Lawyers Say Times Saved Blair from Prosecution
“Could the U.S. Attorney have invited Jayson Blair, the disgraced former reporter for the New York Times, to do the ‘perp walk’ for his fabricated stories?
“Absolutely. Given the evidence developed in the Times’s own investigation, Blair could have been prosecuted for the federal felony of mail or wire fraud. Only the exercise of prosecutorial discretion saved him,” write Stanford University law professors Joseph Grundfest and Robert Weisberg.
“What about the First Amendment’s protections of the press? Forget it. Those do not extend to reporters engaged in intentional falsehood. We can debate about where to draw the line that distinguishes intentional lies from more innocent mistakes, but there’s no question that Blair crossed it by a mile. L’Affair Blair serves as a case study illustrating how the Justice Department has gained the authority not only to attack the press, but also to punish almost any dishonesty that offends it,” they write in the Stanford Lawyer.
Judge Asks for Sources in Wen Ho Lee Case
“A federal judge has set the stage for an unusual clash over assertions by reporters for four news organizations that they need not disclose the names of their sources, a traditional journalistic practice that underpins much of news reporting in Washington,” R. Jeffrey Smith reports in the Washington Post.
“U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson late last week ordered journalists at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and Cable News Network to reveal who in the government may have disclosed derogatory information to them about Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear weapons scientist who was the chief suspect in an espionage case,” the story continues.
“Lee has sued the government to recover damages for alleged harm to his reputation caused by leaks of confidential information from the government’s espionage investigation. His lawyers have encountered what the judge described as “a pattern of denials, vague or evasive answers, and stonewalling” on the part of the government officials they questioned.
“That gives Lee’s attorneys the right, Jackson said, to demand that certain journalists who wrote about the case say which officials might have provided the information.
“Lee pleaded guilty to a single felony count of copying classified documents onto computer tapes without authorization. But the case brought mostly embarrassment to everyone involved. The FBI acknowledged that it botched the investigation by focusing on Lee to the exclusion of others, and in 2000 dropped 59 counts of felony espionage it had lodged against him.
“The bungling led to congressional hearings, internal investigations and a judge’s eventual statement that the government had ’embarrassed this entire nation.’ The government, in turn, blamed its errors partly on the frenzied atmosphere stirred by overzealous news coverage,” Smith’s story continued.
Pierre Thomas of ABC, a black journalist, was CNN’s reporter on the story at the time.
The Asian American Journalists Association said then that it was “alarmed that the allegations of espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory have sparked numerous press reports, editorials and cartoons that promote racist stereotypes.”
Coalition Laments TV’s Lack of Asians, Native People
“A report released Monday by an advocacy group monitoring diversity on TV applauded the increasing visibility of blacks and Latinos in front of and behind TV cameras, but lamented the continuing invisibility of Asians and Native Americans,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Leaders of the Multi-Ethnic Media Coalition, which tracks how well ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are honoring a 1999 agreement to increase diversity, said at a news conference that they would continue to pressure the networks to better reflect a multicultural society.
“As part of the news conference, the Asian Pacific Media Coalition and the National Latino Media Council issued “report cards” to the networks. Apesanahkwat, an actor representing American Indians in Film & Television, said his group chose not to issue a report card, adding that he was disheartened by the virtual absence of Native Americans on television but was optimistic because of several initiatives being considered to increase Native American representation.”
Chicago’s Diann Burns Brings Bump in Ratings
In Chicago, “WBBM-Ch. 2 got a bump in the ratings during its 10 p.m. newscast, but the debut of co-anchor Diann Burns failed to keep a lock on a lot of its viewers leading into the newscast,” Jim Kirk reports today in the Chicago Tribune.
“Burns inaugural appearance at 10 p.m. on Monday gave WBBM a 10.1 rating and 15 share during the half-hour, according to Nielsen Media Research. That compares with an 8.9 rating Oct. 6. But the station had a 14.4 rating and 20 share leading into the newscast.
“WMAQ-Ch. 5, which had a 6.8 rating leading into its 10 p.m. newscast, garnered a 10.4 rating and 16 share. Burns’ former station, WLS-Ch. 7, was running ‘Monday Night Football’ during the time slot. Each rating point equals 33,995 households.”
Burns’ debut was much-awaited. In a Sunday piece, Kirk wrote that:
“She is the linchpin in Channel 2 president and general manager Joe Ahern’s grand plan to turn around the low viewership of his news show and try to become the ratings champion it once was.
“And with Ahern reportedly paying Burns at least $2 million annually, the 46-year-old anchor is among the highest-paid anchors in the country, surpassing many network anchors in New York and other cities, say agents who represent Chicago TV newscasters.”
Washington Post Passes Up “Boondocks” Sequence
“The Washington Post has decided not to publish this week’s Boondocks strip. The comic will return to washingtonpost.com Oct. 19,” the newspaper announces.
Tuesday’s strip featured the characters hatching a plan to find national security adviser Condoleezza Rice a man. “Maybe if there was a man in the world who Condoleezza truly loved, she wouldn’t be so hell-bent to destroy it,” the Jasmine character says. In Wednesday’s strip, the Huey character says, “Condoleezza’s just lonely and bitter. She would be a completely better person if she just had the right man in her life!” “All that gal needs is some old fashioned lovin'” replies Jasmine.
Shirley Carswell, the Post’s assistant managing editor for planning and administration, told Journal-isms that Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. made the decision to pull the sequence because of “our standards for reporting on the personal lives of public officials.”
Condoleezza Rice gets little slack from her African-American critics (Betty Baye, Louisville Courier-Journal).
Bryant Prosecutors Want Closed Doors for Sex Talk
“Prosecutors accused Kobe Bryant’s attorneys of deliberately smearing the reputation of his accuser today as they asked a judge to make sure any evidence about her sexual history is heard behind closed doors,” the Associated Press reports.
CBS’ Rene Syler Gets Cancer Alert
“Both of Rene Syler’s parents had breast cancer,” writes Michael Starr in the New York Post.
“‘Early Show’ co-host Rene Syler set out to do a special report on breast-cancer awareness — and wound up with the scare of her life. Syler, 40, a mother of two, underwent a routine mammogram while researching her project — and discovered she has a condition called hyperplasia atypia, which means she has ‘pre-precancerous’ cells. Given that both her parents had breast cancer, the results put the TV star at a frighteningly higher risk to develop the cancer — and in a state of alert.
“Syler decided to keep a video diary of her ordeal, which will be incorporated into a three-part report to promote October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“The special report airs . . . through Friday on ‘The Early Show’ at 7 a.m.”
Colin Powell Advises Michael, at Times With “Slap”
“By digging in and sticking to his policy prescriptions, [the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Michael] Powell is following the advice of one of his closest confidants: his father, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell,” writes Frank Ahrens in the Washington Post.
“The Powell men e-mail nearly every day and talk on the phone when they can. The entire family, including mother Alma and sisters Linda and Annemarie, stays in close touch. When the secretary of state is in town, Sunday dinners at his Virginia home are required. The 66-year-old secretary has provided constant reassurance, a long-term perspective and ‘even a slap on the head’ to his son over the past few controversial months, the younger Powell said in a late-summer interview.
Wall St. Journal Gives McGowan Another Forum
The Wall Street Journal today gives another forum to William McGowan, author of “Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism.”
In the piece, he asks, “Why are journalists afraid to debate the excesses of diversity?” attempts to settle scores with his critics, and asserts, “My goal in writing the book was not to condemn attempts to expand the ranks of minority journalists and enhance newsroom sensitivity to minority issues.”
In the piece, which originally appeared in Nieman Reports, McGowan fails to mention that a large part of the criticism of his book was that it was sloppily done, took facts out of context and spun those that remained.
The piece fittingly appears in the Wall Street Journal, which on Nov. 19, 2001, became one of the first, if not the first, to review McGowan’s book, and on July 16, 1999, ran a McGowan piece trashing Unity ’99. That one began, “Want to know why a profession that should be reporting the facts is acting like a bunch of cheerleaders? Why news coverage of affirmative action and other sensitive subjects has become skewed to fit a political orthodoxy?”
Sharon Prill of AAJA Heads Tacoma Web Site
“Sharon Prill has been named interactive media director of The News Tribune” in Tacoma, Wash., the paper reports.
“Prill comes from the Seattle Times, where she was online/print advertising manager. At the Times, Prill was named Advertising Manager of the Quarter for first quarter 2003 and received the Ad Manager Achievement Award in 2002.
“Prill is active with the Asian American Journalists Association and serves as treasurer-elect of the national governing board,” the paper said.
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