 After a brief stint at the Houston Bureau, Fleming was promoted to chief of Newsweek's Los Angeles Bureau.Whilst in this post, Fleming not only covered the Watts riots of 1965, but was also severely beaten during a later flare up of tension in LA's southern black neighbourhood in 1966.In 1972 two men used counterfeit 20-dollar bills printed with DB Cooper serial numbers to swindle $30,000 from Karl Fleming who was then working for Newsweek in exchange for an interview with a man they falsely claimed was the hijacker.