The "Death" Blunder

Ronald Alford, 24, was having a hectic day. Illness and vacation had left him the only reporter in the Memphis bureau of the Associated Press. That morning he had been trudging a dusty road south of the city covering James Meredith's march into Mississippi, but at 1:30 he had returned to the unmanned office. Now the news was coming through that Meredith had been shot, and Alford was in a bind.

He rushed down the hall to the noisy newsroom of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. He was apparently unaware that A.P.'s Photographer Jack Thornell had already reached a phone, and that at 4:29 Memphis time A.P. had sent off its first bulletin, which simply reported the shooting. Alford was still desperately trying to catch up, and when an Appeal reporter called with an account of what had happened, the A.P. man picked up an extension to listen in. "Meredith has been shot in the back and the head," the reporter said. In the clamor, Alford thought he heard "Meredith has been shot dead."

Without checking with anyone else in the room, Alford moved the false news. At 4:33, A.P. sent a bulletin to its 8,500 members reporting that Meredith was dead--and 21 minutes later a fuller paragraph went out, repeating that Meredith had been killed from ambush. For a little more than half an hour the blunder stood. Finally Alford asked an Appeal staffer: "You do have Meredith dead, don't you?" And at 5:08, A.P. got off the overdue correction bulletin.

United Press International, meanwhile, had done far better. U.P.I.'s Reporter Ken Cazalas, 27, was with Meredith when the shooting took place, and he reported the news 15 minutes ahead of his rivals. To his credit, he stood by his "shot and wounded" version despite the call-backs and pressure , touched off by the A.P. report.

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