"This American Life": Discuss the coolest show on public radio in the Media area of Table Talk

Liberté, Egalité, Versace!
By James Poniewozik
The new fashion media focuses on the frocks populi.
(12/08/98)

- - - - - - - - - -

BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVE

C o o l on global warming
-------------------------------Is it a conflict of interest for a Newsweek
--------------------------editor to rally anti-environmentalists?

BY SUSAN LEHMAN | Does global warming pose a real threat to civilization as we know it? Scientists and policy makers aren't sure. But Newsweek contributing editor Richard Thomas has made up his mind.

Addressing a Sept. 16 conference at the Annapolis Center, which the Wall Street Journal revealed to be a front organization for the National Association of Manufacturers -- a group that opposes clean-air legislation -- Thomas denounced the environmental movement, the Clean Air Act, the EPA, the supposed danger of global warming, Vice President Al Gore, President Clinton and the attorneys general who "abdicated their responsibility" and settled litigation against the tobacco companies.

Critics say Thomas' remarks raise questions about his journalistic objectivity. "Here's someone who the public tends to rely on and he's clearly saying things that call into question his objectivity and knowledge of the issues and were, quite frankly, off the wall," says Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust. O'Donnell, who was present and took notes on Thomas' speech, claims Thomas decried media coverage of environmental subjects as "press hysterics," derided fellow Newsweek staffers as "environmentally cuckoo," referred to the "environmental coterie" that edits his stories at Newsweek, announced that "computer projections of global warming have to be wrong" and opined that the debate over global warming would eventually "embarrass environmentalists and be a big plus for us."

Thomas, an economics reporter who covers environmental stories and a Newsweek veteran since 1962, says O'Donnell didn't get his remarks right. For one thing, Thomas says, he said some members of the press were "environmentally cuckoo" but did not say anything about his Newsweek colleagues or editors. "It looks to me like the National Environmental Trust reporter did not like the truth of some of the things I said and edited them to make me look foolish or hysterical or wrong," says Thomas.

The question of whether O'Donnell got the remarks right could easily be resolved if the Annapolis Center would release the tape of the proceedings it promised, in pre-conference literature, to make available. Alas, Richard Seibert, the center's founder and CEO, says the quality of the tape isn't good enough to release -- though the center is glad to supply a written transcript that was edited by Thomas.

Meanwhile, in another twist, Seibert says there is no connection between the Annapolis Center and the National Association of Manufacturers. "The Wall Street Journal got it wrong," Seibert says, explaining that Journal reporter John Fialka was "under a deadline and didn't check it out."

"Oh, please," says Fialka, noting that he spent three weeks on the piece (which also mentioned that Seibert served as vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers). "This wasn't something we dashed off on a deadline. I don't know where he got that!"

In a letter faxed to Seibert and Newsweek's top brass on Tuesday, the National Environmental Trust requested that full, unedited audio and print versions of Thomas' remarks be made available to the public and the press.

"If Thomas' views are so strong, why doesn't he write essays?" asks O'Donnell. Thomas says that "my views on environmental issues are my views," but argues that when he reports an environmental story, "I don't report my views, I report the views of the major players."

Does a conflict arise when a Newsweek reporter espouses extreme views to a partisan audience? Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, Ann McDaniel, says, "The magazine feels it is inappropriate for full-time staff workers to express strong views in public forums." Contributing editors, McDaniel says, are asked to keep the magazine informed of their speaking engagements. "We monitor such activities so as to avoid direct conflicts of interest," she said. McDaniel refused to say whether the magazine had known about Thomas' extracurricular speaking activity before the National Environmental Trust letter arrived on Tuesday. "We never comment publicly on personnel matters," she said.

More fun with conflict:

On Dec. 14, frequent New York Times op-ed page contributor Nathan Lewin again appeared on the right-hand page, this time urging President Clinton to accept a plea bargain with Kenneth Starr. In Lewin's proposed scheme, the president would agree to plead guilty or no contest to a criminal contempt charge; in exchange, Starr would drop perjury, obstruction of justice and other allegations in the Monica Lewinsky matter. "A plea bargain now would be a vindication of Mr. Starr and would enable him to return to private life with a conviction of the president under his belt," Lewin wrote.

It was kind of Lewin to dream up schemes to vindicate the independent counsel. But strangely, Lewin did not mention the fact that Starr once vindicated Lewin's good name, saving his skin -- and $50,000 -- in a sanction levied against him by U.S. District Judge Charles Haight Jr. of the Southern District of New York. Lewin was hit with the sanction for "abusive litigation" in connection with a suit he filed against the Bank of Israel and the Israeli Finance Ministry. Starr handled the appeal and successfully persuaded the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the sanction. The Times identified Lewin as Edwin Meese's lawyer in an independent counsel investigation in 1987 and 1988, but did not mention his history with the current independent counsel.

A spokesperson for the Times said the paper's general policy is to "identify op-ed contributors in a way that establishes their connection to, or expertise on the subject about which they write." The Times did not explain why it failed to identify Lewin's connection to Starr. The connection was not exactly obscure: On Dec. 11, in a letter Starr sent to Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., after his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, the special prosecutor provided the names of previous legal clients. Nathan Lewin's name was, of course, included on Starr's list.

Congressional pooh-bahs: New Republic and Weekly Standard are fish wrap

What do those with power, or at least access to power, regard as essential reading? No, not Aristotle's ahead-of-its-time study of thong underwear, "Posterior Analytics." A study conducted by the strategic public relations and crisis communication (whatever that means) firm Ein Communications found, not surprisingly, that congressional chiefs of staff ranked the Washington Post's political coverage the most indispensable among daily newspapers. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today followed, in that order. The chiefs of staff cited Tim Russert, David Broder and Cokie Roberts as the most influential political news providers on TV.

And the two periodicals congressional chieftains said they were least likely to read? Those noted elite journals of opinion-making, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard.

But Bill Kristol and Charles Lane shouldn't worry -- they have a huge impact on the inmates of "The McLaughlin Group."
SALON | Dec. 17, 1998

Susan Lehman's Media Circus appears every Thursday.