Television station under fire for role in Henderson standoff

      Las Vegas television news crews made the news this week by sending a fact-finding helicopter on a distraction mission and allowing a pair of Henderson police officers to masquerade as a reporter and photographer.
      The suddenly snug relationship between crime fighters and journalists covering crime drew criticism Thursday from Nevada journalism professors and the stations' competitor.
      Journalists gathered for hours Tuesday at the scene of a standoff between police and an angry 48-year-old man holed up in an apartment with a woman and her two young children. The man requested an exclusive interview with KTNV-TV, Channel 13, and police turned that plea into a passport to the apartment.
      But the role playing didn't fool James Everfield, who immediately recognized the disguised police officers and refused to open the door.
      A couple of hours later and minutes before 11 p.m. newscasts, Henderson police broke into the home and arrested Everfield and the mother, Nichelle Jackson, on charges of felony child endangerment and obstructing an investigation. The children escaped injury and were taken to Child Haven.
      During the standoff, police requested a flyover by a KVBC-TV, Channel 3 helicopter to distract Everfield while police drilled a hole in the apartment wall for the installation of a fiber-optic camera.
      Emily Neilson, news director for KLAS-TV, Channel 8, said Thursday her competitors deceived viewers and acted recklessly in their role as independent fact finders.
      Occasionally, Neilson said, reporters and police officers cooperate by agreeing on times camera crews may show up to witness arrests or drug busts.
      "Sometimes you do work together, but you don't allow someone to deceive the public under your name," Neilson said. "That undermines your credibility and integrity as news gatherers. Our job is to tell the truth, to maximize the flow of information."
      The decision to allow police to pose as a reporter and photographer was difficult, said Channel 13 News Director Ed Chapuis. Despite criticism from journalism professors and a Channel 8 commentator, Chapuis said he stands by his decision.
      "Occasionally we become part of the story whether we like it or not," Chapuis said Thursday. "What the journalism professors and television pundits are forgetting is that we had the lives of two young children at stake."
      Travis Linn, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said he doesn't fault Channel 3 for deploying its helicopter to make noise for police. "It didn't deceive anyone," Linn said.
      "On the other hand, the camera crew bothers me because they were participating in an act of deception that police were staging," said Linn, a former news director at the ABC-TV affiliate in Dallas. "If journalists allow police to identify themselves as journalists, that puts journalists in danger. The next time, a suspect may have some reason to believe a journalist is actually a police officer or someone else."