In television news, it's known as a "breaker."

After stealing a car, burglary suspect Ryan Wade-Everett led police on a 50-minute, high-speed chase across the Eastside on Tuesday, news helicopters capturing every turn and fender-bender.

To most viewers, the coverage between stations may have seemed the same.

But local news directors have very different approaches to covering breaking news, or "breakers," even though they desire the same thing: to inform the public while avoiding airing unexpected acts of violence.

That can be a tricky balancing act, said Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcasting and ethics at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based media think tank that trains journalists.

"Are you willing to air the worst possible outcome?" he asked. "If you're not, you better not be live."

While Los Angeles police have criticized that city's television stations for almost daily chase coverage, Bellevue police say they are grateful to the Seattle media and hope to expand cooperation in the future.

For KOMO-TV, the incident began with reports of a home-invasion robbery in Bellevue.

Wade-Everett allegedly broke into three homes and unsuccessfully tried to get residents to give him their car keys.

KOMO's helicopter scrambled, and switching to live coverage was an easy decision, said News Director Jim Tellus.

But there was caution, too. "You never know how something like this will unfold on live TV," he said.

Conversations between the KOMO pilot and producers in the control booth reminded everyone of KOMO's policy: When the chase ended, the camera would pull out, shrinking the action.

Around 5:25 p.m., well into the regularly scheduled newscast, Wade-Everett stopped in a Kirkland driveway and was quickly subdued by police without a struggle.

At that moment, KOMO's camera zoomed out. "We didn't want a tragedy to be seen live on our air," Tellus said.

Violent outcomes to police chases are common. Early yesterday morning, a man led police on a chase near Olympia. After crashing into a concrete barrier, the man shot himself to death. No television helicopters were present.

The prospect that Tuesday's chase could end badly led KING-TV to follow a different breaking-news strategy.

KING had a 10-second delay on its broadcast, a policy that goes back years, said Pat Costello, news director.

Ten seconds is the length of time estimated for producers and anchors to get over their own shock at witnessing a violent event to stop coverage, he said.

The reason for the delay is simple, Costello said. Broadcasting live includes a lot of unknowns. "I'd like to protect myself against the unknown."

Costello agrees with many critics of chase coverage. There needs to be some other news value beyond good guys driving after bad guys, he said. But, he added, such chases are pretty rare in Seattle, which makes them newsworthy.

And he disputed the notion that the media could inspire copycats or encourage suspects to evade capture.

Whatever the downsides to television coverage, Bellevue police spokesman Michael Chiu said they were far outweighed by the benefits Tuesday.

At one point during the drama, Chiu told a captain at Bellevue Police Headquarters to watch KIRO-TV and relay information to officers on the streets.

Police officers watched the helicopters to determine where the chase was taking place.

"It was a visual way to vector in," Chiu said.

Chiu said Bellevue police failed to communicate a request for King County's police helicopter, and the media were law enforcement's only eyes in the sky.

Although Bellevue police have had trouble in the past with television helicopters — the noise can make hostage negotiation difficult, for example — Chiu said he wanted to increase cooperation with the media. In the future, police would like to have an open radio channel with the helicopter pilots to learn the location of fleeing suspects.

"In this specific incident, it was very, very helpful," Chiu said.

Alex Fryer: 206-464-8124 or afryer@seattletimes.com