Darts & Laurels
Dart:
Undercover Journalism
The September 30 issue that U.S. News & World Report mailed
to subscribers in certain areas was a grabber, to say the least:
under the magazine's familiar large blue and white logo
stood a tall, sheltering beach umbrella flanked by an inviting
pair of luxurious lounge chairs facing a tranquil sea and sky
that drew the gaze upward to the floating — and the only
— cover line: "Search for:" Search for what?
readers wondered, intrigued by the bold, less-is-more design.
Would this cover story be about the search for peace? An honest
man? The perfect wave? Eagerly opening the magazine, they realized
they'd been had: the real cover was hidden beneath; each
of the other three sides of the wraparound fake one revealed the
name of the advertiser — an online travel company.
Dart:
It's Only Business
Once upon a time in America, a lively little weekly entered the
public arena. Presented as a alternative to the establishment
press, and taking its name from the iconoclastic New York neighborhood
that was its home, The Village Voice was independent, irreverent,
and unafraid. Its gods were truth and justice, its enemies, power
and greed. Its message was hope and change, and over the years
change indeed did come, to the paper itself as well — predators,
Pulitzers, defectors, imitators. Meanwhile, in Phoenix, another
lively little weekly, calling itself New Times, arrived in the
arena. Its gods, too, were truth and justice, its enemies, power
and greed. And it, too, became a force for change. The degree
and depth of the change in the papers, however, was not entirely
clear until early this fall. On October 2, Village Voice Media
and New Times Inc. — grown, by now, into established national
rival chains locked in a territorial gang war for ads and readers
— made public a secret pact: New Times would stop muscling
in on Los Angeles, Village Voice would get out of Cleveland. To
make the payoff, one paper in each city would have to die. In
a swift, coordinated operation and without a moment's warning,
New Times took down Los Angeles, leaving the field open to VV's
L.A. Weekly, while Village Voice rubbed out Free Times so that
New Times's Scene could take control. Although the two dead
papers had left their mark on the local establishment, neither
chain flinched at fulfilling the contract killings. The new mission,
after all, is money; the enemy, competition. Keep that in mind,
boys and girls, if you should ever dream of starting a lively
little weekly fighting for truth and justice and against power
and greed.
Dart:
Feeling the Heat in Alaska
In an age when media-savvy politicians deftly deflect unwelcome
questions with answers to ones that nobody asked and disengaged
television interviewers seem not to notice or care — in
such an age, a journalist like Rhonda McBride can bring a breath
of fresh air. As the moderator of "Running," a series
of pre-election candidate debates on KAKM, the public television
station in Anchorage, McBride relentlessly held to the fire the
feet of her so-called guests (an ill-advised term if there ever
was one, suggesting to some misguided interviewers and interviewees
alike that the journalist fulfill the obligations of a host).
Hollis French, for example, a Democratic hopeful for a state senate
seat who began to equivocate about a state income tax, found himself
facing McBride's insistent "yes or no?" For
his part, Republican incumbent Dave Donley, pointing proudly to
his record on education, clearly wished that McBride had not brought
up the issue of fairness in funding Alaska's rural schools.
Indeed, so discomfited was Donley that the senator — who,
as noted in a story in the Anchorage Daily News, happens to co-chair
the finance committee that decides on funding for KAKM —
as well as Randy Ruedrich, chairman of the Republican party in
Alaska, complained to Paul Stankavich, the station's general
manager. The next day Stankavich told McBride to "tone down
her questions"; a few days later, citing disagreements "about
the direction the program should take," he removed her as
the program's moderator. McBride, a veteran of public and
commercial broadcasting in Alaska, resigned. And thus was shut
another window on crisper, and purer, political air.
Dart:
All That Glitters
When the Hollywood bug bites a working journalist, it usually
raises a rash of conflict-of-interest concerns. But over at NBC's
Today show, Katie & Company have evidently been so exposed
to so much promotion that they've become desensitized to
such ethical risks. As the some six million viewers of the nation's
most-watched morning television news show learned and learned
and learned this summer, anchor Couric not only joined the ranks
of other journalists susceptible to a casting call from Tinseltown,
but went them one better. The July 23 program — a movie
promoter's fantasy come true — included Katie and
Matt coyly bantering about her cameo role in the Austin Powers
flick Goldmember, a preview of her interview with one of its stars,
a presentation of selected clips, her interview with another one
of the stars (more clips), and a plug for that night's NBC
Dateline, which would report in more detail on Katie at work on
the Goldmember set. More interviews, more clips followed on July
24, 25, 26, and 29, when Matt reported that the movie had knocked
out the competition at the box-office that weekend. Not until
a full week after that record-shattering opening did the Today
show air critic Gene Shalit's review, in which he deemed
the "odious" Goldmember "the year's worst
movie."
Laurel:
Power Play
Thankfully, not every conscientious journalist is abandoned
by management for perceived offenses against powerful newsmakers.
At the Brattleboro Reformer in Vermont, where Eesha Williams covers
the nuclear industry, outside pressure came in mid-August with
a call for a meeting from Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. Only
days before, on July 31, the multibillion-dollar national energy
company had acquired Vermont Yankee, a nuclear power station in
nearby Vernon (and whose imposing image, in the form of two poster-size
photographs, provides the only art in the room in which the town
board meets). Representing Entergy was a company spokesman, Rob
Williams (no relation to Eesha), and the director of public affairs,
Brian Cosgrove, formerly head of the Republican party in Vermont.
Present for the paper were managing editor Kate Casa, reporter
Williams, and publisher David Emmons. The purpose of the meeting
was crystal clear: Entergy wanted Williams taken off the beat.
As evidence of his "anti-corporate, anti-nuclear agenda,"
the company presented his bosses with a long list of selections
from his 2001 book, Grass Roots Journalism. (Their evidence did
not, however, include cjr's review of that book, in which
founding editor James Boylan wrote that the author "insists
that journalism devoted to forwarding a cause . . . must be fair
to both sides, accurate, and cleanly written.") Could Entergy
point to any inaccuracies in Eesha Williams's coverage?
the managing editor wanted to know. Entergy could not. That was
enough for the Reformer's publisher. "While I hold
conservative views," Emmons explained to the Entergy delegation,
"this isn't my paper. It's the people's
paper. We're not here to make Vermont Yankee happy. We're
not here to make anyone happy but our readers." The meeting
was over.
Laurel:
Pennies From
Last year, the Gannett-owned Herald in Bellingham, Washington,
aroused the ire of subscribers by adding to their bills some forty-eight
cents for the Extra edition it had published on September 11.
This year, as the anniversary of the terrorist attacks drew near,
the Gannett-owned State Journal in Lansing, Michigan, perhaps
inspired by its sibling's creativity but hoping to avoid
the fallout, took a different, more direct approach. Its first
alert appeared in a page-one notice on September 5: "The
Lansing State Journal will publish a special edition on Sept.
12 . . . . Subscribers will be charged 15 cents for this special
edition. If you do not wish to be billed for this newspaper, please
call the circulation department at 377-1020." Its second
front-page warning, on September 9, included an additional sentence:
"Proceeds from this edition will be donated to the City
of Lansing's Remembrance Fund." Given such a noble
cause, who, other than an unpatriotic Scrooge, could possibly
object? As it turned out, plenty of Bob Cratchits — particularly
after reading columnist John Schneider's rallying cry of
protest (which the Journal, to its credit, ran on September 13).
Among other things, Schneider explained that such "negative
optioning," in which consumers must take some action to
avoid being billed for an offered product they do not want, is
illegal; he also calculated the percentage of the fifteen-cent
surcharge that would actually go to the charity: two-and-a-half
cents. On September 22, the Journal surrendered: there'd
be no extra billing to subscribers after all.
Laurel:
Guilt Trip
Persuading grieving parents to part with a snapshot of their murdered
daughter, a reporter for the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning
Call in 1995 promised to "guard it with my life";
the photo was never returned . . . . Reporting on a lawsuit brought
in 1987 against a local blood bank by the parents of an HIV-infected
child, the Call revealed the kindergartner's name —
and, along with the rest of the frenzied press, turned the life
of the district superintendent into a daily nightmare. . . . Pursuing
a bizarre stalking case against a local teacher (who, after five
tormented years, was finally and completely exonerated), the Call,
typically, in a fifty-five-paragraph story, included only three
paragraphs pertaining to her lawyer's rebuttal of the charges.
. . . And when Larry King pronounced Miss Pennsylvania the "ugliest"
candidate in the 1990 Miss America pageant, the Call enthusiastically
joined in milking that story of human unkindness for everything
it was worth. …Such are some of the less-than-shining moments
in the history of the Call that the paper faces up to in "After
the Media," an occasional series on a variety of stories
in which ordinary people found themselves suddenly, through no
fault of their own, in the spotlight. Their recollections in tranquility
of the treatment they got, and their feelings then and now, may
make journalists squirm. Still, many of these reluctant newsmakers
express understanding, even forgiveness, of their sufferings at
the hands of the media. Which seems too generous by half.
Darts & Laurels is written by Gloria Cooper, CJR's deputy executive editor. Nominations may be addressed to her by mail, phone (212-854-1887), or e-mail (gc15@columbia.edu).
