News University | Today's most popular courses on NewsU, Poynter's e-learning site for journalists. |
| |
Webinars | Our online classroom is just a click away. Learn more. | |
|
|
 
Romenesko
Latest News
Reporting
& Writing
Ethics &
Diversity
Leadership
& Business
Visual
Journalism
Online &
Technology
TV &
Radio
Journalism
Education
|
Article Feedback
View all Al's Morning Meeting feedback
Thursday Edition: Clearing Kool-Aid's Name
(Read the Article)
Post Feedback |
Feedback Guidelines |
Report Feedback Abuse
Page 1 of 1
another witness
Posted by
Al Tompkins
11/13/2003 3:13:04 PM
The Los Angeles Times' Jonestown stories from the incident itself are not
online but on microfiche, but our Jonestown-datelined staff story on t...
The Los Angeles Times' Jonestown stories from the incident itself are not
online but on microfiche, but our Jonestown-datelined staff story on the
ten-year anniversary, by William Long, reported the drink to be ``a patented
grape flavoring named Fla-Vor-Aid and lethal potassium cyanide.''
Present-day Times editor-reporter Tim Reiterman was one of those shot and
wounded on the airstrip at Jonestown with Leo Ryan's party. He was a
reporter for the Examiner then, and co-authored the book ``Raven: the Untold
Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People.''
Another former San Francisco reporter who came to The Times, the late Jerry
Belcher, who'd also written about Jonestown, had occasion to talk with me
about the Fla-Vor-Aid/Kool-Aid ''controversy,'' and we agreed that it
probably came about because Kool-Aid, being a more familiar name, was more
easily adapted into a pop-culture political cliche, as in ``He drank the
Kool-Aid.''
(The spelling ''-Aid'' is itself curious, given that the real drinks end in
''-ade,'' as in lemonade and orange-ade.)
Patt Morrison
Columnist
Los Angeles Times
an eyewitness says Flavor Aid
Posted by
Al Tompkins
11/13/2003 9:48:36 AM
(this is an email the sender asked me to post-he tells me he was in Jonestown and saw the packages of Flavor Aid himself)
Hi,...
(this is an email the sender asked me to post-he tells me he was in Jonestown and saw the packages of Flavor Aid himself)
Hi, Al. It was grape Flavor-Aid. Also, few of the more than 900 deaths were suicides. The handful of survivors told me most of the victims were forced to drink the poison at gunpoint, especially after the first to drink began dying and Jones' followers could see it was not another one of his "White Night" drills. I was in Guyana to cover the Peoples Temple story.
Tony Russomanno
KPIX-TV, San Francisco
(At the time, I was working for KSFO Radio when it was owned by Gene Autry. I won the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow International Award and the Armstrong Award, among others, for my coverage.)
--from al-- I asked Tony to tell me more-HOW did he know it was Flavor Aid-did he see it with his own eyes-- he wrote back---
Yes, I saw some of the packages afterwards in Georgetown. The army or Interior Ministry collected some for evidence, I believe. After so many years, though, I'm not sure how the name of the product was spelled. It might have been Flavor Aid, Flav-r-aid or something similiar, but it was pronounced "flavor aid."
Page 1 of 1
View all Al's Morning Meeting feedback
|
|
