The great beat reporters of my youth gained their stripes and separated themselves from competitors by being fast and accurate.

One of my early heroes of news journalism was Merriman Smith, White House correspondent for United Press International who was the senior reporter on the beat when President John F. Kennedy's motorcade made that fateful 45-minute ride through downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Riding in the "wire" car with Smith were Jack Bell of The Associated Press and Bob Clark of ABC radio.Today's cellphone technology and instant coverage 24/7 seem light years ahead of the news gathering techniques of the early 1960s when reporters dictated their stories by telephone to a typist on the other end. The JFK motorcade "wire car" had a radio-telephone in it, and Smith rode in the front seat to have quick access to it.The Kennedy assassination revolutionized spot news journalism. Using speed and quick judgment, Smith's beat reporting that day buried his competitors at The Associated Press and ABC and earned him a Pulitzer Prize.The press car was a few hundred feet behind JFK's limousine in the motorcade. Immediately on hearing the three shots, Smith realized they were not from a car backfiring or firecrackers. He immediately grabbed the radio phone and called in a bulletin to UPI. As the motorcade sped from Dealey Plaza, Smith, not even knowing if anyone was hit, dictated what he saw.Within seconds, the dinging of teletype machines caught the attention of news personnel across the nation. Five bells meant a bulletin alert. Smith's first UPI dispatch exclaimed: THREE SHOTS WERE FIRED AT PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S MOTORCADE IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS.Much to the anger and frustration of the other desperate newsmen in the press car, Smith clung to the phone, asking that his words be read back to him by the typist on the other end. The AP's Jack Bell tried to pull the phone away, punching Smith in the back. Smith later exhibited the welts caused by Bell's flailing fists as he tried to wrestle the phone and transmit his report.When the car stopped at Parkland Hospital, Smith threw the phone to Bell but the line went dead, sealing the fact that UPI owned one of the great news scoops of the century. Smith ran into the hospital for a phone and within 11 minutes of the assassination, he dictated an accurate 500-word historic dispatch.Comparing Smith's work over a half century ago with some of the shoddy reporting and tabloid journalism of today allows us to understand why the current national media is so distrusted and despised by so much of the public. Last week the AP disgraced itself with a headline that smeared Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV, who was killed while fighting ISIS in Iraq.In its story, AP put more importance on the fact that the SEAL's late grandfather, an Arizona financier, was involved in a savings and loan scandal three decades ago than the fact that America had just lost a hero serving his country. The lead sentence of the Phoenix-datelined story read: The Navy SEAL killed in Iraq has been identified as Charlie Keating IV, the grandson of the late Arizona financier involved in savings and loan scandal.In the second paragraph the writer noted that Keating was a graduate of Phoenix Arcadia High School and in the third paragraph that he attended the Naval Academy before becoming a Navy SEAL. In the fifth paragraph the writer again teed off on the grandfather, Charles H. Keating, who died in 2004 at the age of 90. It noted that he was the "notorious financier who served prison time for his role in the costliest savings and loan failure of the 1980s."For the record, the elder Keating admitted to having committed four counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud by extracting nearly $1 million from American Continental Corp. while already anticipating the collapse that happened weeks later. The federal prosecutors dropped all other charges against him and his son, Charles Keating III, and he was sentenced to time served.Thus Keating was without any convictions other than that from his plea bargain.The stories are legendary on how competitive journalists battled each other for a scoop, and back in the day they sparked a generation of young reporters like myself. The great ones earned the public trust by serving up the news quickly and accurately.Aces like Merriman Smith certainly didn't need to stoop so low as to defame the family of a deceased war hero or compose a sensational headline to attract readers.By Jim Zbick |

tneditor@tnonline.com