The Evening News Read Free Page A

back and forth .” This piece is picture-poor .”
    "Make that copy shorter, pithy .”
    "Tape room: We're killing '16: Corruption.' But it may come back in if we don't get Dallas .”
    "The last fifteen seconds of that piece is deadly. We'll be telling people what they already know .”
    "The old lady in Omaha doesn't know .”
    "Then she never will. Drop it .”
    "First segment just finished. Have gone to commercial. We're forty seconds heavy .”
    "What did the competition have from Dallas ? ”
    "A tell story, same as us .”
    "I need a bumper and cutline fast for 'Drug Bust.' "Take out that sequence. It does nothing .”
    "What we're trying to do here is put twelve pounds of shit into a ten-pound bag .”
     
    An observer unfamiliar with the scene might wonder: Are these people human? Don't they care? Have they no emotion, no feelings of involvement, not an ounce of grief? Have any of them spared a thought for the nearly three hundred terrified souls on that airplane approaching DFW who may shortly die? Isn't there anyone here to whom that matters? And someone knowledgeable about news would answer: Yes, there are people here to whom it matters, and they will care, maybe right after the broadcast. Or, when some have reached home, the horror of it all will touch them, and depending on how it all turns out, a f ew may weep. At this moment, though, no one has the time. These are news people. Their job is to record the passing parade, the bad with the good, and to do it swiftly, efficiently, plainly so that-in a news phrase from an older time"he who runs may read .” Therefore at 6:40 P.m., ten minutes into the National Evening News half hour, the key remaining question for those around the Horseshoe and others in the newsroom, studio and control room was: Will there or won't there be a story soon, with pictures, from DFW?
    For the group of five journalists at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, the sequence of events had begun a couple of hours earlier and reached a high point at about 5:10 P.m., central daylight time . The five were Harry Partridge, Rita Abrams, Minh Van Canh, Ken O'Hara , the CBA crew's sound man, and Graham Broderick, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. That same morning, in predawn darkness, they had left El Salvador and flown to Mexico City, then, after delay and a flight change, traveled onward to DFW. Now they were awaiting other flight connections, some to differing destinations . All were weary, not just from today's long journey, but from two months or more of rough and dangerous living while reporting on several nasty wars in unpleasant parts of Latin America . While waiting for their flights, they were in a bar in Terminal 2E, one of twenty-four busy bars in the airport. The bar's d6cor was mod-utilitarian. Surrounded by an imitation garden wall containing plants, it sported hanging fabric panels overhead in pale blue plaid, lit by concealed pink lighting. The Timesman said it reminded him of a whorehouse he had once been in in Mandalay . From their table near a window they could see the aircraft ramp and Gate 20. It was from that gate Harry Partridge had expected to leave, a few minutes from now, on an American Airlines flight to Toronto. But this evening the flight was late and an hour's delay had just been announced . Partridge, a tall and lanky figure, had an untidy shock of fair hair that had always made him look boyish and still did, despite his forty-odd years and the fact that the hair was graying. At this moment he was relaxed and not much caring about flight delays or anything else. He had ahead of him three weeks of R&R, and rest and relaxation were what he sorely needed . Rita Abrams' connecting flight would be to MinneapolisSt. Paul, from where she was headed for a holiday on a friend's farm in Minnesota. She also had a weekend rendezvous planned there with a married senior CBA official, a piece of information she was keeping to herself. Minh Van Canh and Ken O'Hara were going