For weeks they were seen only by a few pedestrians strolling along a sidewalk in Newark. Then television and newspapers brought their ugly threat into every home in Virginia Beach. The story was sure to inflame passions in the resort city, where citizens were already girding for a reprise of last year's Labor Day weekend riots, when a mob of black students armed with bricks and bottles injured dozens of police and damaged millions of dollars of property. Because the inflammatory flyers appeared to be nothing more than a malicious hoax, decision-makers in local newsrooms approached the story with caution at first.
Local authorities say the journalists acted irresponsibly.
They argued that the public had a right to know about the threat of violence so they could protect themselves. The resulting panic would play into the hands of the hoaxster. News directors at local television stations apparently shared Hartig's reservations up to a point. They, too, sat on the story for nearly two weeks. But when Jay S. Mitchell, news director of WTKR-TV, learned that police were taking the handbills seriously enough to investigate, he decided his viewers should know.