T A B L E__T A L K Is the New York Times becoming too frivolous? Get serious in the Media section of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Under the Covers By James Poniewozik Sex tips for boys (01/21/97) Sam and Cokie trade deck chairs on ABC's Titanic By Eric Alterman Sam and Cokie, ace reporters? ABC News' pathetic ploy (01/20/97) Outlaw justice By Joe Conason Some "journalists" have a strange soft spot for Matt Drudge (01/19/97) Hollywoodland By Catherine Seipp Why people hate the way they're portrayed in the media (01/16/97) Magazine won't let princess rest in peace By Deborah Mitchell Did Elle publish a fake conversation with Di and Dodi? (01/15/97) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE MEDIA CIRCUS ARCHIVES

An ABC of ethical conflict CAN A MEDIA CRITIC TAKE BUCKS FROM A NETWORK -- AND STILL REPORT FAIRLY ON IT? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY DOUG IRELAND The first ethical imperative of journalism is that reporters should not cover stories or institutions in which they have a personal financial interest. That's why I was more than a little surprised when, switching on ABC's "Nightline" last week, I discovered that the entire program was devoted to a piece on the infamous Internet gossip Matt Drudge by none other than Howard Kurtz, the respected media reporter and critic for the Washington Post. Had Kurtz succumbed to the blandishments of the one-eyed monster and abandoned Katharine Graham's weighty broadsheet to sign on as one of the would-be Lion Kings at the Disneyfield conglomerate that ABC has become? No, for Kurtz is still plying his trade at the Post. But, since ABC is unquestionably a major part of the media landscape for which Kurtz is daily print's best-known watchdog, didn't Kurtz freelancing for "Nightline" create a glaring conflict of interest? When I called to ask him, Kurtz -- to his credit -- allowed that mine was a "legitimate question." In his defense, Kurtz told me that his "Nightline" gig had been approved by Post Managing Editor Robert Kaiser and that, since it was "not a continuing relationship" with ABC but a "one-time assignment," conflict of interest was "not a problem." But in the incestuous hothouse that is Washington, isn't the appearance of potential conflict just as significant as a real one? "I've made that point myself," says Kurtz, but "readers will just have to make up their own minds as to whether or not I'm pulling punches when I write about ABC." This, of course, assumes that all Kurtz's readers are night-owl media junkies who never miss "Nightline" -- unless Kurtz decides to disclose his ABC work in the Post every time he writes about the network. (Kurtz called back a second time to read me a prepared statement: "Anyone who thinks I would pull my punches on ABC because of this one-time assignment should read the last 30 critical articles I've written about the Washington Post, which still pays my salary every week." Kurtz claimed he didn't know how much ABC was paying him, and ABC refused to say). Kurtz's moonlighting for ABC doesn't seem to bother the mediacrit establishment. Former Columbia University Journalism School Dean Joan Konner, whose position made her the proprietor of the Columbia Journalism Review, says, "We are in such a slide in conflicts of interest as reporters these days, without question." Is the Kurtz case an example? "I don't think so. Freelancing for other publications is standard practice. He does cover ABC, but freelancing a piece on Matt Drudge? I don't see it as a conflict of interest." (Konner's indulgence in the matter might not be unrelated to the fact that she runs the annual DuPont Awards for television journalism: One of the presenters scheduled for this year's ceremonies, ABC's Cokie Roberts, who regularly accepts hefty outside speaking fees from business lobbies, is a prime example of the "slide" to which Konner refers.) John Podhoretz, recently named editorial page editor of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, is one of Kurtz's fellow panelists on the CNN media criticism half-hour show "Reliable Sources." "Howie," says the conservative Podhoretz, "is probably the nation's and certainly Washington's foremost media writer, someone of extraordinary standing and power. That gives him a freedom that other people for whom [the ABC gig] might be important don't have. [On "Reliable Sources"] he'd frequently attack CNN. I can't really see any difference between getting paid by CNN and getting paid by ABC." Aside from the size of the check, is there a difference between getting a check as a talking head on a chat show about media and working as a reporter/commentator for one of the Big Three commercial networks? Perhaps, perhaps not. As Kurtz has become more well-known through TV appearances, observes Jeff Cohen, executive director of the liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), "We've noticed several recent occasions when he's gone out of his way to defend the media establishment against critics. For example, when Ralph Nader accurately criticized the New York Times for overlooking progressive advocates in Washington, Kurtz attacked Nader and distorted his critique, claiming Nader simply wanted more coverage of himself. During the controversy over the San Jose Mercury News' series on the contras and drugs, Kurtz savaged the Mercury News reporter without ever mentioning the years that national outlets like the Washington Post misreported or buried news about contra drug-running." (Cohen himself is remunerated as the token liberal talking head of Fox News' weekend half hour of media chat.) Interestingly, both Kurtz and former Columbia Dean Konner used the same terms in justifying Kurtz's "Nightline" work: The two most powerful narcotics in the world are fame and money, especially in a media culture in which the former drives the latter. The understandable desire to see one's work get wider recognition must, in the case of a media critic, be measured against the insidious effects of courting the corporate fame machine called network television. Even the best of us may find ourselves slightly shading our perceptions and interpretations in ways so subtle we don't notice them when overexposed to those seductive drugs. Two days after his "Nightline" job, Kurtz made his regular appearance on "Reliable Sources." At the tail end of the show, host Bernard Kalb lambasted ABC for engaging in "celebrity journalism" by replacing its White House and congressional correspondents with, respectively, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. Not only will the duo have considerably less time to devote to reporting than the beat reporters they're replacing, since the two stars will continue with their current, supposedly full-time duties on the network's magazines, but ABC's King and Queen of oversized outside speaking fees are also two walking conflicts of interest; Kurtz himself has criticized them. Kurtz responded to Kalb's ABC-bashing by saying, "I think you're being a little bit harsh, Bernie," but the show went to commercial before Kurtz could tell us why he thought so. And the commercial? Why, it was David Brinkley, huckstering for Archer Daniels Midland. The symbolism of that transition conjures the age-old question: Who shall guard the guardians? SALON | Jan. 22, 1998 Doug Ireland is a writer in New York.