for losses suffered in disorders. Property insurance should be available at reasonable cost to residents and businessmen for property in reasonable condition, regardless of location. If insurance is so available, it will function more equitably and efficiently to pay riot losses than a program of direct Government payments to individuals.3

The private insurance industry can market policies widely and collect premiums commensurate with the risks. It can develop and recommend loss-prevention techniques and assess and pay large numbers of claims on an individual basis. Standard property insurance contracts presently include damage from civil disorders in their coverage, just as they provide compensation for losses due to natural disasters such as fire and windstorm. They should continue to do so.

Early in our deliberations, however, we received many reports that property insurance was unavailable, or was available only at prohibitive cost, in inner cities. This did not appear to be simply a riot problem but a long-term, pervasive problem of center-city areas. Since a separate and expert group could best examine the problems of the high cost and unavailability of property insurance in center-city areas, the President, on the Commission's behalf, appointed a National Advisory Panel on Insurance in Riot-Affected Areas on August 10, 1967. The Panel's work is now complete.

The Panel found:

There is a serious lack of property insurance in the core areas of our Nation's cities. For a number of years, many urban residents and businessmen have been unable to purchase the insurance protection they need. Now, riots and the threat of riots are aggravating the problem to an intolerable degree. Immediate steps must be taken to make insurance available to responsible persons in all areas of our cities.

The Panel also found that:

The insurance problems created by riots cannot be allowed to jeopardize the availability of property insurance in center-city areas. But the problem of providing adequate and reasonable insurance in the urban core cannot be solved merely by supplying financial assistance to protect insurance companies against catastrophic riot losses. It is clear that adequate insurance was unavailable in the urban core even before the riots. *** We are dealing with an inner-city insurance problem that is broad in scope and complicated in origin, and riots are only one aspect of it.

3 Over a dozen states have statutes which impose varying degrees of liability on municipalities for private losses suffered during disorders. In addition to problems posed in litigating claims, it is questionable, given competing needs for the limited municipal financial resources, whether these statutes will or should be allowed to continue in force.

'The Basic Findings and Recommendations of the Panel are set forth in Appendix H of this Report. The full report of the Panel is available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.

In order to assure the availability of property insurance in all areas, the Panel recommended a five-part program of mutually supporting actions to be undertaken immediately by all who have a responsibility for solving the problem:

We call upon the insurance industry to take the lead in establishing voluntary plans in all states to assure all property owners fair access to property insurance.

We look to the states to cooperate with the industry in establishing these plans and to supplement the plans, to whatever extent may be necessary, by organizing insurance pools and taking other steps to facilitate the insuring of urban core properties.

We urge that the Federal Government enact legislation creating a National Insurance Development Corporation (NIDC) to assist the insurance industry and the states in achieving the important goal of providing adequate insurance for inner cities. Through the NIDC, the state and Federal Governments can provide backup for the remote contingency of very large riot losses.

We recommend that the Federal Government enact tax deferral measures to increase the capacity of the insurance industry to absorb the financial costs of the program. We suggest a series of other necessary steps to meet the special needs of the inner-city insurance market-for example, programs to train agents and brokers from the core areas, to assure the absence of discrimination in insurance company employment on racial or other grounds and to seek out better methods of preventing losses and of marketing insurance in low-income areas.

The fundamental thrust of our program is cooperative action. Thus, only those companies that participate in plans and pools at the local level and only those states that take action to implement the program will be eligible to receive the benefits provided by the National Insurance Development Corporation and by the Federal tax deferral measures. We firmly believe that all concerned must work together to meet the urban insurance crisis. Everyone must contribute; no one should escape responsibility.

The Commission endorses the proposals of the Panel and recommends they be put into effect by appropriate state and Federal measures.

The President's charge to the Commission asked specifically: "What effect do the mass media have on the riots?"

The question is far reaching, and a sure answer is beyond the range of presently available scientific techniques. Our conclusions and recommendations are based upon subjective as well as objective factors; interviews as well as statistics; isolated examples as well as general trends.

Freedom of the press is not the issue. A free press is indispensable to the preservation of the other freedoms this Nation cherishes. The recommendations in this chapter have thus been developed under the strong conviction that only a press unhindered by government can contribute to freedom.

To answer the President's question, the Commission: Directed its field survey teams to question government officials, law enforcement agents, media personnel, and ordinary citizens about their attitudes and reactions to reporting of the riots.

Arranged for interviews of media representatives about their coverage of the riots.

Conducted special interviews with ghetto residents about their response to coverage.

Arranged for a quantitative analysis of the content of television programs and newspaper reporting in 15 riot cities during the period of the disorder and the days immediately before and after.

■From November 10-12, 1967, sponsored and participated in a conference of representatives from all levels of the newspaper, news magazine, and broadcasting industries Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

at

Finally, of course, the Commissioners read newspapers, listened to the radio, watched television, and thus formed their own impressions of media coverage. All of these data, impressions, and attitudes provide the foundation for our conclusions.

The Commission also determined, very early, that

the answer to the President's question did not lie solely in the performance of the press and broadcasters in reporting the riots proper. Our analysis had to consider also the overall treatment by the media of the Negro ghettos, community relations, racial attitudes, urban and rural poverty-day by day and month by month, year in and year out.

On this basis, we have reached three conclusions:

First, that despite instances of sensationalism, inaccuracies, and distortions, newspapers, radio, and television, on the whole, made a real effort to give a balanced, factual account of the 1967 disorders.

Second, that despite this effort, the portrayal of the violence that occurred last summer failed to reflect accurately its scale and character. The overall effect was, we believe, an exaggeration of both mood and event. Third, and ultimately most important, we believe that the media have thus far failed to report adequately on the causes and consequences of civil disorders and the underlying problems of race relations.

With these comments as a perspective, we discuss first the coverage of last summer's disturbances. We will then summarize our concerns with overall coverage of race relations.

COVERAGE OF THE 1967 DISTURBANCES

We have found a significant imbalance between what actually happened in our cities and what the newspaper, radio, and television coverage of the riots told us happened. The Commission, in studying last summer's disturbances, visited many of the cities and interviewed participants and observers. We found that the disorders, as serious as they were, were less destructive, less widespread, and less of a black-white confrontation than most people believed.

Lacking other sources of information, we formed our original impressions and beliefs from what we saw

on television, heard on the radio, and read in newspapers and magazines. We are deeply concerned that millions of other Americans, who must rely on the mass media, likewise formed incorrect impressions and judgments about what went on in many American cities last summer.

As we started to probe the reasons for this imbalance between reality and impression, we first believed that the media had sensationalized the disturbances, consistently overplaying violence and giving disproportionate amounts of time to emotional events and militant leaders. To test this theory, we commissioned a systematic, quantitative analysis, covering the content. of newspaper and television reporting in 15 cities where disorders occurred. The results of this analysis do not support our early belief. Of 955 television sequences of riot and racial news examined, 837 could be classified for predominant atmosphere as either "emotional," "calm," or "normal." Of these, 494 were classified as calm, 262 as emotional, and 81 as normal. Only a small proportion of all scenes analyzed showed actual mob action, people looting, sniping, setting fires, or being injured, or killed. Moderate Negro leaders were shown more frequently than militant leaders on television news broadcasts.

Of 3,779 newspaper articles analyzed, more focused on legislation which should be sought and planning which should be done to control ongoing riots and prevent future riots than on any other topic. The findings of this analysis are explained in detail later in this chapter. They make it clear that the imbalance between actual events and the portrayal of those events in the press and on the air cannot be attributed solely to sensationalism in reporting and presentation.

We have, however, identified several factors which, it seems to us, did work to create incorrect and exaggerated impressions about the scope and intensity of the disorders.

First, despite the overall statistical picture, there were instances of gross flaws in presenting news of the 1967 riots. Some newspapers printed scare headlines unsupported by the mild stories that followed. All media reported rumors that had no basis in fact. Some newsmen staged riot events for the cameras. Examples are included in the next section.

Second, the press obtained much factual information about the scale of the disorders-property damage, personal injury, and deaths-from local officials, who often were inexperienced in dealing with civil disorders and not always able to sort out fact from rumor in the confusion. At the height of the Detroit riot, some news reports of property damage put the figure in excess of $500 million. Subsequent investigation shows it to be $40 to $45 million. The initial estimates were not the independent judgment of reporters or editors. They came from beleaguered government officials. But the news media gave currency to these errors. Reporters

uncritically accepted, and editors uncritically published, the inflated figures, leaving an indelible impression of damage up to more than 10 times greater than actually occurred.

Third, the coverage of the disorders particularly on television-tended to define the events as blackwhite confrontations. In fact, almost all of the deaths, injuries, and property damage occurred in all-Negro neighborhoods, and thus the disorders were not “race riots" as that term is generally understood.

Closely linked to these problems is the phenomenon of cumulative effect. As the summer of 1967 progressed, we think Americans often began to associate more or less neutral sights and sounds (like a squad car with flashing red lights, a burning building, a suspect in police custody) with racial disorders, so that the appearance of any particular item, itself hardly inflammatory, set off a whole sequence of association with riot events. Moreover, the summer's news was not seen and heard in isolation. Events of these past few years-the Watts riot, other disorders, and the growing momentum of the civil rights movement-conditioned the responses of readers and viewers and heightened their reactions. What the public saw and read last summer thus produced emotional reactions and left vivid impressions not wholly attributable to the material itself.

Fear and apprehension of racial unrest and violence are deeply rooted in American society. They color and intensify reactions to news of racial trouble and threats of racial conflict. Those who report and disseminate news must be conscious of the background of anxieties and apprehension against which their stories are projected. This does not mean that the media should manage the news or tell less than the truth. Indeed, we believe that it would be imprudent and even dangerous to downplay coverage in the hope that censored reporting of inflammatory incidents somehow will diminish violence. Once a disturbance occurs, the word will spread independently of newspapers and television. To attempt to ignore these events or portray them as something other than what they are can only diminish confidence in the media and increase the effectiveness of those who monger rumors and the fears of those who listen.

But to be complete, the coverage must be representative. We suggest that the main failure of the media last summer was that the totality of its coverage was not as representative as it should have been to be accurate. We believe that to live up to their own professed standards, the media simply must exercise a higher degree of care and a greater level of sophistication than

1 As recently as Feb. 9, 1968, an Associated Press dispatch from Philadelphia said "damage exceeded $1 billion" in Detroit.

2 Michigan State Insurance Commission estimate, December 1967. See also "Meeting the Insurance Crisis of Our Cities," a report by the President's National Advisory Panel on Insurance in Riot-Affected Areas, January 1968.

they have yet shown in this area-higher, perhaps, than the level ordinarily acceptable with other stories.

This is not "just another story." It should not be treated like one. Admittedly, some of what disturbs us about riot coverage last summer stems from circumstances beyond media control. But many of the inaccuracies of fact, tone, and mood were due to the failure of reporters and editors to ask tough enough questions about official reports and to apply the most rigorous standards possible in evaluating and presenting the news. Reporters and editors must be sure that descriptions and pictures of violence, and emotional or inflammatory sequences or articles, even though "true" in isolation, are really representative and do not convey an impression at odds with the overall reality of events. The media too often did not achieve this level of sophisticated, skeptical, careful news judgment during last summer's riots.

THE MEDIA AND RACE RELATIONS

Our second and fundamental criticism is that the news media have failed to analyze and report adequately on racial problems in the United States and, as a related matter, to meet the Negro's legitimate expectations in journalism. By and large, news organizations have failed to communicate to both their black and white audiences a sense of the problems America faces and the sources of potential solutions. The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man's world. The ills of the ghetto, the difficulties of life there, the Negro's burning sense of grievance, are seldom conveyed. Slights and indignities are part of the Negro's daily life, and many of them come from what he now calls the "white press"-a press that repeatedly, if unconsciously, reflects the biases, the paternalism, the indifference of white America. This may be understandable, but it is not excusable in an institution that has the mission to inform and educate the whole of our society.

Our criticisms, important as they are, do not lead us to conclude that the media are a cause of riots, any more than they are the cause of other phenomena which they report. It is true that newspaper and television reporting helped shape people's attitudes toward riots. In some cities, people who watched television reports and read newspaper accounts of riots in other cities later rioted themselves. But the causal chain weakens when we recall that in other cities, people in very much the same circumstances watched the same programs and read the same newspaper stories but did not riot themselves.

The news media are not the sole source of information and certainly not the only influence on public attitudes. People obtained their information and formed their opinions about the 1967 disorders from the multiplicity of sources that condition the public's thinking on all events. Personal experience, conversations with others, the local and long-distance telephone are all

important as sources of information and ideas and contribute to the totality of attitudes about riots.

No doubt, in some cases, the knowledge or the sight on a television screen of what had gone on elsewhere lowered inhibitions, kindled outrage or awakened desires for excitement or loot-or simply passed the word. Many ghetto residents we interviewed thought so themselves. By the same token, the news reports of riots must have conditioned the response of officials and police to disturbances in their own cities. The reaction of the authorities in Detroit was almost certainly affected in some part by what they saw or read of Newark a week earlier. The Commission believes that none of these private or official reactions was decisive in determining the course of the disorders. Even if they had been more significant than we think, however, we cannot envision a system of governmental restraints that could successfully eliminate these effects. And an effort to formulate and impose such restraints would be inconsistent with fundamental traditions in our society.

These failings of the media must be corrected and the improvement must come from within the media. A society that values and relies on a free press as intensely as ours is entitled to demand in return responsibility from the press and conscientious attention by the press to its own deficiencies. The Commission has seen evidence that many of those who supervise, edit, and report for the news media are becoming increasingly