By: Allan Wolper De Borchgrave Says Moon Will Have Little Influence
United Press International (UPI) CEO Arnaud de Borchgrave claims
the Rev. Sun Myung Moon exerts less influence over The Washington
Times than Katharine Meyer Graham used to exercise at Newsweek
magazine.
?We used to have these Tuesday meetings, and Katharine Graham was
always there making suggestions,? de Borchgrave said in a telephone
interview from his UPI office in Washington. ?That never happened
when I was editor at The Washington Times, and it won't happen
here now.?
De Borchgrave was reacting to a March 16 business-page article in
The Washington Post on the recent sale of financially challenged
UPI to News World Communications Inc., part of the empire of Moon's
Unification Church. News World also owns The Washington Times.
De Borchgrave told E&P that when he was editor of The Washington
Times, he got rid of several reporters who were ?dead wood? and
found out later they were members of Moon's Unification Church.
?No repercussions or even discussions ensued,? he said.
The Washington Post article by Yuki Noguchi reported that the
?wire service's new owner is controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon ... the conservative voice behind the Times editorials.?
The Washington Post news story has stirred up the Beltway. Wesley
Pruden, editor in chief of The Washington Times, published a signed
editorial the day after the Post article entitled ?Response to a
lie? in which he accused his rival of bad journalism and bad
manners: ?As the editor in chief of the Times (since 1972), I have
sole responsibility and authority for every word that goes into
the newspaper, guaranteed by my contract, which the owners have
never tried to breach in any way.?
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