The alchemy necessary to achieve high news ratings was complex. In addition to cultivating popular news anchors, the networks had to consistently produce fresh, riveting, reliable news coverage. But network executives had long understood that, with their power to bring potent visual images into the family living room, they had to strike a delicate balance. On the one hand, they had to engage the attention of the viewers; on the other, they had to maintain journalistic credibility and avoid offending viewers with material they were likely to find in poor taste.

This required making careful judgments—well beyond obeying the laws and regulations that governed the press. Federal laws proscribed such flagrant abuses as libel, slander, and inciting riots, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulated standards for decency on the air (prohibiting expletives or explicit sexual references, for example). But, in a world where a half-point change in the ratings meant huge gains or losses in advertising revenues, network executives had always recognized that they had a compelling commercial motive both to push the boundaries—and to self-regulate. Even before news programming had gained a prominent place on network television, all three networks had established in-house “standards and practices” offices to oversee entertainment programming. For instance, in 1956, CBS faced a classic dilemma. The “Ed Sullivan Show” wanted rising star Elvis Presley to perform on the show—something new and exciting for the viewers at home. But the standards and practices group worried that Presley’s trademark gyrations were too risqué for a family audience. The solution: Presley did appear on the show, but cameramen were instructed to film him from the waist up.

News programming added new dilemmas to this perennial network challenge. As early as 1943, for example, television news producers had made the decision to edit out gruesome images of American casualties in World War II. CBS, the first network to develop a major news presence, is credited with much of the early work in developing standards of practice in television news. Over time, each network news division created its own in-house mechanism for reining in journalistic excesses and addressing the various professional and ethical dilemmas that arose frequently in the course of television news coverage.

At ABC News, there were no formal reporting guidelines until after 1977, when Roone Arledge took over as president of the News Division (he remained president of the Sports Division as well). Arledge issued some procedural guidelines; several policy guidelines followed. But the first vice president for standards, George Watson, was hired only in 1983. Watson took a more systematic approach to creating and communicating guidelines. With help from company lawyers, he codified what ABC expected of its producers and reporters, collecting directives in a loose-leaf notebook which could be readily updated. The book was distributed to producers , who were responsible for monitoring adherence to the guidelines. Over the years, it was updated as needed.

New unit. In 1995, as programming grew to include two news magazines, a documentary series, and other programs, the standards position was elevated and expanded. Arledge appointed Senior Vice President Richard Wald to take charge of the so-called Editorial Quality Office. Wald, with a staff of two, would report directly to Arledge. ^[5] In 2000, Kerry Smith took over from Wald. Smith was a 25-year veteran of television news who, over the course of her career, had produced shows for most ABC news programs.

Smith and her four-person team operated in several different ways. For ABC News’ long investigative stories, Editorial Quality—together with the network’s legal department—served as a final “check,” making sure the show met legal and network standards. As needed, Smith and her team developed and disseminated new policies. For example, in 2005, she issued a memo instructing the news staff to withhold the name and photo of an abducted child if the child was known to have suffered sexual abuse—a matter of protecting the child’s privacy. ^[6]

But reporters and producers regularly encountered complex or idiosyncratic situations not addressed by the written policies. Sometimes they used their own judgment. But when they hit a particularly thorny issue, they called Smith. “We addressed each issue on a case-by-case basis,” Smith says. ^[7] “There were no wrong answers... You really have to look at what is the right decision with those set of circumstances in that story.” She adds:

One thing you learn in this job is that the set of circumstances are always different. Other decisions can inform it, and you try to maintain a standard that makes sense in most cases. But not blindly, because something could come up that would change the decision. You would like to be consistent, but there might be something that really would change your mind.

It was Smith’s job to make the judgment calls on behalf of ABC News.

Listen to Smith discuss the demands of her job.
Length: 18 sec

By the time the Durham rape case photos crossed her desk, Smith had several years experience heading up Editorial Quality, and had weighed in on a wide variety of questions: How should children be interviewed on television? How much blood should ABC News show in a war zone on the morning news? Four days after the September 11 terror attacks, Smith and Westin had made a particularly controversial decision, over the objection of several producers, that ABC stop re-playing video footage of the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, and of the collapse of the Twin Towers (although ABC continued to show still photos). It was a matter of “taste, respect for those killed, and concern for children, who were unable to distinguish that this was something that was [not] happening again and again,” ABC News’ Vice President Jeffrey Schneider later told a reporter. ^[8] Producers and executives at ABC News were free to challenge Smith, and ABC News President Westin could overrule her decisions. In most cases, however, Smith had the final word.