By: E&P Staff
In today's edition, the Miami Herald's features department blackballs a chick-lit novelist over a personal squabble between the author and the editor, lessons for the press from the Wen Ho Lee case, and news outlets exercise little restraint when it comes to Zarqawi death coverage.***
Ho Lee Bunk Info and Lessons for Reporters"There are leaks from the Ship of State, and then there are leaks," writes Daniel Schorr in the Christian Science Monitor. "And then there are leaks of bogus information, sometimes called disinformation, intended to influence public opinion in some direction. Such a leak was the planting of information that Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born nuclear scientist working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, had been identified as a spy for China. At least five news organizations were favored with that scoop, along with a wealth of personal information about the scientist - The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News, and the Associated Press."
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Truth Is for 'Liberals'"Here we are, five and a half years into the Bush Administration, and the press corps still hasn't figured out how to handle the White House's primary tactic of media management: lying," writes Eric Alterman in The Nation. "Because the mainstream media make a fetish of a particularly brainless form of objectivity, the Bush Administration has been able to deceive the American public on a dizzying array of issues, from war to economics to science to, well, you name it. Lying has usually damaged the Presidents who do it, as I argued in my book When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences. But the media proved so timid in the face of this Administration's deceptions that the reckoning was delayed long enough for Bush to squeak into a second term."
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'Miami Herald' Features Section Plays Henhouse Politics"I once knew a women's magazine subeditor who was working on a roman a clef about her experience called 'The Bitch Pit,' writes Catherine Seipp in Independent Women's Forum. "The title could just as easily apply to newspaper features sections, which used to be known as the women's pages and still sometimes erupt in henhouse fights. Latest case in point: The Miami Herald's Tropical Life section, which is apparently withholding coverage of a new chick lit novel set in Miami because of bad blood between the book's author, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, and Tropical Life columnist Lydia Martin."
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Author Grabs Dean By the Deep Throat Over Review"The co-author of Deep Throat's book will lash out at The New York Times this Sunday for hiring Richard Nixon counsel John Dean to review it," report Rush and Molloy in the New York Daily News. "John O'Connor, who helped Mark Felt write 'A G-Man's Life: The FBI, Being 'Deep Throat,' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington,' based upon manuscripts written by Felt before he began showing signs of dementia, shot off a letter blasting Dean. 'It would be hard to imagine a reviewer more biased than Dean,' O'Connor writes. 'He was convicted of a crime and disbarred as a result of both Felt's investigation of Watergate and his role as "Deep Throat."'"
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'Chicago Tribune' Editor Lipinski Fights the Good Fight"Ann Marie Lipinski, the editor of the Chicago Tribune since February 2001, has devoted her career to holding the establishment accountable," writes Jon Friedman in Marketwatch. "One theme of our discussion was that she has no patience for 'parochial' media-beat writers. 'I don't edit the paper for you,' she said bluntly, though not unpleasantly. 'Every one shouldn't look like the New York Times. Newspapers need to be more distinct, look different than one another and take more risks.' Lipinski particularly loathes the media critics who go 'flying into Des Moines, Los Angeles and Miami, bringing their own perception of what a newspaper ought to be. The Chicago Tribune is better today than it ever has been.'"
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Tribune's Strategy Predictable: Slash and Burn"Tribune today may best illustrate the limitations of simply buying big brands and squeezing out costs," writes Jon Fine in BusinessWeek. "Here's a crazy idea: a conglomerate tries investing in its properties instead of hacking at costs. If quality is the last argument traditional media can offer, slashing staff is a strange way to get there."
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'NY Times' Media Critic Carr Reportedly Gets $300K+ Deal for Memoir"New York Times media columnist David Carr has sold his memoirs of drug addiction and redemption to Simon & Schuster," reports Keith Kelly in the New York Post."'David is doing a book about the nature of memory and storytelling told through his own personal history,' said Philippa 'Flip' Brophy, his agent at Sterling Lord. One industry source said that the heated auction had fetched a price north of $300,000."
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TV Stations, Web Sites Exercise Little Restraint With Zarqawi Coverage"As happened with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the 'shock and awe' bombing of Baghdad, some American news organizations yesterday covered the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with marked enthusiasm, verging on inappropriate glee," write David Zurawik and Nick Madigan in Baltimore's Sun. "Perhaps the tone was set by the cheering and sustained applause by Iraqis at the Baghdad news conference announcing al-Zarqawi's death. But American television didn't have to follow that gung-ho lead to the extent that some channels did throughout the day."
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Deal Stirrings Help to Lift Tribune Stock"The Tribune Company says it is sticking to a stock buyback plan, but investors yesterday reacted as if the company might be in play," reports the New York Times. "Shares of Tribune rose 4 percent on speculation about the company's future after the Chandler family ? its second-largest shareholder ? made public its dissent to the buyback plan. Those investors hoping for a takeover may have some reason for optimism. At least three private equity firms have approached trusts for the Chandler family recently, according to two people briefed on the approaches. In particular, the investment firms ? the Blackstone Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Providence Equity Partners ? have inquired about buying the Chandlers' 12 percent stake or joining with them to mount a takeover of the company, these people said."
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