Lets head straight to there to ed lavandera with the latest on Darren Wilsons status and how are people reacting to wilsons resignation last night . Reporter a lot of people who have been against Darren Wilson since the august shooting of Michael Brown say that it has taken too long to get to this point, but in many ways not a lot of people around here, whether you supported wilson or not, never really imagined any possible way Darren Wilson could continue on the police force. Last night his attorneys released a statement on his behalf saying from Darren Wilson it was my hope to continue in policework, but the safety of other Police Officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. So Darren Wilson after more than three months being on paid administrative leave is now officially gone from the Ferguson Police department. Brian . Ed, thanks. Appreciate it. I know people have strong feelings about the medias treatment about this ongoing story. I want to go back to monday when we saw buildings ablaze, stores under siege, truly a scary scene right near st. Louis. With reporters right in the middle of the mayhem and maybe sometimes too close. Tear gas. Tear gas. Theres tear gas just dropped right near us. Its going to get bad here if we dont have masks. People are throwing stuff at me right now. People are throwing stuff at me right now. Its that kind of scene out here. Whether its oh sorry. I just got hit by a rock. Very thats gunfire. Youre unlawfully assembled. You need to get out of the street immediately or you will be subject to arrest. [ bleep ] out of our face. We just had a big volley. Theres another round that just wept out of the tear gas. Coming out of the police vehicles. Theres a fire that was set to the building. Theyre blocking our exit. Weve just heard dozens of gunshots. Come on. Come on. You do not understand you are promoting a certain narrative. Right, right. Thank you. That the reporter at the end, cnn Jason Carroll is back from ferguson and here with me on set. Sara sidner, who got hit by a rock, is in san francisco. For a printed online perspective, let me bring in wesley lowry of the washington post. Hes in ferguson. Jason, we see people yelling at you. They werent threatening, but there were times it was too dangerous. Was it too dangerous to be broadcasting live . It was definitely dangerous. Whats it too dangerous to broadcast live . I would say no. I think whenever you come to a point where youre covering a story as important as this one, one that could have historical significance, you have to be there. As journalists, you know, we know the risks. We knew it was going to be dangerous. I had been receiving Text Messages from protesters for weeks saying that the city was going to burn. So i went in knowing that it was going to be dangerous expecting it. Were you wearing a bulletproof vest . What kind of precautions were you taking . I did not have a bulletproof vest. I had a gas mask. When they lobbed the tear gas, it came so quickly and i wanted to get the story out, i found if i coughed it out and continued to talk and moved away from where the gas was coming from, i was okay or at least i felt okay. Its only after looking at the images now i realized how close we were. You can see some of the tear gas there now. I was there with my crew, that was my producer there. We tried to move away. Did the best we could to try to report the situation. Was it dangerous . Yes. Did we hear the gunfire . Yes. Were they throwing things at us . Yes. But i still felt as though it was significant and important to be there. Sara, let me ask you, it looked to me from watching on mopped night like we had security personnel with the crews that you and jason were with. Is that right . Thats correct, yes. Sometimes we have security, sometimes we dont. But there came a point in which we all felt like if were going to be doing this story, the best thing to do is have at least another set of eyes. I dont know if people realize this but were sort of blind with the lights in our faces. We are trying to tell the story. When were live, we are concentrated solely on what it is were doing and trying to talk about whats happening around us in this kind of setting. And so youre not aware of whats going on sort of around you other than the specifics of the story. And so when something comes at you, you sort of need someone to be watching for danger while youre doing your job, and, you know, this, brian and i have covered wars and different places the world, libya, afghanistan, and so yeah, we can show some of that video from libya, sara. How did this compare . Two very, very, very different scenarios. One thing that was different in libya is that we werent the targets. When i was with the rebels, the rebels wanted us there with them to show what was going on. If you were though with the government at that time, if you were reporting on the government, then you were the target. Very different scenario. What there was there was a lot of shooting in the air, extremely, extremely dangerous, but when that happened, it was daytime. It was not dark yet. When we were in ferguson, it was dark, and you couldnt see but you can certainly hear gunshots and as you might imagine, i know exactly what gunshots sound like compared to firecrackers which were also being lobbed in some areas. So it was a different scenario. There were different kinds of dangers there. But we were targets in ferguson in some ways. I want to say this though, there were about 10 or 15 protesters who called me up and said, do you need help . They came down there and it turns out it wasnt a rock. It was a bottle, a glass bottle that hit me in the head, and they said we will help you. Where are you . We heard you were hurt. Were coming there, were going to get you out thereof. We are going to help you. So there were people who were Peaceful Protesters who wanted to get the megsage out and who did not want this to happen in any way, shape, or form because they feel like the message got corrupted. The message that they were trying to put out to the world got completely corrupted by violence that they did not want to see. So there were people there that also wanted to help us from the publics view. Thats good to know. Let me bring in wesley because, wesley, you were rather famously arrested in august during the earlier unrest, during the protests then. Were there any press access issues you experienced this week . I know of only one arrest in the past few days and that was a photographer. I only know of one journalist arrested in the last few weeks. I dont know that there were the same types of issues, and there werent mass arrests the same way this time around as there were the last time. Many fewer arrests generally. There certainly have been its hard to gauge exactly what the press access issue has been in this case. For example, the last few days theyve closed down the area that was looted and where the rioting took place. Its been closed as a crime scene and only for a few hours every day have people been allowed in and out. Some might argue thats an access issue. Others might argue with yes potentially millions dollars of Property Damage done, maybe they do need crime scene investigation. Its a different scenario. Let me ask you about the word riot because you have covered other periods of unrest before. You were at penn state when that tv news truck got flipped over by a crowd. That was a riot. It wasnt called a riot but it was. And, you know, i think thats another point that some of the protesters that i spoke to who were peaceful brought up. They said weve seen situations like this unrest before. They said this is a situation where the unrest is for political and social reasons. When we were out at penn state, it was in some ways we experienced some of the same things that sara had pointed out, we were the targets. A lot of those students were upset because they felt as though, as you remember the story, it was the press fault for coming after joe paterno. I dont mean to compare the two, but its worth keeping in mind when we see these sorts of 340e789s, even on friday night in san francisco, there were windows broken during ferguson related protests, bottles thrown at police. It wasnt as widespread but i do wonder sometimes if there are racial and other factors at play here. I think thats a point that a lot of people will be looking at. I just know that in this situation, i agree with sara. I think in some ways the cause got corrupted. There were definitely protesters like the one you saw there that got in my face. He wasnt there because of Michael Brown. He wasnt there because of police brutality. He had his own agenda, but there were a number of protesters out there who wanted to have their voices heard. Unfortunately, these images are overshadowing the megsages they wanted to get across. Well talk more about that broader topic. Its not just about Michael Brown. Jason carroll, sara sidner, and wesley lowry, thank you for being here. I know this is a hot topic. Send me a tweet or look me up on facebook. Weve heard what it was like to report during the height of the hostility, but i want to ask this question when we come back. Did the medias presence actually make things worse . Were people, i hate to say this, but were they looting for the cameras . That in a moment. Than ever why now is the best time to be on verizon. 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So this season give something that means something. Support us at redcross. Org welcome back. Lets put up on screen one of the defining visuals from the z ferguson this week. Its of president obama addressing the nation. One side the president appealing for peace, while the other side the beginnings of a riot in ferguson. Obama sounded pretty self aware of what was happening. We know theres going to be some negative reaction and it will make for good tv. Good tv. Well, many agreed with him. One of my last guests, wesley lowry, called the violence on demand programming for the nation that flicks from one blockbuster event from the next. Let me show you the ratings from monday. On the left are the 9 00 p. M. Cable news ratings for the monday before the grand jury announcement. Thats the total audience. On the right, thats the hour of announcement. Cnn with 6. 2 Million Viewers while the announcement is coming in. That is more than any moment after katrina, after the boston bombings. These are the same ratings now but in the 25 to 54yearold demographic that advertisers dokov vet. Cnn number one, fox number two, msnbc, number three. Whats important is the huge surge of young people that tuned in to see the announcement and the violence that followed afterwards. I heard many complaints about the coverage on monday night. Here is one of them. Its from laura ingraham. She tweeted this, if the media pulled back half of the protesters would disperse and go home. Ferguson would be more peaceful. Is that true . Did the media fan the flames in ferguson . Joining me is the director of the George Washington school of Media Affairs and frank abs sh. Eur. What is your impression of the National Media coverage. You have seen hundreds of rompers parachute into your community. One of the things thats stood out is the fact that a lot of National Reporters dont know the territory. As a result, there have been some very serious errors on their part in terms of reporting stuff thats not factual. Six weeks ago we were told that Ferguson Police chief was on the verge of resigning. Hasnt happened. We were told of a major riot in downtown st. Louis. It was nine miles away in a suburb of university city. On top of that we were told three floors of the ferguson hospital had been set aside for injuries from the riots. There is no ferguson hospital. No hospitals in the area had done that. The outcome is, in fact, that people will trust the media much less knowing that what is being reported is not factual. Frank sesno, did you notice some of the problems, some of the same inadequacies in the coverage . Hsure. I think you have people helicoptering in as you say. Theyre instantly on the streets, and what theyre able to do is cover the snapshot through the straw, exactly what theyre seeing at that moment. What they dont know is the lay of the land, the personalities, the deep seated animosities, where they exist, and unfortunately such things as whether theres a hospital or not. The problem is with a story like this and your audience numbers show it, the passions run so deep, the feelings run so deep, the perspectives of the white audience and the black audience are so vastly different and far apart that this is when it calls when you want some knowledge on the ground. This is when the nuance in the reporting also matters. I put up those ratings, as youre saying frank sesno, because i think its worth keeping in mind these networks had huge audiences. It was most lly commercialfree. Its not like cnn directly profited during the hours of the rioting but the ratings get to a point a lot of people online have said, did the Networks Want violence to happen . Of course the media dont, no. I think thats a cynical thing to say. People dont sit around in editorial meetings at cnn or fox saying we hope theres violence so it drives the ratings up. But you know something is going to come along and you know that that is going to drive the audience. You know youre going to get an audience, maybe not this big, with a story like that, and tough plan accordingly. Talking about the audience is getting way too cynical in this way. There is a major story. There is a major issue. And you got to cover it, and then its a separate subject as to what the consequences of that are. Frank, let me ask you brian, i feel the same way here. Im sorry, go ahead. I feel the same way because while a lot of people are quick to criticize and say the media caused this by their very presence, trament if the media had not covered it, theyd have been doing an extreme disserv e disservice. I want to share a tweet saying a broadcaster friend of mine calling Television Cameras the idiot maker. When the cameras are on them, the behavior becomes irrational. Is there some truth to that, when the cameras are present, people act out for the cameras . They do but also when the National News media celebrities are in town, theres a crush to be a part of this, to be seen with them, to be associated with them. As a result, a lot of people got on television as expert spokespeople who, in fact, were not. The local people know who these folks are. The National Media dont. One of the attorneys interviewed extensively was in the process of facing disbarment, but the media didnt realize it. I want to jump in there, brian, if i can, because i have been out on the streets with cameras in very strange places when things like this are going on. What cameras do, they do change the dynamic. They magnify, they amplify, they certainly can distort, and they can antagonize people who are already out there because people who are out there see the cameras abc news they may perform for them. It has be a almost odd effect. Theres a camera thats capturing you for the world to see, but in some strange way theres an anonymity that brings because someone may feel theyre part of something somehow bigger, and so the danger with cameras always, always is that youre not just there tracking the news and recording the news. You may be helping to propel the news. Thats where this gets to be very dangerous and very delicate. A couple days after im not sure theres a solution for this. Let me play one sound bite from Darren Wilson because this big first interview that Abcs George Stephanopoulos incurred with Darren Wilson made a lot of news later in the week. There was a 5yearold holding onto hulk hogan. Thats how big this man was. Hulk hogan. He was very large and very powerful moment. That moment before the second shot you said there was a look in his eye like something you had never seen before. You described it as a demon. It was a very, very intense image he was presenting. There has been widespread speculation that abc somehow paid for this interview. Abc is denying that. We do not pay for interviews and there was no payment for this interview, period. Frank sos