Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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How the committee worked
Sustained by pretzels and stale popcorn, five members of the Wire Content
Committee spent a grueling day in June poring over the reams of wire copy
written on the verdict in Timothy McVeigh’s trial.
The committee had asked seven major wire services to supply copies of
everything they produced on the McVeigh trial in the 72 hours that followed
the verdict. But the five editors quickly concluded this was too much and
decided to focus only on the first-day coverage.
Each editor read every mainbar, made notes on its strengths and weaknesses
and gave it a grade. The process was repeated with every sidebar that dealt
with legal issues related to the trial. The grades were then averaged to
produce one overall grade.
In addition, the committee surveyed 33 daily newspapers from different
regions to learn which mainbar they had used and why; seven newspapers
responded and their choices are noted in the article.
The five editors on the committee were: committee chairman Craig
Klugman, editor, The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.; vice chair Christopher
Peck, editor, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.; Raymond Moscowitz,
editorial director, Nixon Newspapers Inc.; Robert Zaltsberg, editor, The
Herald-Times, Bloomington, Ind.; and Peter Johnson, night managing editor,
The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The participating wire services were: The Associated Press, Knight-Ridder/Tribune
News Service, Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service, Gannett News
Service, Reuters, Scripps Howard News Service and The New York Times News
Service.
