|
||
How can the media have a built-in liberal bias when so many outlets are owned by conservatives? Pitch in your two cents in the Media area of Table Talk
R E C E N T L Y
Male writers vs. female writers: Beyond the preconceptions From crackhead to literary star Confabulation crisis Is Time brain-dead? Our tchotchkes, ourselves BROWSE THE |
WHY THE TIME/CNN NERVE-GAS DEBACLE WAS INEVITABLE | PAGE 1, 2
My most disturbing moment came over lunch with a senior Time editor. I asked how it was that the Pan Am story had been allowed to be published even after those most knowledgeable about the subject had questioned its fundamental premise. "It was a Thursday night," he explained. "We had nothing else to put on the cover." He has since been promoted. The story remains the subject of a lawsuit. In its heyday, Time was a bringer of news and a shaper of opinion. But in recent years the magazine has realized that attempting to retain that traditional role would render it extinct in an online world. Today, weekly reports arrive as late as the light from a distant star. Such fears of superannuation breed desperation. In fairness, Time did -- and continues to do -- much that is right. It boasted outstanding journalists who week in and week out refused to cave in to editors hungry to stretch their stories. Each time an editor attempted to "clean up" a quote or remove a complexity that ran counter to an editorial presumption, most of the reporters would resist, putting their views into memos. Usually -- not always -- the editors would back down. But the process was wearing and at times quixotic. For some of the magazine's editors, reality just didn't seem to suffice -- as evidenced in the 1994 flap when Time manipulated its cover image of O.J. Simpson to make him darker and more sinister. That cover revealed more about the character of Time than it did about O.J. Simpson. On Oct. 25, 1994, a few months after the Simpson cover appeared and a year after my departure from the magazine, I wrote a five-page, single-spaced letter to Time's new editor in chief, Norman Pearlstine. In it, I wrote: "What I saw on a daily basis at Time during the six years I was there so disturbed me that I felt compelled to resign. ... I left for a simple reason: I was fearful that my own reputation would soon be tainted, and I had already experienced a considerable loss of self-esteem as I witnessed journalistic practices that violated everything I believed in." I related how editors routinely tried to alter quotes, that fact-checking had become a joke and that sensitive stories were shielded from peer review. I provided numerous specific examples. I never got a reply, though a secretary confirmed that the letter had reached its destination. Some months ago, I contacted him again. This time I left a message that I was considering going public with my concerns. That same day Pearlstine called on his car phone. We spoke for half an hour. He was gracious but said that he did not remember my letter. He spoke confidently of the magazine and dismissed any notion that Time's editorial process was slipshod or its integrity in question. I let it go at that. Then, the other night, I watched the Time/CNN story alleging that Sarin gas was used in Laos. This was the debut of a new program, "NewsStand: CNN & Time," billed as tangible evidence of the synergies between the two news staffs. The program, widely hyped and promoted, carried corporate blessings and high expectations that the premiere would make a splash. The CNN reporters worked on it for eight months and were highly experienced. But despite this, the story's confirmations felt murky and manipulated, the basic premise far-fetched. CNN's longtime military analyst, retired Maj. Gen. Perry Smith, quit in protest. Some of those interviewed for the program, including one of the linchpins of the story, 86-year-old retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, later either recanted or denied outright the report. Time carried the story with CNN bylines. But what the magazine's account did not share with readers were the internal misgivings and dissension over the piece. Several Time reporters and editors had already expressed grave concerns about the story, before it was published. Others, knowledgeable in such areas, had not been consulted. Those internal challenges led Time's editors to change the headline -- a question mark was added: "Did the U.S. Drop Nerve Gas?" Such diffidence about one's own story suggests a publication that can recite charges in one breath and then, in the next, wonder aloud if they are true. But investigative stories are not trial balloons. Less than a week after the story ran, I called its editor, Johanna McGeary, a Time veteran. I expected her to stand by it. "Do you," I asked, "believe that the story is true?" Her response: "I have absolutely nothing to say on the story. Nothing." She referred me to Time's managing editor, Walter Isaacson, a man whose journalistic bona fides are above reproach. He has, I believe, tried to restore the sheen to Time's tarnished image. Now he faced the delicate task of trying to salvage his magazine's credibility without appearing to trash its sister news organization, CNN. "Is the story true?" I asked. His response was less than a ringing endorsement. At the time he was drafting a publisher's letter which ran in this week's magazine, in which he acknowledged the controversy generated by the piece and vowed that Time would follow the story wherever it might lead. In his statement today, he acknowledged that it had led to a dead end. Stories like the nerve gas account have far-reaching consequences. In Los Angeles, the San Jose Mercury's discredited tale of CIA drug-running continues years later to fuel conspiracy theories and racial tensions. The TIME/CNN story stains the reputation of American servicemen and threatens efforts to control proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In places like the Mideast, even an outright admission of error will not dispel the perception that the U.S. is guilty of hypocrisy, if not outright war crimes. Such propaganda has a long half-life. It is particularly unsettling for reporters and editors who try hard to get it right -- including many distinguished journalists at Time. Credibility, lost in an instant, takes years to recover. If the nerve gas story had turned out to be true, TIME/CNN would doubtless have breathed a huge collective sigh of relief. But what a sad image: journalists, fingers crossed, gambling with the truth. Time and CNN have vowed to make sure that such a mistake doesn't happen again. But I wonder if they really understand how deep-seated the problem is, and how far-reaching the changes are that must be implemented. Until more safeguards are put in place, future "exclusives" will inevitably carry the taint of past suspicion. The question Time should be asking itself at this late date is not merely whether the nerve gas story is true or false, but how it is that the magazine could once again allow such an explosive story to be printed before its own reporters and editors were comfortable with its veracity. If it is human to err, it is also unforgivable to take calculated risks with the reputations of individuals and nations -- and the recording of history itself. Four years ago, I closed my letter to Time's editor in chief, Pearlstine, with a simple thought: "I believe that future journalistic debacles and embarrassments -- like Time's bogus photos of the boy prostitutes in Moscow -- are inevitable so long as the hunger for exclusives outstrips common sense, critical intelligence, and basic skepticism." Today more than ever, that should remain a concern for the magazine and for the profession at large.
Ted Gup is a former writer for the Washington Post and Time. His work has also appeared in Gentlemen's Quarterly, Newsweek, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Mother Jones and Sports Illustrated. He is currently writing a history of the CIA and teaches journalism at Georgetown University. His e-mail address is gup@bellatlantic.net. What are your thoughts on the recent Time/CNN scandal? Discuss how the media artificially inflates stories in Table Talk.
|
|
![[Salon Magazine]](/media/src/salon_logo.gif){kind=logo}
Arts & Entertainment | Books | Comics | Life | News | People
Politics | Sex | Tech & Business | Audio
The Free Software Project | The Movie Page
Letters | Columnists | Salon Plus
Copyright © 2000 Salon.com All rights reserved.