The Press: How to Cover a Raid

Planning a big midnight vice raid last week on the dock area, Brooklyn’s District Attorney Edward S. Silver called in the press for an advance briefing, with the understanding that the story would be held until the roundup began. But United Press International, which did not staff Silver’s briefing, was told about the raid by a “responsible police official.” who set the release date at 10 p.m. Out on the U.P.I, wire in time for 10 o’clock radio newscasts clacked word of Silver’s sortie, a full two hours before the cops were due to swoop.

Within minutes after the news was broadcast, the prostitutes, pimps, pickpockets and pot peddlers who were to be the raid’s targets started clearing out of the area. When the police arrived at midnight, the dock country was as quiet as a park after a Sunday-school picnic. Rummaging through one hotel, cops found a sailor bedded down with a woman, but she claimed she was a bride, and had a marriage license to prove it. Desperate for dirt, the raiders were reduced to little more than issuing a summons for an uncovered garbage can.

But the U.P.I.’s grief was nothing compared to the tabloid New York Mirror’s gaffe. Relying on the advance briefing, the Mirror assumed that the raid had run according to form, made it the banner story (lOO POLICE RAID B’KLYN VICE DENS), and hit the street next morning playing the farce for fact.