Radio: Beat

Three hours and ten minutes after Schoolteacher Oksana Stepanovna Kosenkina plunged from the Soviet consulate in Manhattan last week (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), television station WPIX was on the air with a newsreel of the shocking incident. Thousands of televiewers saw Mrs. Kosenkina lying against an iron grille door in the consulate’s paved backyard. They saw consulate staff members push at the heavy door (rolling the broken-boned woman roughly on her side) and in a clumsy panic, try to lift her. They saw two New York policemen, who had scaled the high iron fence around the courtyard, crowd in after the Russians as they carried her into the building.

Other cameramen besides WPIX’s Lester Mannix had caught the scene in their lenses. What made television news was the speed shown by WPIX in bringing the drama to its audience. The film was ready in the cutting room by 6; part of it went on the air at 7; the whole film was shown over the regular 7:30 newscast.

WPIX, having scored a clear news beat over all other television stations, was justly and vocally proud. WPIX had also scored a clear news beat over its owner—the tabloid New York Daily News, which did not hit the streets with pictures until 50 minutes later. About this in-the-family phase of its beat, WPIX was discreetly silent.