics. her research involves the role of my minorities and race in a "rich and in the profession. my minorities and race in the profession. donna? donna: thanks. to set up the stage for tonight's discussion i would like to frame the issue before i turn to the panel. we are charged with looking at how the media covered the democratic national convention in 1968 and how the participants clashed both in perspective and literally, physically. my memories of these nights

depend on television and newspaper coverage. this was a time when we had the chicago defender. we had very robust television news operations. i was half way through college at the time of the convention and i was getting ready to leave for the first night when the things were going to happen in the street. my mother, who herself was a lawyer, very left wing, but nonetheless a lawyer, stood at the door and said i was not going because it would not be safe. i said i was going. anybody who ever met my mother knows i stayed home. [laughter] something i regretted for a long time but it is true. i stayed home. in preparing for tonight in addition to reading works of my panelists, i did what any report would do and i called a

reliable source and that would be joel wiseman who is reporter friend of mine who in 1968 was an assistant political editor which is where i worked and became "chicago today." i asked him what he remembered and what stories he had to say and he had a lot of tories which i will -- a lot of stories which i will not tell now. i think it is a really good starting point. he said the convention covering the convention was of the seminal point in his career in journalism which went on for 50 years until he retired. him why and he said because for the first time he and his colleagues realized that the officials were feeding you craft and everything you hurt -- crap at everything you heard from officials were not true. i know it is hard to believe now.

in 1968, it was a new thing. usually people go back to watergate, but you should roll back to 1968. that is when we first thought that. i wanted to of what say to set of the state. we are fortunate to have with us a distinguished panel. i will go in order. , juvenilevid farber justice attorney bernadine dorn, and each panel is going to give a talk of 15-20 minutes and i will reintroduce of them. let us start with the professor on my left who wrote and meticulously researched called "chicago'68." andalked about the yippie

mayor richard j daley and his police. david? david: thank you for putting this together and for your logistical help. and for all of you for showing up. , so a feww gray hairs of you probably remember. i was 11 so i kind of remember. and 96 days, it was a fraught year for most every american. the assassinations of king and kennedy, what it meant for america, upper risings and african-american in chicago and cities across the country. we can go on. it was a friday year for journalism and i think donna has suggested some of that. i would disagree a little bit about why it became so from and what it meant. -- fraught and what it meant. you had already faced some real

changes in your business. kind of friend met a little bit differently. 1968, the racial justice system has been around for a long time. 1963, another seminole period, journalists had to rethink who is newsworthy. is it simply the president and authorities that have high-ranking positions? the conventional elite? or young civil rights activist? people in the streets? are they newsworthy? and how so? 1962 was a sea change were you get a willful act by activists and king was one of them. and many others who said he is a two-way street, we should big to put our reviews in front of the american people. toneed the news media refract, reflect and distribute our point of view and our

politics since we do not control them normatively. and the confrontation, the protest in birmingham where you can watch on television, little kids getting attacked by german shepherd dogs, that was not an accident. the children's crusade was a willful act by dr. king did others to say how we force white americans to look racism in the vi. and -- in the eye and see it. the way to see it is to put it on tv. the social change movements understand they have to grab the attention of the american people and the networks, big-time journalism, they have to decide is it headline news? back pages? or are they not in the news? it fromto think about the broadcast side in 1963, the famous march on washington, d.c. occurred. it is in the middle of the day and the networks all go live to

carry dr. king's speech. it is the first time in the history of the united states a nonelected political elite figure is given that kind of live coverage for a speech. why? who is newsworthy? who is credible? with legitimate? news organizations are wrestling with this fundamental question and this racial justice system that has changed with the war in vietnam. it is hard to break your head back around. parties,1965, both liberals and conservatives, they are all pro-war. there is no antiwar faction within conventional political circles. we can find a guy or person here. overwhelmingly, conventional wisdom, left, right, democratic, republican, it is conventional

wisdom, we are in vietnam, we are in korea and now vietnam. how does it the mass media confront what donna suggested? by 1967, the conventional truthfulness of the political leadership starts to become more fragile. those of you with gray and your westmoreland, the vietnam command is pulled back in a political act by lyndon johnson. west moreland is forced to go around and say we are winning -- what is the first? "light at the end of the tunnel. " course, january 31, vietnam, the defensive takes place. the u.s. militarily wins, but psychologically, strategically loses. who is telling the truth?

what is the media supposed to do? some heavy heritage -- some heavy hitters, they know better and they have the post and the times. who is truthful? who is legitimate? you see especially in 1968 both of the big paradigms, who we are at home becoming issues that news media have to cost elite inc. about -- constantly think about. most papers and producers and editors are operating in a very narrow political parameter. the questions are now there. political authorities are aware the media is no longer simply mouthing established lines. mostly it is, but not completely. , it is chicago. you're preparing for the national convention.

the national conventions by 1968 are kind of a problematic coverage story, especially for broadcast journalist. it is a pretty boring story in a lot of weight. in 1952, the first coverage by the networks, live and they cover and there is a camera. and it is pointed at the podium. and hours go by. they do the whole thing. it is almost solely like that. and that is the last one like that. news journalist realize it is boring and people do not like that. 1956, they start talking to people and cutting away from the podium and creating little issues where they are not really. broadcast journalists leading the way but the coverage is also changing and print journalism, more color, more analysis by the late 1950's.

they do not call it analysis, but not strictly reporting. is a war between the political establishment and broadcast journalists and to a lesser extent reporters, about what convention is supposed to be. this is within the context of -- seven years where journalists began to fray the tether. themselves,tists maybe. things are fraying. the convention becomes the kind of interesting moments. i agree it is a seminal moment how you cover this event at this time in american history. structural issues that are really cool. everybody knows it is happening. there is a negotiation. , and it this right

1964, there are 54 floor passes for journalists, loss of folks running around trying to find a news to tell stories. -- lots of folks running around trying to find news to tell stories. are trying to narrow the possibilities of who are controlling the agenda or for old chicago hands, it is complicated there's a strike by the communication workers of america and not as many cables, could mayor daley have said there are organized labor, let us get to work. we could talk about this after the convention. as a result, there is a live coverage outside of the convention. they need a microwave relays some of the only way to live cast something. that is my technology. none of them are available.

zero live coverage which makes it harder to show what will be the protest, delegates storming out after the peace plank goes down. there is a contest for control and reporters and of networks are all trying to think, how do we do our job professionally? how do we respond to these big questions? who is credible? who is trustworthy? who makes the news or who does not when we are deliberately corralled what we could do as news reporters and journalists? we can talk more about it, the way in which this battle before i was 26, before the convention. social change movements are playing the same game. how do we get on the news? how do we show americans should not respect the political leadership of the democratic party? how do we show racism is alive and well in the united states despite the liberal promises of

johnson? how do we get our message out? the yippies are the exemplar of this story. it is like three guys in new york. he puts his hand up and says things, but no thanks. they are clever at trying to steal the news. they are the tropes of the -- trumps of their time. they know how to grab news. they are really good at it, really crazy stuff. on the face, it was absurd. we are going to pour acid into the jointing water of the people chicago -- drinking water of the people chicago so everybody's tripping. two or three or five trying to -- tanker trucks. the math does not work. chicago tribune treats it as a

gene was correct, not -- genuine threat not in the opinion pages. not?is news and what is yippies try to seize it. national mobilization committee to end the war in vietnam is running the big national protest. do they play that game? do they play their own version of this game? how do they create a news? guys like abe are creating an alternative newspaper system. during the convention, there wallpapers by up a group out of new york and the sbs, who put up their own news sources. who is a credible news source? i am running out of time. you have got an organized effort by mayor daley and other democratic party officials to

reduce the parameters of what americans will hopefully see about this convention. you have got everything from to the national mobilization against the war. will grab the news hole to disseminate this? you set up a confrontational situation over the politics of information and -- and some fundamental way. the protest to come, what are they trying to do? thinking back, i talk to young people about what is the point of political activism. a lot of it is like, get out there them and run. like, cool. again, what is the point of the protests? in a fundamental way, we are not complicit with the war, we will not stand quiet well this atrocity -- while this atrocity goes on.

the politics of confrontation. it is not instrumental like we do not get enough votes to change -- what are you trying to do? you are trying to change the perimeter of the politics of information on which democracy depends. and people know this. it is no surprise. it is no surprise that when the actual convention starts in this kind of structural contradiction inherent in it that there's a lot of people in the established political order do not want protesters to be seen. who do not want the politics of information to change. or yippieswant sbs for the national mobilization to grab the screen. rallies.s no no sleeping in the parks. no festival of life with rock

band. no constitutionally seeming allowed activities to create that picture that they do not want to show. it anyway, still do when they come to chicago and try to have a festival life and try to rally and try to protest, the police close down those options with a vengeance. and who do they target? a lot of the protesters' leadership. they carry out pictures of certain leadership and beat them up and arrest them, cut them up so they have to get the stitches. -- the people think of themselves as news reporters, or just trying to take pictures or have cameras or writing stuff down.

and there are famous story after famous story i do not know if any of you where those people where a cop comes up as say you are not allowed to be here. you cannot be in the park. reporter! bam! or, give me your camera. politics of information. trump, i doge of not think it is shocking in 1968 they did not use the word fake news but the sense was we on the news, you do -- own the news, you do not. there is a famous line by a cop, confronting a newsweek photographer and the photographer is like, "this is my job. i am just out of here. i am taking pictures"

he said you think you have the right to be out of my street? the report is like, yeah. bam! these are my streets, not your streets. beat, cameras are broken, filmstrip. cameras. i will end with the following, especially anybody interested in the business of journalism. how do we get in 2018 where the mass media is below congress in the eyes of the american people? producers editors, felt like, the american people have seen what happened and they will understand the freedom of press, speech, assembly, seated to the ground, literally, figured it would. that's figuratively. white -- feasibility. white america did not think that the police had been harsh enough

during this time. richard nixon picks up on that quickly, already three months early at the republican convention he had talked about the first right of the american people, the right to domestic tranquility and he would appeal non-e non-protesters and demonstrators and he wins. his message is the one white america picks up on and ever since chicago 1968, it has been a winning move in a lot of factions of the american public to control unpleasant dissent on the current. perspective, i am cheating on time. two sentences. to the media, it was a moment of truth and i think out of this moment comes a conscious understanding that the news can be more than 70 repertoire of elite figures.

this becomes much more conventionalized after this time. you start to see for the first time a greater hold in newspapers for analytic pieces. a new kind of genre in the newspaper business, more opinion pieces more widely used. is it a popular move? does it change the way people regard journalism and newspapers? we're still living with that. sorry to go on. donna: thanks, david. [applause] bernadine who i suspect has a different of use. -- a different views. we will see why the protesters were there. parent.er as a fellow i've met her when i was a reporter in the 1970's and issues a leader in the -- and

issues a leader in the sbs and i was sent to cover meeting because i could pass. bernadine really has passionately devoted her life to social and political change. she is here to bring the perspective of those protesters and what they were doing and what they hope to accomplish for you editing -- a compass group -- bernadine -- accomplish. -- bernadine: how many of you were there? as a delegate? or walking in the streets? there, when they called me, i was leading an sbs delegation in yugoslavia to meet with the vietnamese, north and south and then -- is it not on? can you hear me? none of them are on.

just sitting here. >> they are recording. bernadine: they are recording. 1968 may be like today, we can discuss at, everything was political. it was global, anti-colonial moment. not just the movement in the united states, actually happening all over the world. colonies were liberating themselves from imperial control including the united states. were ofrocess of that ending the canon in pretty much every domain -- were upending canon in pretty much every domain. you will probably get sick of this, i will do a short timeline because if you listen to what happened starting in january of 1968, you can see it is not like today where it is every half hour or 20 minutes am a but

extraordinary series of developments that build on each other. 30th, 1968 on the 30 day of the vietnamese new year, the national liberation front launches a coordinated attack on more than 100 cities in vietnam with 36 of rises in provincial capitals. the u.s. embassy maybe most importantly for the news media is overrun temporarily. the u.s. embassy in a saigon. february 7, police fire on demonstrators in south carolina state college in orangeburg, killing three and wounding 33. only people study black history seem to remember the orangeburg massacre. in march, the republic of new africa declared independence from the united states with 500 members in detroit with the intention to establish a black

nation in the south in the black belt. one of their members, a generation on is the mayor of jackson, mississippi and is responsible in large part for the opening of the new civil rights music -- museum in jackson, mississippi. announces in it the most dramatic possible way has 2a 35 minute speech sentences that he will not run for reelection and only assume all -- this is after two weeks of meeting with his group called the wise men, an interesting combination of people, some of who wanted to soldier on in vietnam. many give him what they think from generals to people running wall street, which is the war cannot be won, it can be continued with a very small gain at enormous cost but cannot be won. he is mulling this over for the

two weeks the for he gives this "i will not run again." that is march 31, five days assassinatedng is in memphis, tennessee while supporting the striking sanitation workers. hopefully, we read a lot about that. there are uprisings and riots and 25 senate -- cities. thousands of people were arrested and thousands of young black men were arrested during that period of time. 4, april 6, bobby hutton, the youngest of the black panther party at 16 is a shot and killed by oakland police. 23, the demonstrations at columbia university to stop research done by idea turns, leads opposition to that by

organizations by black student turns it to the occupation of five buildings for five days. the white students go on to occupy 4 other buildings including the president's office and the president's files where the secret war related research with idea is confirmed not only by columbia university but the chicago university and 12 universities. remember, even though it happened in paris, activistsa daily -- were grinding out a daily report of what was going on in the occupied buildings and rallying

support. april 28, columbia diversity desk and the police university calls in the police and arresting over 700 students. they managed to beat them in front of journalists and supporting students were around the building. that is april 28. may, the workers and students of writing -- authorizing in paris -- and uprising in paris. july, i am skipping june but to the american indian movement form -- i do not know where i am. robert kennedy is assassinated. that should be there. july, the american india movement forms and and actions that do not happen but are about

to happen including occupying out the tries -- out the trade island and going on -- out the trade island and taking over and we will raise the issue in the most dramatic way andn 100 years -- 100 years of indigenous rights. 8, where still not yet at the democratic national convention, a to black people are killed also the republican national convention in miami, florida where richard nixon is nominated. august 20, 500,000 soviet black troops invade yugoslavia to crush the popular reform movement, prove too much of the new left that soviet communism is not for us and is corrupt.

that is the buildup. that is just the buildup to august 28, that is when -- is that when it started? the police confront protesters outside of the democratic national convention. hundreds are arrested and beaten in a grant park while walking down michigan avenue in the fight on michigan avenue on lies -- on live, national tv. it will later be called the daley,riot and richard he said that they are here to prove disorder. a summary of the week's event. i am going to finish out really quickly, the year, i am making my argument it was a global phenomena. mexican students protest reached fever pitch and the government mass occurs at least 300 people

in the middle of mexico city. two weeks later, still in mexico, u.s. runner tommie smith and juan carlos give them black power symbol. november, richard nixon is elected president, promising to end the vietnam war. that is -- i am trying to give you a global, but also the intensity of what was happening week after week, not just from tweets, but from war and anticolonial struggles around the world. i have found for the last 50 years that these books called "reporting vietnam," there are two volume set and who was it done by? i forget. they are incredible. bedroomad in them in my and reading for them.

you can see how beaten up and they are. there are 2 of them. this part one: american , 1959-1969 and the other one goes to 1980. they are short because of they are journalistic pieces. i think, it makes you wonder where it the volumes of reporting are on the iraq war, afghanistan war, the permanent wars we are in and the other locations where there are u.s. troops present and military bases. the answer is, from my point of view, they learned, they learned their lesson in the summer of 1968 and did not allow reporters into the heart of war. as yous to be very rare can see from afghanistan and iraq. to keepthey learned

them away from war zones except when embedded, the famous embedded. i think from my point of view, from my definition, that cuts into the idea of independent journalism if you are embedded. simultaneously, i want to note the black freedom movement was covering all of this, as well as the black movement. in this time,s the flourishing of the black panther party newspaper with the famous drawings by mr. douglas. you have the nation of islam with ourchicago reporter who was an editor of that and has gone on to be extraordinary journalist. you have the black arts movement happening with third world press is establishing itself for the first time.

starting third world press and we should all go see tomorrow the opening of the gwendolyn brooks statue, only the second statue of a woman in a chicago. theater andoing play rating. and you have the formation of the women's movement, which has been going on in the last three years. comment into flowering right in 1968. the kind of second wave which includes the collective of black women. i am saying this explosion of independent reporting 50 years ago was all below that weekend a traditional notion of traditional reporting of the nightly news that walter of james reston going and i should note, i

did not know that i was thinking about this, this up ending of the way was him and not just in journalism. -- of the way it was, not just in journalism. and movementic tactics, the growth of the movement around vietnam. i think the flourishing underground press response to what journalists and saigon called the 5:00 follies which was in the official broadcast toe at 5:00 for whoever came listen to the american official press releases. the young journalists covering

it had concluded at had many vets that the war was a war of occupation and imperial power and could not be won. you have paul with his outrageous kind of sayings. you had a professor and others. you had the rag in austin, texas . these are underground newspapers now that rose up and some of them probably a year or two but the rag lasted 11 years and play significant role in roe v. wade and not just a single issue. the great speckled bird in atlanta. you have of rising angry. and numerous women's liberation, gay liberation and new left a notes which isft where was at the time the

imprinted weekly. and one tiny little story which is we got enormous expenses printing press given to us at the beginning of that year by e, anl weise, -- anna louis american woman living in china at that time and send a check to buy a printing press. and you have the black panther newspaper. eyeof the ways in which the of journalism, a capital "i" the chemical real at the moment in time -- authorial at that time was an american event. you have others. i wanted to finally note there are women who covered the war. war correspondents in vietnam and their pieces are in a these theirbut they also have

own biographies and memoirs. frances fincke gerald, mary mccarthy, gloria emerson, the only woman sent by "the new york times" and won the george polk award. book,timately wrote a one of the best books about the war. elizabeth becker. you have by august of 1969, your later, a cover of "ebony" magazine talking about the black revolution. may iu have, dare i say, quote norman, a magnificent , you canm conflicted tell me if his name should never be mentioned again. he wrote an extraordinary piece called "the siege of chicago," which is a great example. part forave the music

your other time and just say john wrote the sentence that can revolution in framing the issue and pushing profound major issues to the forefront of every part of american life including at the convention, he said "this collection testifies to the courage and endurance and swallowed anger of writers who by sharing the editing earned the right to reported." thanks. [applause] donna: thank you. now, where going to hear a completely different perspective of chicago's police from historian frank who interviewed more than 80 officers for his book "background chicago." his work he uses a group of

whites and makes them more than the temperature that in some ways the police had become as part of the story, the natural outgrowth of watching all of the t on the as the cops bea demonstrators. i will let frank do this justice. and i am really glad to be here. lot, asked this question a , way left ofnadian center liberal, what ever that really means and of getting involved with the chicago cops? how does that work? people that i know have got nothing to say that is worthy of recording, listening to, writing

about, what are you doing? i got that question a lot, what are you doing? i remember reading the walker had lostd how the cops control of the elves, that was the narrative -- of themselves, that was the narrative and they lost control. so many times i tried to reconcile that idea of you have almost 12,000 men, each with a handgun and they have lost control and they write it -- riot. in the convention with themselves, they did not manage to shoot anybody. i was curious about that. i watched all of the newsreels and look at the pictures and i knew what the chicago police did. nowhere do i say they cannot do what people said they did.

, interested in why that? crosseda that these men some line where they were unable to return from, sure. bought the plane ticket and came to chicago as stated in a couple places down from the old conrad hilton and that is where i started. i brought my running the gear because i wanted to run, wanted to know what it felt like to run six blocks, flat out pretending there was a chicago cop behind me with a billy club. and also wanted to find out what towas like to be the cop, pursue, so i did. because i knew i would be running at night when the wind came off the lake, i had notes

inside my jacket pocket that if chicagolled over by cops saying what are you doing, why are you running? i was to research for a book on police and thinking that would be a real interesting conversation. and i did it once three or four times in different and thinking i am a protester and maybe through a andof urine at a cop's face he is after me. "get down, hippie!" right behind you. what are you feeling? and what about the anger? you are not letting go of this. you are a cop and you are going to chase this person down. things to doetter

than chase one person who threw something at your? wow. that is intense. a couple ofrse of years, it took me a couple of years to find it a one who would be willing to talk to me. -- find in one who would be willing to talk to me. i decide i was going to give up. i cannot do a book with five officers. from the mid-1990's until 2003 is the period to find enough officers to have some representative sample. and when i did the interviews, when i started them, i got the usual, who are you? even when they agreed to speak with me, who are you exactly? i knew i was going to have a problem that i was going to get one or two sentence responses and not very much at all. when i showed up with tape i talked aboutd,

anything other than chicago in 19 said. i wanted to know where they grew up. -- in 1968. their political views, their mom and dad and their siblings. do they have a passport? what were they like on the? what books did they read? talked for about an hour before i would ask anything to do with the 1960's. for when we finally steered her that way, i already knew what was coming and it was all about how they were being portrayed throughout the decade. the members of the media that they got along with it would take them out on stake outs and would moonlight as bodyguards, they felt they had a relationship, somehow broke those unwritten and unspoken --

an unspoken vows. you guys understood what we did and the vietnam war changed everything. the protests from the black community change everything. all of a sudden we are on the wrong side of history, we are police officers. we are here to upholding the law. how are we being characterized either this? things got really personal. in chicago after king was assassinated seemed to be a flashpoint. copsnly did cost, and -- individually get criticize but collectively by their own city administration by richard daley. some prettytting severe criticism, even "the trivia," what was he thinking? shoot to kill? wasn't that what they were supposed to do?

how come they could have the expression shoot to kill? and he pushesuked his own the superintendent of police and it goes to the rank-and-file officers, what you did, the restraint you use on.ng the riots, it is not protests an antiwar -- where the cops broke skin. face smashed cameras. they went after members of the media and protesters. mini chicago on the 27th. -- they smashed cameras. i spoke to disagreement that a harder stance was necessary. they were all over the board, what they did not like was to have somebody push them and say,

you do not know better. rhetoric from the cops i've met surprised me. i assumed they were locked in step. no. what was interesting was this mediagot rejected to the -- projected to the media. it was the media probably it was not daley's problem or the protesters, it was the media that was creating this anti-police bias. this one cop said "they were liberals." they were against this from the beginning and that was bad. many of us moonlighted for them as bodyguards and were doing dangerous stories and that occurred for years. 1950's, if i the had a chance to make money first family, why not?

we knew them and they knew of and then they turned on us during the riots. in thew, the black areas way we handled the vietnam people. that was personal. they were not loyal. loyal. it is really interesting concept. and they also thought that they got set up routinely in the skirmishes not just in the convention week but in the weeks and months prior and one officer and how all of the skirmishes, no matter what they were blamed on were returned. "they were not only getting to the way but it was no question of who decided they were taking. it should not happen. they should be objective. the goddamn media is never like that. they became the target."

they really hate it when journalists would say things like this, a group of chicago police were after me, my crime is watching when they beat somebody who did not deserve it. they collected those quotations from newspapers and then repeated it to me. it saved me research. it was interesting. 30-40 years after the fact. clashes started before the convention even began. sunday night in old town was probably the worst. say, look,ass police you cannot do this for you cannot beat on people like this. the general orders to keep your distance to preserve harmonious relationships with the media. of course, there was no harmonious relationship. another cop quote "we have been

getting bad press the four the convention especially for what happened in the black neighborhoods. what the hell?" others said ogle i hated of those ba -- said "i hated those bastards. they were always against us they can never last a day in our beat. they do not know what they were up against but every day. they drove us crazy for a whole damn decade." it goes on and on like that. from people who they thought should have given them good press. citizens of the city, you work for the tribune will you are one of us. course, daley's pushing back

azimuth of engineers, bobby kennedy is killed in a los areles and the yippies making wild pronouncements of what will happen. there is fear. think about that the fear aspect. you of curiosity to me that are paramilitary forces and potentially can -- 10,000, 11,000 people and you are scared of protesters. putting drugs into the water system, you start believing your own rhetoric and we have to protect the neighborhoods. everybody is downtown inside of the loop, they are not in your neighborhoods. but 40 years after, talking their ownecting doorsteps, their own backyards. like this is an immediate threat. copsost thought -- and the

thought the real disadvantage and theyided was able do not write books or articles and they are adversaries in the media did. how is that fair? how come you can ship the narrative? how come nobody tossed us are not too many people talk to us? as one cop said, i think the whole press thing fits into both sides' political views. to the press, we were the freedom killing fascists and they were the liberal communists. and that slimy dan rather got belted on the convention floor. and a cbs -- they cannot play that some of the bitch's clip enough time. i sigh his head flopping for nice. i saw hise he got --

head flopping for nights. the time wrote "cbs played the slow-motion decking of dan rather like he was sonny liston going down for the count." but, there is some awful members of the media -- thoughtful members of the media. i do not know if what i am seeing is an accurate portrayal of what occurred. newsof the chicago daily said i have a problem. i am quoting him. both tierney work anny worked in chicago. i saw the french element of the protest group curse and spit and made physical for raise until

they conduced the violence they wanted. one protest leader said his group had come to show up the ,olice as the brutes they are adequately provoked, the police obliged. i felt the tv was misleading in a way that maybe the cops look and make the victims look hapless. that did not really change what film captured and thousands of photographs. there, the show something photons didn't. tv, that the the

media, that strong media force change things a little bit? i am not sure it really did. it was interesting reading some of these accounts that seemed to challenge that is not what i saw. i was in front of the hilton and the tv reports do not really give that picture. again, for me,o, control and i am thinking, no, absolutely not. they do not. from the interviews that i conducted over the seven or eight period, it was pretty clear that they knew exactly what they were going to do and did it. it was a conscious decision. brutal, measured, violent and not everybody was in whohose -- was in it, those

were not did not stop with their colleagues. in some ways, that is worse when you think about it. if you lost control of your emotions because you are getting bags of urine or feces thrown a you and people try to provoke you and you lose your cool, ok, that is working. that is a perfect shot. exactly. but, if you have not lost control, you have now reached for the gun, you're not pulled >> exactly. haven't lost control, you haven't reached for the gun, it out, you ulled haven't aimed at anybody. you haven't shot over the head anybody, you know exactly what you're doing. this isn't an accident.

officers individual screaming and yelling. i don't know. with guns. i can't imagine losing my cool nd not reaching for that, this is a ing it, so calculated situation. and very few officers i spoke to apologized for it after the fact and said, no, we messed up. only three or four. in my concluding chapter i give you some space to say, know, we could have been better, too. perfect.t we made some mistakes. i talkedbody else that to, the patterns are hardened. they are permanent. not going to change their mind. they have no reason to change you push it, if the damn interview is over. i didn't have too many of those

situations, though, because my thought, st the way i wasn't to edit them down. it wasn't to contain them. to reshape them. who e them the space to be they wanted to be, and image of them as stormtroopers in blue is largely in their own making and they not withdrawn that. we might say, of course, weren't nazis. my father or my grandfather or older brothers fought against the nazis, so i'm not much it.that's pretty to it's a fascinating thing come full circle because i wasn't sure what i was going to find. i didn't think anybody would even talk to me, but i some t there would be suggestion that, wow, everything

about them was actually wrong, so they actually agreed with journalists. it was just the idea that they temerity to print it. had the temerity to write this book. be friends with the guys i interviewed but they are to have al of a group beer w. i'll say one quick story before i go. people ask me, were you scared when you were doing these interviews? interviewed a lot of people in quite a few different countries and i've never been but a couple of times i was. would get people a little charged up. i wanted to feel that they were exactly what say they wanted. officers one of the to bring out his service

nightstick that he still had. it out.ht it looked huge and it was -- paint was scraped away and it gouges out of it. he showed it to me and i got my little silver tape recorder in of the table. it's sitting there, there is a too. book sitting there, and then the interview goes on, bout 3/4 of an hour later and he's getting really upset. he's remembering something and remembering a chase. sudden he's looking over at me. he's not with me anymore. i'm there, the recorders are moving and this guy is someplace he's in all of a sudden the middle of the line, he grabs the nightstick and slams it as to this phone on book. the table shook. shook. the recorder just kind of shook he held on to it for the rest of the interview. go.didn't let it

and that was the most nteresting interview i could possibly ever have but i thought about the force and the violence that swing and what it would have been like to be on the and that end of that, was -- that was a moment, unless ou interview people, talk to people, get yourself on the ground, you don't have that feeling. abstraction and violence should never become an abstraction. moment, i felt a lot. thanks for listening. [applause] david.k you, frank, i'm -- sorry, glad you did interview those cops. it's amazing. okay. now we're going to hear from journalists. i remember as a fellow newspaper reporter in the

970s, he's here to share his perspective on being a journalist in the streets of chicago in 1968. notably he's also the founder of journalism review to examine critically the work of media. so hank? on ind of jumped the gun moving, okay, we're moving because hank is going to show you some pictures. we don't move, we're going to e in your screen, so i'm going to give him my chair. but no one is actually abandoning you. abandoned before. [laughter] delighted to hear from the police side of this. planned this or not, whether it happened

accidentally or not, what the streets of n the chicago has brought us here tonight. that's the first thing i want to say. if they hadn't done that, it would have been minor league emonstrations, not much would have happened. it was what the cops did, their of incredible that was whatence reated this chicago 1968 thing 50 years later, we wouldn't be here. and we wouldn't be here if it national on television on wednesday night, because what was happening in incoln park wasn't making national television. those of us there would sit around in the bars afterwards say, did you see how vicious that was. wasn't that terrible. feel?id you didn't you think person was being violently destroyed out there. wow! and no one seems to understand this, you know. so it would have been that kind story that we would have talked about. you wouldn't be here tonight.

i wouldn't be here tonight. those are two things to keep in mind. it was what the police did, not, r it was a riot or whether it was planned or not. the live -- not coverage, they weren't allowed it was -- tv film coverage that was shown over and again, the way 9/11 coverage was showed over and s going down over again, that made this such story.ing films.layed these they invaded the convention floor with these films. these es were seeing things and complaining about the tactics. the demonstrators succeeded beyond their wildest wishes. couldn't get near the convention hall, but this film i them getting, you know, guess viciously beaten and

chased out of the streets did into the convention hall and t created one of these great ribocoff isons where gestapo bout the heckling, d they are saying vile things. what was ws exactly said. reader to hired a lip say what he said. you can read about that, i don't get into it. anyway what happened, it was a ery big deal, we're here because of it, robert j. donovan, excuse my glasses, washington bureau l.a. times, wrote a forward to report, called it a momentous event in modern history. the culmination of years of

the g conflict between movement of dissent in the u.s. status es defending the quo. very big deal. and yet before the convention tarted this was not considered that big a story. i was the only reporter at the daily news when asked what part convention i wanted to cover, i said i want to be on the streets. veryone else wanted to be with this delegation, that delegation, because we were, you now, kind of conditioned to think that politics happened at meetings, and politics happened suites, not on the streets. was, because i was an education reporter, covering a i of campus dissent and began to see a national movement emerging. for that.o be there stephen still said something is happening here, what it is, it rather clear. i heard bob dillon go after reporters saying something is appening here but you don't know what it is, do you, mr. jones? i didn't want to be mr. jones.

to be out there covering this thing in a serious there.i was the out as you know, it did become a big to talk about t all the things that made it that way. peace demonstration that is got beat up in chicago. here was the comments about shoot to kill and shoot to name. but these protests and police challenged the city, the democratic party, and the nation's soul, but, and this we're here today, it challenged and changed the way reporters like me, defined and covered the news. kind llenged journalism's of business as usual in our tried and true ways of doing the job. it forced us to look at and perhaps redefine as objectivity. you've heard that word being used a lot today. reporting the news meant at that time offering

sides in a point-counterpoint assault story, l of every carefully steering what we hought was truth into the apparent safety and neutrality of the middle of the road. c, it must besaid b. trained e way we were to report. we didn't call it as we saw it necessarily. saw it.d it as they objectivity had been, for better or worse, this studied neutrality. one hand. on the other hand kind of thing. opposing se between forces. nder these conventions, objective news coverage, neither side in a street battle could be said to attack the other. instead both sides clashed. demonstrators today clash with police today. riot, ind of a no fault right? it just happens.

or another way, violence today broke out, like it was some -- and that was the way we stayed neutral as reporters. phrases to try not to take sides. so that was one of the things. it put news gatherers, writers, in the center of the story. story t want to be the but we became it. we were the targets of a lot of police action. only violent attacks, but heavy control. were seized. cameras were smashed, as were them.meramen carrying we were told that these kids wouldn't be here if you weren't here. so if we got rid of you, we get rid of them. problem, you know. it was like -- i'm just trying my job. i got the first amendment.

o, you're using your first amendment to attract these kids. getting back to what david was alking about, being the demonstrations are the press conference of the poor, the left ut, the dissenters, and that's what they wanted to do and the police wanted to take that press onference away from them and mayor daley. third, it made journalism less eliant and less close to their primary sources of information. i'll say more about this later. law enforcement personnel, they were our most now they urces and were no longer so trustworthy. yeah, we got close to them in past. yeah, the uprisings in the black were largely a police reporter's story, except or the one black reporter who is in the office who was told to of the piece on the mood ghetto. meanwhile, real reporting was being done by the cop reporters wantedice because no one to go out there in those riots

nd do the kind of reporting we should have done. okay. i believe, as led, to the development, and this is he optimistic part of me, that will continue to speak out, development of a more rofessional and more independent journalism. one dedicated to pursuing a truths that transcend the neutrality of the middle of the road. merely quoting the two loudest sides of a 20-sided story. to a journalism that became less a job or a glamorous and more of a professional calling, and that exists to this day and i'll talk that.tle bit about journalism review had a hand in that. let's go to the streets of chicago. august, 1968. first, i've got to say, and i must confess, here i am covering this. i didn't know how the hell to cover this stuff that came down lincoln park.

crazy. my own reportage, coming into that i re-read was pretty bad. it was difficult to figure out what was going on, just as as it was to figure out what was going on while we were there. you know, the cops came into the pushed everyone into the streets, and all of a sudden we police to 150 different actions on different corners, in different places. one person would see this. another person would see that. how are we reporting this? we're dumping all of this on poor rewrite guy who is trying to make sense out of it, ausage out of these strange little pieces and you know how ugly sausage making is. that's what happened. pretty bad.were the only story, well, i can read you. we did not write this one and i'm trying to figure, how would scores of now, chicago police freely using grass, d spraying tear drove hundreds of antiwar and anti-convention youth out of

lincoln park and into nearby sunday. n the police, most of whom were not wearing their identification attack the inued to youth as well as neighbors and old town area.he that's what happened. 125 were arrested. hundreds injured including 20 police and 21 news reporters and who were covering the action. we didn't write it that way. even if that was the story we were afraid to say it. it.'s the way we wrote hippies and the police, clash. shouting, chanting hippie clad youth. concerned about what they were wearing. blue helmeted police, you know. clashed with police on sunday night in a series of incidents which began in lincoln park, to michigan avenue and halted traffic for blocks in old town area. we were very concerned about

traffic. you probably weren't coming here today -- demonstrators, or the were who were there described as a mixed band of flower ppees, and children, who mingled in a confusing mass. confusing.s it confounded us, and we were tradition by this middle of the road journalism to write this way. we could not report what we were in the bars, about like, boy, those cops were like straight out of hell. couldn't give any of that kind of flavor or spirit to the though there are some who think we did that. do it, mnists could virginia kay did it. there were other columnists who but reporters on the streets were confined and restricted to this kind of reporting, it wasn't like edward r. merrill

from london. he heard and hat saw. we were nonexistent. these strange characters that floated above it all. there was one important difference in the story and that a harbinger of hings to come, the sun times reported that one of the photographers was attacked and removed olice who had their name tags and badges, he ouldn't figure out who did it and a dozen journalists were attacked that night but their stories didn't make it until the day. all of a sudden these stories are starting to filter into the newsroom. the press em beat stories, right? nd it became a staple of daily coverage. and this is a story, we know how to do now. out and interview reporters, and so we did it. of r monday, the second day the battle in lincoln park, there were a dozen more attacks on news men. chicago newspapers began to run separate stories just on

newsmen.pened to the demonstrators were saying, hy are you so concerned about what happened? what about us? well, you know, we can document this or whatever. know what to say. we were concerned about ourselves. that the local editors and the news directors met with police officials to try to stop t it, it. they wrote editorials. they said when the cops take off they are becoming anonymous thugs, and verythe tribune, which was pro police, said that maybe some had it coming. said that -- they editorialized journalists, x on and said police who did this shouldn't have their jobs. attacks. we were -- while we were fully reporting these police attacks, in ere less vigilant reporting the police violence against the demonstrators until wednesday night. couldn't avoid that one. there with the tv film cameras

thousandsn avenue and of onlookers in the hotels, on moretreets, media provided intensive and accurate coverage of the police attacks on demonstrators. even the tribune reporter including pass sanction like the following in their writing. visitors watched the battle from the conrad appalled at were what they considered the unnatural enthusiasm of police job of arresting demonstrators. there were cries from the out.le, cut it don't hurt him. and how can you do this? shouted at the police. in the tribune. and there was more of this coverage. reporters were usually forbidn to write in the first person. i've talked about. hard-pressed to describe what was happening to us because it was happening to s so reporters had to rely on the words of others, i got hit, could you tell me what happened because i ite it can't say i was hit. saying ly quote someone

i was hit. so i went out and i interviewed a veteran police reporter, i said, could you describe what's going on? he said i've got a lot of people in the police department, don't on this but this is the worst, most vicious behavior i have seen on the part of 25 years of reporting. now, this was a police reporter, was, you know, really close to a lot of the policemen that i for the book. the daily news devoted a full age to an ordeal suffered by one of their photographers, photograph- tried to police clubbing a medic. the guys in the white coats out there. doctor from rush presbyterian. now it's just rush hospital. grabbed, thrown to the ground, his camera damaged and his hand was broken. he finally got to write kind of a first person piece. this is unusual. out-of-town media were even more critical.

a my, remember him, wrote column for the herald tribune. he said, i have seen a lot of this is the worst performance i have seen of michigan avenue last night, the worst i have ever seen. e called it a national scandal and correctly predicted it would haunt the democratic campaign for the presidency through the beyond. even hugh downs, remember him "today" show, very meek guy, he said, the police ehavior last night may earn them the title of pigs. really annoyed mayor daley, and the police department spokespersons, we talked a little bit about the film of the demonstrations being shown in the hall, ribocoff saying one the mayor saying other but the mayor and police department struck back the next afterward they kept this up. in nationally televised

daley called the demonstrators terrorists, out to destroy the city and the party. most of ade the intelligence reports saying there were assassination threats explained ever fully r detailed, just these assassination threats. so this great debate began over the onvention disorder and media coverage has begun and i'm ot going to end it today, i am going to talk about what's happened to the media and -- not all bad. press phenomenon. police attacking news professionals, scores of deliberately attacked, gassed, maced. didn't prepareol us for this. we were ready to cover battle but not be in it and not be we still, you know, it was a difficult story to try our hands around, report. because we used -- when we wrote

stories, omniscient n fiction, they are god-like creatures, the all knowing is above it all. we he streets that year, could no longer be the god like erazonl knowing -- narrator. we didn't quite know what to do. problem.e a what do we do about it? ahead because we're okay.g -- the police were the major source many, information for many stories. overrelied on perhaps. know.of things you don't we relied on so much for the

coverage of what happened in the black communities. the riots, they were the front reporters on those stories. i'm sorry, i lost my place. desk clerks. every night, would routinely call suburban police departments what was going on there. the police department was going to tell what was happening and happening.t they were the source. our first source often for our stories. they were the major sources of say tories, and if they that journalism is the first draft of history, behind the was the ft of history police report usually, you know we were quoting. anyway, we couldn't rely heavily reports.e they weren't counting how many of us they were hitting. they weren't counting how many were injured. they were counting how many people got hurt.

ways of find other reporting that. we did, it didn't work as well to.t used it was all centralized at one time. anyway, mayor and police spokesman defended the police action, blamed the reporters for being there,d, for for making these stories happen, for exaggerating what the police were doing, and even staging so we could have more interesting coverage. i didn't see any of this by the of it t apparently some happened. i don't know. now, this official criticism of intensified as the national media pulled out and so are, local reporters, submitted to an almost daily revisionist version on the really happened streets, telling us what we saw didn't really happen, you know, we even printed at the daily news, maybe the other papers

mayor daley's own report on what happened, in media.e criticized the we didn't contend with it. just let it run as it was, you know. a documentary on tv called "what trees do they plant?" we were really frustrated, those of us who had been there, so do you do when you're your ated and you need -- needs aren't being met? first you form an organization. we're good at forming organizations. e founded the association of working press and, what can we do? e can write so we put out the chicago journalism review, which you some covers of it at that time. we idn't know it but when formed the journalism review to tell our own stories and the stories, ehind the casting the light on our business and our developing

like never before, we're now part of an ongoing ovement to professional lies the press, to devote news people to something that lay beyond their paychecks. a devotion to seeking and reporting the truth, the truth that lay beyond the safe middle one side or the story.side kind of although we've called -- journalism was never a profession like the others. bar exam to get it into. we had no institution to discipline us for unprofessional or journalistic malpractice. we were a career, not a profession. as defined by our employers. we were not required to serve a cause, the ng or first amendment notwithstanding. so this is beginning to change in a short seven-year history, the chicago journalism review took the first critical at the fabled city news bureau where many chicago ournalists did their boot camp training. it explored financial connections between our publishers, banks, politicians,

the first comprehensive article on the police anti-subversive unit or red squad. it told the most complete story of the raid on the panther apartments conducted by cook county state's attorney abraham. it kept a sharp eye out for and m and racism coverage it kept track of deplorable example of advertiser influence news.e in short it helped to keep reporters and editors more educated readers out there and viewers of behind realities of the news business. mike minor, one of our editors, it played a hat role in helping to transform the "chicago tribune," market forces may have done that, but, as you tribune in the early -- even up through the fox ntion, was kind of a news style reaction their

brought sheet. it was not considered -- it distinguishedmore mainstream newspaper in the 1970s, and for them, middle of reporting that i was alking about was a very big improvement. okay. we became one of 18 other local journalism reviews. spreading was throughout the country. one of them is still publishing to this day. the journalism reviews are gone. he spirit behind them still exists. we have exoneration and projects of my colleagues at the daily news. ot north western university's law school and the school of journalism to investigate convictions and imprisonment of innocent criminal defendants and they of people ree dozens while learning how to do pretty good journalism. investigative journalism, you that was, that existed before the convention but it's

considerably since then. investigative journalism is practitioners s organizing their own protective world.tions across the we've held accountable major institutions, the catholic the h, the courts, military, and the presidency himself in their efforts to find that lay behind the story that merely quoted one side or the other. happened, ng that's and we've noticed it this year especially, fact checking has journalism.ple of it was once a mechanism used to make sure that what the reporter was true, now we fact check and scrutinize the statements of public officials, one of whom is said by the "washington post" to produce on the average of more than six falsehood or lies each 503 days he's been in office. the gateway journalism review aluting the fact checking phenomenon says fact checking may be american journalism's

theyinfluential export and point out more than 50 countries tilize 113 independent fact checking operations. there are 400 investigative organizations in 50 nations. o, to some, this new rofessionalism, this new media to pursue truth has its critics to some including present president. this reinvigorated free press as wellingness to call it see it has transformed us at times into the enemy of the people. friend, enemy, or neutral, these dia is less career days, more professional than ever. it's become less of a career, profession, a calling, and this development, professional development, got a boost, if not its start because of our troubled

nvolvement in the convention street battles of 1968. [applause] how do we do this? flavor of give you a some of the stuff. >> where do i click? it?you going to do >> on here. >> there should be a right arrow. >> yeah. is that the right arrow? >> no, this is right arrow. >> that was john evans of nbc interviewing another photographer. microphone. >> i'm sorry. >> you can take it out of the holder there. i don't want to do that. too much 40 hold.

>> okay. a pretty famous picture but you get an idea. it wasn't fun out there. know, i think they picked on a lot of black reporters especially. look ato say it, when i who got wounded, there were a ton of black reporters and who got it.s but anyway -- what happened there. okay. >> that's part of the silver men of the "new york times." they were checking his credentials. [laughter] >> okay. and here's the guy who helped -- [inaudible] a different angle. those are the problems we had. our solution. the chicago journalism review had this investigation of the hampton thing. bill malden was a big fan of

ours. gave us a free cartoon. strident cartoon. that's that thing we did on the the help of h willie who later became a ner.prize-winni win malden's one of clashes. saying what we were complaining "new york times," they did a separate "beat the or s" piece on monday tuesday. this is tuesday after some of the biggest assaults. assaulted 21 newsmen. this is before one of them got

assaulted. but it was one of the better stories written at that time. very accurate and it other do one hand on the hand kind of thing if you reported it. that's it. chairsdon't we bring the back and we can open up for questions. [applause] you, hank, that was great and thank you, panelists. give you a e to chance to ask a couple of questions. >> a long talk. >> yeah. o they need to come up if they what?to ask a question or >> is there a floating mike?

questions?sk >> okay. second. one >> it's coming. here you go. >> you can go ahead and ask questions. ahead. >> my question is for frank. what a spectacular presentation. coming.or what was the role of martin luther king's visit to chicago on shaping this kind of police attitude that they were being victimized? i know they were kind of ordered which ect the marchers, often meant erecting their own neighbors and trends so how did evolve from 1966 to 1968? >> i think that's a really good point. the cops in a really awkward position because they elt trapped by circumstances, ou know, how -- king, i think

you mentioned it in the past, the santa claus effect. radical. he was somebody that a lot of cops didn't like. he wasn't somebody that quote on wanted to oth sides of the political aisle. problematic. of the n't like any portrayals. they thought that they behaved hadn't ately, that they made any mistakes, that if there was any problem, it was king and that he brought out. >> let me add real quick something because in the age of useful think it's a comment. it's really important to understand that in 1966 the a erintendent of police was guy named wilson, and he was a reformer brought in from berkeley. he was not under the thumb of the mayor. he had his own shop. wished. do as he him, he police respected and he was very firm on ending street justice.

in other words, white cops eating up black people in the ghettos, actually had an impact. he was really good on saying, how you ur job, here's do it, and the police tend to when they get in really -- are given real firm commands. by 1968 there is a new police superintendent, weak, totally under the thumb of the mayor, whose father had been a high ranking police official. totally a typical chicago cop of his era. so i think leadership matters. the police, as frank superintendent, weak, was getting across, it's not like cops. are thousands of bad there send to be a small percentage of cops who given any do some very ll bad things. in placen had the team of noncorrupt police officers who were able to keep pretty ood control and they were impeccable. they were good in the riot in april 1968. again, compared to detroit and that, the chicago cops were like beacons of

orality and ethical decision-making. -- >> you're going too far. >> leadership matters. leadership matters. does.course it the other thing, just two notes, somebody -- you mentioned the squad, and, you know, i think that's an important thing up.raise we don't have time to talk about korean they were mainly war vets. they were not young. no e were almost african-americans on the police force in that period of time. > better than any major big city under wilson. and at sergeant level, too. here, when i moved back you know, everybody said, you know, if you're stopped for out your license and there better be a $20 bill. for ordinary, just run-of-the-mill corruption let alone violence. o i just wanted to note that also, you just mentioned that

john -- i wanted to mention that in vietnam during this period so he comes back after john nvention to chicago, birge, head of the torture squad hat went on for 20 years in chicago, 24 or 25 years really, where e was put in jail, ortured conventions were extracted from suspects in areas. i'm just noting both the xistence of the red squad police he chicago department and the kind of way in which somebody like birge, of vietnam and interrogation and what he learned there, are brought back home to chicago. that's a good point. >> do we have another question. >> i'm sorry, frank did you want to say something? interesting that wilson had to come out and support about the shoot to kill.

despite that -- [laughter] >> thank you very much. his question is specifically h -- for hank but anyone can chime in. about professional coverage of the media, the kwerngs i'm curious, how rofessional media saw the underground media during this time. obviously there is more room for creativity and honesty in those reports. there same time, i'm sure is a certain skepticism. i'm curious how the sort of rofessionalized reporters covering the convention understood the underground media and their role in these events. were, the nger they more and more familiar they were with it. the nicer they were about it, and the more they respected it. i did. respected what abe was doing, nd he became, you know, a real important news source for me in overing the so-called emerging 1960s revolution. you just had to know abe and you

had to know what the seed was writing and saying. all the reporters and editors as some sort of throwaway comic-book. seriously, but too long after the convention, they were losing hired abe.rs, they we had a seed within the daily a seed -- they started putting things that used to be in the daily news and in the syntax. it,as a growing respect for you know. and i would say in institutions, a dean at he's northwestern. [laughter] >> okay. -- i was 17 years old in 1968 but by the time hampton was 1969 i was in college. but i wouldn't have been aware of how the media were looking at

each other because one of the sad things about the coverage of he hampton murder was that the tribune ran the police story, aannel 7, i think it was, did reenactment with the cops of their version, and then the from that, the cops couldn't get the story right, in the civil e rights trial on behalf of hampton's family. it other news outlets, was the sun times that actually showed the bullet holes and they what was the discussion within the press? here, this is 14 months after convention, and now you have this huge difference in coverage between media outlets of the same event. >> i'm so glad you brought that saying se i was just today, you know, didn't they reenactments? bad idea. glad you brought it up. >> i was hoping you were going

that one. [laughter] > i don't remember us being very shocked that there were these different views of it. journal l. review that it was important that we out as complete and professional of an accounting of everything that happened, who were, where they came from, where the bullets came the as well as who panthers were and everything. it would cover everything that was being said or, you know, proposed by the various media. we were very kind -- who se who thought believed the henry side of it because the evidence was strong on the other side of that. i just want to add to what you said, i think also the time, you know,t showing up at the crib, so to

speak, at the house, the lines the block, kind of e-imagining, chicago reenacting -- the body being brought back was, you know, it's kind of layered history and hat was kind of a brilliant movement, a stroke, as much as a legal stroke. >> i also think you can make a the nction between reporters on the street and the editorial policy and the and the copy rs editors. it definitely was a disconnect would only get bigger and bigger as the decade wore on, ight to division, i can remember being a reporter at chicago today and i wrote a called the other risoners of war, which was about young men who were drafted go to jail and that was in a tribune afternoon daily today.chicago now, my publishers wouldn't have

liked that story and certainly tribune publisher wouldn't have liked that story but my city editor let me do it. surprised actually. but he did. you know, and i think there was that, and the same thing with the -- story what the reporters thought and even there was a difference between what the street reporters thought and what the thought because the cop reporters, one of you that, i think hank, as to why these people were so urprised, and frank, you know, the cop reporters once were almost adjunctive police fficers and depending on which reporter you're talking about, that didn't really change. you one example. i was a young reporter at the daily news. the summer ed to be replacement reporter for people on the beat. beat, att to the police the time, when martin luther king was here. whoa. in that press oom was so anti-king, so

anti-black, that, you know, it bristling, and i was shown reporter going on vacation, how do you get the news out of the police? the is the place where police put the complaints that the black people brought in on the marble. that?d what do you mean by he said, well, they would write the wn on magic marker on marble and as soon as the complainant had left they would wipe it off. coming in to ple report crimes, and this is the police reporter showing me this. said, have you never written about this? story?w, isn't this a i mean, i'm seeing this as a story. it at that 't do point because i was just a summer replacement reporter who, you know, trying to do my job. ut at that point, it just shocked me that there was that the of closeness between

reporters. anyway. okay. last question. hank.question for concerning your criticism of the chicago media, that increased august of 1968, then the walker report comes out and the you know, is kind of like a large narrative of what happened. reporting -- exactly, a story you were trying to tell, maybe. did a great job of recording that story. >> it was also an explanation, riot. a police >> i just wondered what your reaction to it at the time was? feel like it was vindication and did you feel like it was telling the story you know, was accurate? a big rock taken an our chest to have official government commissioned report say what we had been

a long time. and saying it better than we were saying it, in effect. it was incredible. i just reacquainted myself with report.ker it's all crusty, pages falling off and everything, but i enjoyed reading it. thought, man, this is good writing. this is better reporting than we were doing and it was only three the event, you know. >> can i make one other point. >> go ahead. one last question. >> national guard troops, we've been talking about the police the national lly guard was called in after dr. to 's was assassinated chicago. i can vividly picture these very guys, it happened at the pentagon. also, where 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds, terrified of their by d bayonets surrounded crowds whether it was on the west side, anti-war demonstrators. to add in the other law enforcement force.

i don't know what the police thought about it. >> they were not happy. the guys who are weapons.shoot their >> yeah. have a in the present, i very quick question for the audience. people follow the issue of net neutrality? okay. that's -- the rest of you are century.uck in the 20th a growing majority of people majority of wing everything, that they watch or or read through one wire. hat bottleneck is one of the most contested centers of power in our world today. every power, every institution, is y form of power interested in a share of control into everybody's brain.

net neutrality and, meaning it broadly, but that uzz word will get you into where you need to be paying attention. thank you. neal.nk you, >> this kind of concludes the part of our presentation. we have a book signing. we have food outside. and e join us outside please support your local authors here. and thank you all for coming. [applause] >> what? [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] > our nine week series, 19 #, "america in turmoil," is podcast.e on our

this is american history tv only c-span 3. this weekend american history tv texas, ring lubbock, where c-span cities tour staff recently traveled to see sites.c located in the northwestern part of the state and centered in the south plains the area is one of the largest cotton growing regions in the world. earn more about lubbock all weekend here on american history tv. this is a part of the world where small town values are pretty much in "vogue." people ask you, where do you go to church? move into a new neighborhood. somebody will bring you a pie or plate of cookies or something like that. a while in lubbock we took driving tour of the city. >> mayor pope, thank you for joining us. city of lubbock, where are some of the places that we'll see today? through going to drive downtown