Red Alert: Amateur Videos   

Plumber who taped Rodney King beating now hopes to make millions.

That vivid amateur video of police brutality in Los Angeles a few months ago may be having more impact on the nation's television newscasts than on the embattled L.A. Police Department.

News departments are now more cautious when offered video from outsiders, including professional freelance stringers. They have to be. If not, it might cost them a bundle of money.

Amateur video in TV newscasts was rare until the advent of home video cameras a few years ago. Nowadays, anyone in the right circumstance can record a newsworthy event. It was an amateur, in fact, who shot the video most illustrative of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake as a motorist unknowingly drove through a hole in the damaged Oakland Bay Bridge.

Many stations and CNN eagerly solicit amateur video, offering cash – usually $25 to $200 – and on-air credit.

"When we don't have our own video, we look hard for an amateur who may have shot something," says Lee Giles, news director at WISH-TV in Indianapolis. "We find many people don't want money but are simply satisfied with seeing their video and name on the air."

But since plumber George Holliday recorded the dramatic nighttime beating of Rodney King near an L.A. freeway last March, TV news executives have become more sensitive to their potential liability. That's because of a highly publicized attempt by Holliday and his lawyer to get up to $10,000 from each of about 900 stations, networks and syndicated services that used or intend to use or rerun the controversial video.

Even though several news organizations paid Holliday up to $500 to air the video, his lawyer claims he is owed more because of violations of federal copyright law. NBC, CNN, KTLA – the first station to buy and use the tape – and others argue that they abided by all the legal technicalities.

Some attorneys believe that Holliday's legal claims are weak since he earlier told many people he was angered by King's beating and wanted the video seen by as large an audience as possible. Those sentiments, they argue, make airing the video an example of the "fair use" clause of copyright law. And because neither NBC, CNN nor KTLA purchased exclusive rights, Holliday was free to peddle the video to other stations and networks.

But the dispute has focused attention on station policies for obtaining and using video by outsiders. Too often in the past, as in Holliday's situation, stations simply depended on an oral agreement, a handshake and the good faith of both parties. Yet, without a written agreement, there may be a question about proprietary rights and the fairness of payment.

In the wake of the Holliday dilemma, many TV news organizations have implemented new guidelines or tightened existing ones.

"We've been using a written form for some time," says Steve Cope, senior managing editor for the satellite news-gathering consortium, Conus Communications. "But the Holliday incident raised our consciousness.

"Amateur video should set off bells with the staff. If possible you should get permission in writing from the originator. We fax a form to the originator and we want the form signed and faxed back to us before we use the video. Of course, in the press of a deadline, we may have to rely initially on a verbal agreement but then we want a signed form in our possession as soon as possible."

Complicating the use of amateur video even more are contractual arrangements between stations, networks and syndicators for sharing tape. Some wonder if an outsider is being fairly compensated when a station buys the video and feeds it to an affiliated network, which, in turn, transmits the video to hundreds of other stations without paying the originator.

That issue is at the root of the Holliday case, since most stations using the video received it from their networks or syndicated service.

A Denver man has even formed an organization ostensibly to help protect the rights of amateurs by acting as a clearinghouse and broker. But one has to wonder about the feasibility of his idea: Most amateur video has limited national interest. The King beating and earthquake videos are exceptions, not the norm.

With millions of camcorders now in use, amateur videos continue to bolster many local newscasts.

"There are a lot of interesting people with camcorders who are news junkies," says Paul Davis, news director of WGN in Chicago. "They're chasing fires and police blotter stories which once were the province of our stringers. Sometimes, you even have a choice of video from several amateur sources. In fact, we now have to buy every type of playback equipment conceivable in order to put the video on the air."

Undoubtedly, news executives will need to be careful using amateur video. But the fundamental point may rely less on economics than journalistic integrity.

"As a user of the video," says Steve Cope, "we have the responsibility to protect the originator of the video, not to steal it." l