Religions > Atheism > Newsweek reporter put Monica on the map, leading to Clinton's impeachment
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"MrPepper11" |
| Date: |
16 May 2005 10:59:54 PM |
| Object: |
Newsweek reporter put Monica on the map, leading to Clinton's impeachment |
New York Times
May 17, 2005
The Reporter Who Put Monica on the Map
By CHARLES McGRATH
Investigative reporters come in a couple of varieties. There are the
quiet, scholarly types who troll the archives and pore over documents.
And there are the gumshoes, obsessive and indefatigable, who tend to
dress like Columbo, never let go of a story and seldom see eye to eye
with their editors.
Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek reporter who together with John Barry, a
national security correspondent for the magazine, wrote a brief article
referring to desecration of the Koran by American guards at Guant=E1namo
Bay, is a charter member of this second club. He is rumpled, relentless
and even abrasive at times.
His article, which was blamed for rioting in Pakistan and Afghanistan
in which at least 17 people were killed, has been denounced by the
Pentagon for relying on what it says is incorrect information supplied
by an anonymous source.
In discussing the article yesterday, Mr. Isikoff, who supplied the
source for the article, said: "Whenever something like this happens,
you've got to take stock and review what you did - how the story was
handled. The big point that leaps out is the cultural one. Neither
Newsweek nor the Pentagon foresaw that a reference to the desecration
of the Koran was going to create the kind of response that it did. The
Pentagon saw the item before it ran, and then they didn't move us off
it for 11 days afterward. They were as caught off guard by the furor as
we were. We obviously blame ourselves for not understanding the
potential ramifications."
Mark Whitaker, the editor of Newsweek, said in an interview yesterday,
"Everybody behaved professionally and by the book in this case." Mr.
Whitaker said no disciplinary action was being taken against the
reporters because they did everything they should have done. "Grounds
for discipline would be unethical behavior, fabrication, sloppy
reporting or unwillingness to acknowledge the severity of the problem,
and none of those things happened in this case."
Mr. Isikoff is, famously, the journalist who discovered the liaison
between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, and it was his reporting that
led to impeachment proceedings against the president.
Lucianne Goldberg, the literary agent for Linda R. Tripp, the Pentagon
employee who tape-recorded Ms. Lewinsky's descriptions of her meetings
with Mr. Clinton, recalled Mr. Isikoff yesterday: "He just showed up
one day at Linda's office. We don't know how he got in there." She
added: "I found him infuriatingly professional. He crossed all the t's,
dotted all the i's, double-sourced everything and drove us all crazy.
He's like an old beat reporter - kind of a throwback, for someone his
age."
Glenn Simpson, an investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal
who is friendly with Mr. Isikoff but has also competed with him for
stories, described him succinctly: "Mike will pull your fingernails out
over coffee discussing lawn care. He is just a born interrogator."
Seymour M. Hersh, a reporter cut from the same cloth as Mr. Isikoff,
said of him: "He's very smart and very tough. He does that magic thing
that's so obvious but that nobody does: he reads before he writes."
Mr. Isikoff, 53, broke into newspapering with The Washington Star, now
defunct, and joined The Washington Post in 1981. While at The Post, he
began pursuing the story of Paula Jones and her sexual harassment suit
against President Clinton. When The Post was reluctant to print his
findings, he became involved in a now legendary newsroom brouhaha with
Fred Barbash, then the deputy national editor. Robert Kaiser, the
paper's managing editor, suspended Mr. Isikoff for two weeks.
Mr. Barbash did not return a telephone call yesterday. Mr. Kaiser, whom
Mr. Isikoff once called a "pompous snob," said: "Mike Isikoff is a very
tough, relentless reporter. There was never any doubt about how he did
his work but about what should be done with his work, which is
characteristic of investigative reporters - they want to see their
stories instantly in print. That's why there are editors and why they
get paid, and there's nothing wrong with that arrangement."
Mr. Isikoff left The Post and joined Newsweek in 1994. After the
Lewinsky story broke, he was a sought-after guest on late-night talk
shows, and in 1999 he published a book, "Uncovering Clinton," about his
experiences on the sex-scandal beat. Then, as his friend Howard Kurtz,
the media reporter at The Post, said yesterday, "He went back to the
trenches."
Last month, Mr. Isikoff won an award from the Society of Professional
Journalists for reporting on the interrogation scandals at Abu Ghraib
prison.
"It's hardly surprising that Mike would write a controversial story
based on an anonymous source," Mr. Kurtz added. "Sometimes that is the
only way to get at sensitive or classified information. But when you
live by unnamed sources, you can also get burned badly when the source
is wrong."
Bill Kovach, the founding director of the Committee of Concerned
Journalists, said: "Here is a reporter who can shake stuff out of deaf
and dumb people, but you can't let it go at that. The material has to
be edited and verified and lawyered if necessary." Mr. Kovach added,
"As the course of events in this particular event has shown, you can't
play fast and loose with even a one-paragraph item."
Mr. Isikoff, when asked whether he was used to being in the
journalistic hot seat, laughed and said: "Well, you don't get used to
being denounced by the White House. You may have experienced it before;
that's not the same thing."
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| User: "zzbunker" |
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| Title: Re: Newsweek reporter put Monica on the map, leading to Clinton'simpeachment |
16 May 2005 11:18:34 PM |
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MrPepper11 wrote:
New York Times
May 17, 2005
The Reporter Who Put Monica on the Map
By CHARLES McGRATH
Investigative reporters come in a couple of varieties. There are the
quiet, scholarly types who troll the archives and pore over documents.
And there are the gumshoes, obsessive and indefatigable, who tend to
dress like Columbo, never let go of a story and seldom see eye to eye
with their editors.
The first type stopped existing, after we invented the Internet.
Since we got tired of not only getting rubbed out by the
imbecile New York Times editors of moronic Swiss evolution, but also
by their even more idiotic forgein correspondents.
The California UPI gumshoes from Washingtoon.
Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek reporter who together with John Barry, a
national security correspondent for the magazine, wrote a brief article
referring to desecration of the Koran by American guards at Guantánamo
Bay, is a charter member of this second club. He is rumpled, relentless
and even abrasive at times.
That's obvious, since Newsweek has no natinonal security advisers.
They got ex-moonies, and Cuban Castro wannabees.
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