AP Covers Trial Highlights, Times Editor Miffed
by July 13, 1998 12:00 am 61 views
The Associated Press admits it “dropped the ball” on coverage of the trial in Washington, D.C., of Archie Schaffer and Jack Williams, leaving the Northwest Arkansas Times and other state newspapers that relied on AP without coverage during most of the trial.
Mike Masterson, editor of the Times, chastised AP in a June 28 column for not covering the entire trial, which lasted from June 16 to June 27. AP covered only the first couple of days of the trial, closing arguments and the verdict. The Times’ primary competitors, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, both have bureaus in Washington that provided daily coverage of the entire trial.
“Next time something as large as this happens in D.C. or wherever, we will be there ourselves,” wrote Masterson. “We’re still wondering exactly how and why the AP failed to cover this nationally significant trial, despite reported requests from its Little Rock bureau.”
Tori Smith, a spokeswoman for AP in New York City, says the reporter covering the trial was pulled off the story to cover “another breaking story after being told the prosecutor planned no major witnesses for the day.” Later that day, the judge threw out several charges against Schaffer and Williams. Robert Shaw, chief of AP’s Little Rock bureau, says he didn’t ask the Democrat-Gazette for help because he was depending on AP’s Washington bureau to cover the trial.
“It was a miscommunication between the bureaus on the extent of coverage we were going to get,” says Shaw.
AP in Little Rock rewrote Democrat-Gazette stories for the wire on at least two days, says Shaw, but it was too late to provide that copy to morning newspapers like the Times.
Apparently, the trial wasn’t that big of a story in the Northeast. The New York Times and the Washington Post covered only the verdict.
Schaffer and Williams are Tyson Foods Inc. employees who were accused of providing gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy to curry favors for Tyson Foods. Schaffer, chief spokesman for Tyson Foods, and Williams, a lobbyist, were each found guilty on two charges.