BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. Brooke Gladstone is on vacation. I'm Bob Garfield. With the Bush administration's declaration of victory in Iraq, the unveiling of the much-hyped "road map for peace" between Israel and the Palestinians and the announced withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia, it was a busy week in the re-drawing of the political map of the Middle East. Peter Valenti, a contributing editor for World Press Review, has been reading the Arab language papers and is here to fill us in on how the Arab press is reacting to the week's events. Peter, welcome to On the Media.
PETER VALENTI: Thanks for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to talk to you for a moment at Qatar. That kingdom has been a very delicate dance with the United States in the last year or so and has gone to some lengths to not be seen not only as a member of the coalition by certainly not as a collaborator with United States interests in the Middle East, and now, after what Saudi Arabia has endured for hosting U.S. troops will itself be the host to U.S. armed forces to be based now in Qatar. Whatever has the local press had to say about that development?
PETER VALENTI: Well that's interesting. We know the U.S. troops are pulling out, and obviously the English press here in the United States is covering it, whereas in Qatar, we're hard-pressed to find anything. The press focus and the government's focus has been on a new constitution which has just been voted for ratification. Qatar will now become a constitutional monarchy in effect, and there's a lot of celebratory articles coming out about this, but really no talk on the troops, and this has been the situation all throughout the war. We know Centcom has been based in Qatar. Other Arab writers and people in and around the Arab world know that Qatar was being used for the war effort, but we really didn't hear much coming out of the Qatar government. In the press we find op-eds and continually writers expressing anti-war position, talking about the hegemony of the United States in the region -- so on the one hand we know they're there, but in terms of what Qatar's official response is, it really hasn't been forthcoming, and the press has, whether intentionally or not, followed in this. On the Saudi side we have to say pretty much the same thing. For example the April 30th Asharq Al-Sawat -- major Saudi paper -- bare bones coverage of the U.S. troops leaving. We had a very brief comment from Prince Sultan who is the defense minister who basically said there's no longer a necessity for U.S. troops. That was his quote, and that was basically the end of the coverage. We do get some sentiments coming from London-based Arabic papers who see that this withdrawal of U.S. troops is a mixed bag. For example, we have the head editorial for Al-Quds Al-Arabi on the 30th which asked is this troop withdrawal the first accomplishment or first success of Osama bin Laden? And what this means is, inside of Saudi Arabia, even for people who may have been in support of the idea of the troops eventually leaving, they see this as sending a very powerful message in that Osama bin Laden's list of goals was, one, of course to cause the collapse of the Saudi government; two, to get rid of U.S. forces. He has met one of his goals! U.S. forces have left. So now this may encourage Al Qaeda in that they met one of their goals.
BOB GARFIELD: In effect, caving in to terrorism.
PETER VALENTI:Yes. Obviously for those in the Saudi government or for those who are pro-U.S., they're very upset about the U.S. government leaving. We do have cynical opinion, once again mainly coming out of Arabic papers in London such as Al-Quds Al-Arabi where op-eds say well, the-- Saudi Arabia could still use the troops and the Persian Gulf could still use them because many countries including Saudi Arabia are a little nervous about Iran. But the United States has really found a new location - Qatar, of course, as we know; but secondly, Iraq. We don't know how long they're going to be there. Arab writers suggest, yeah! - could go as long as 5, 10 years!
BOB GARFIELD:The much-anticipated road map for peace between Israel and Palestine was unveiled this week. It spelled out the next two phases in the Bush administration's plan to establish a Palestinian state. What's the reaction so far to the road map?
PETER VALENTI: Arab opinion is pretty much across the board. You can detect a cautious optimism with a healthy streak of cynicism, but obviously there are some people who are very negative or see it as basically working for Israeli security interests. Jordan's Al Ra'i, an op-ed on April 30th, the title said it all: Sharon will bring about the failure of Abu Mazen's government. The premise that Abu Mazen -- the nickname of Mahmoud Abbas -- will be held accountable and that Sharon expects a hundred percent effort from Abu Mazen to stave off suicide attacks and so forth means that he'll never succeed, so the road map is doomed to failure. The writer goes on to say that Abu Mazen will be held accountable for suicide bombers to rock throwers -- there's no way he can meet the litmus test. Positive reactions we have seen. A good example of this coming out of Al-Quds again a few days ago, was that the road map is indeed a serious development - it's very important -it's the first time in history these major international powers have committed themselves to the formation of Palestinian state, and they will be intrinsically involved in the process. This is a historic day. We also see an interesting editorial that came out of Asharq Al-Sawat, a Saudi newspaper, on April 22nd echoing this sentiment. The fears of these people who are saying positive statements about the road map is that as much as the road map may be a serious or good document, will President Bush have the will power to see it through.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Peter, thank you very much.
PETER VALENTI: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Peter Valenti is a contributing editor for the World Press Review. BOB GARFIELD: This week some computer users downloading music files from the Internet found instead nasty messages that they are violating copyright laws. These are not idle warnings, because the legal landscape and the record industry's tactics have changed. In one case, a federal court ruled that Verizon, the Internet service provider, must turn over the names of individual subscribers using Verizon's servers to download copyrighted files. In another case, four college students settled with the Recording Industry Association of America after being sued for running on campus music file swapping services. New York Times technology reporter Amy Harmon says that the suit signaled a new focus away from big name swapping services and on to Joe Download himself.
AMY HARMON: It was the first time that they directly targeted students in a legal action in their sort of efforts to control Internet piracy, and they were originally asking for literal--billions in damages; 150,000 dollars for each file and there were tens of thousands of files that they said that these students had contributed to other people copying or had copied themselves. But in the end, you know, it was a relatively modest amount that they agreed to pay --between 12 and 17,000 dollars -- and they agreed to, you know, never do it again. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:Making an example of the nickel bag users instead of trying to go after an invulnerable kingpin. And on that subject, there is the third legal development which was a ruling about the kingpins, by which I mean the major file-swapping services. Tell me about that.
AMY HARMON: Yes. There was a decision by a federal judge in Los Angeles that was quite a setback for the record industry and sort of a surprise in that it said that these two of the most popular file-trading services -- sort of the successors to Napster -- they're called Grockster and Morpheus -- were in fact not illegal, and so the users who are copying copyrighted material over them are doing something wrong - those users are, are violating the law -- but that the companies that run these services are not.
BOB GARFIELD: How were Morpheus and Grockster different than Napster which was deemed to be illegal in another federal court decision?
AMY HARMON:Well the analogy that this judge drew was --he said that Napster was more like the owner of a swap meet; that because Napster had a central server and controlled an index of all of the files of all of its users on its own computers, that it had, therefore, a responsibility to monitor what was going on there and to block copyrighted files --because it could whereas Morpheus and Grockster, the technology itself is different. Once users download the software, Morpheus and Grockster don't have any control over what they're doing. There's no central index; they copy from each other; they don't go through a computer that's, you know, owned or controlled by these companies.
BOB GARFIELD:There had been an argument that the record industry historically has been shortsighted in seeing how technology that seems at first threatening would eventually redound to its benefit, but I gather there's no evidence so far that the file swapping which some people have argued only gets music lovers even more interested in buying CDs has done any good whatsoever for the industry.
AMY HARMON: Right. And if you talk to people who do it, a lot of them will say this just makes me buy more CDs, I, I get to sample music that I wouldn't otherwise have heard, and so I, then I go to the record store if I like it. What the recording industry says is they have done surveys of people who use file trading services and that there's sort of a 2 to 1 ratio - you know a third of people might say it makes 'em buy more music, but two thirds say it makes them buy less music.
BOB GARFIELD:Now there's another new development in all of this, and that is that Apple, which dominates the market for MP3 players which play, among other things, illegally [LAUGHS] downloaded songs from the internet, has just launched what it calls an I-Tunes music store, an online store that allows users to download a song -- not for free, but for 99 cents.
AMY HARMON:This is the kind of legitimate service that the record industry wants to see people using; they think it's a pretty good deal for customers. You get access to a lot of music; you pay 99 cents - you don't have to buy the whole CD -- which is very important to a lot of frequent file traders -- you can sort of do an a la carte mixed tape of your choosing and burn it to a CD and it offers the convenience and a higher quality than you would find over a free service. Apple's not the only one; there are other legal alternatives to free file trading. One is called Rhapsody, and you can pay ten dollars a month for access to most of the world's music.
BOB GARFIELD:So do you think we're looking at -- a decade from now -- at an entirely a la carte downloadable music industry where CDs look as ridiculous to us then as vinyl records look to most of us now?
AMY HARMON: I think that the technology is inevitably pushing the music industry toward that world, and honestly, for as much as people criticize the music industry for being, you know, Luddites, they've always adopted new technologies! I mean we've gone from the record to the tape to the CD in a relatively short period of time. So as much as they may dig in their heels at first, they seem like they're about to --whether they want to or not -- embrace the Internet as their primary means of distribution.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, Amy. Well, as always, thank you very much.
AMY HARMON: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD:Amy Harmon covers technology for the New York Times. Coming up, why the Department of Homeland Security doesn't want to seem too pushy, and why advertisers are willing to pay increasing amounts of money for dwindling numbers of TV viewers. This is On the Media from NPR.
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. A recent poll found that while more than two thirds of Americans are concerned about more terrorism occurring on U.S. soil, only 12 percent have developed an evacuation plan. According to another survey, just 30 percent of New Yorkers have stockpiled items in their homes in case of an attack, and only one in ten has a gas mask or any type of respirator. In an effort to increase the level of civil preparedness, the United States Department of Homeland Security recently launched a multimedia public information campaign. Its centerpiece is a web site -- Ready.Gov --which is being promoted through public service announcements featuring Secretary Tom Ridge. According to On the Media's John Solomon, the most striking thing about the effort so far is the lack of urgency in the tone and the depth of the content. Equally surprising is how little the press has covered this particular aspect of the post-September 11th story.
JOHN SOLOMON: Tom Ridge has a tough sales job. His four month old Department of Homeland Security must convince a confused and skeptical public to prepare for a range of terrorist threats he can't fully describe nor predict. In his initial series of PSAs, Ridge has decided to try the soft sell.
TOM RIDGE: To ultimate be the victor in the war again terrorism we need all Americans to be engaged, down to the point where we ask mothers and fathers to think about doing some simple things at home to protect themselves and protect their children.
JOHN SOLOMON: Yes despite the apparent importance of engagement, Ridge is only asking Americans to think about doing -- not telling them to do. The department's web site -- Ready.Gov --takes a similar tack. The introduction indicates that the threat of a biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological attack is very real, but it's less insistent when it comes to advice. Quote: "There are some things you can do to prepare for the unexpected such as assembling a supply kit and developing a family communications plan." Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Susan Neely explains that the "ask not tell" approach comes from recent focus group testing.
SUSAN NEELY: The ones that they liked were the ones that had a re-assuring tone -- that this can help; it wasn't a mandate from government. So I guess that was persuasive to us. You have to work through people's defense mechanisms cause this is a, a scary kind of topic and-- it was clear that people wanted to be engaged in a constructive way, not a, a mandate kind of way.
JOHN SOLOMON: Neely says the campaign is beginning to work through already. Since its February launch Ready.Gov has had 14.5 million unique visitors, and the accompanying toll free number has received 125,000 calls.
WO
MAN: This web site is more about politics than it is about actual giving information to people.
JOHN SOLOMON: Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn has written several articles detailing her efforts to learn how to prepare for a terrorist attack and her frustration with the absence of guidance provided by the government. Though she applauds the Bush administration for launching this type of public information campaign, Quinn doesn't think it's as honest and straightforward as it should be. She says that the department is not strongly recommending some emergency supplies and medicine that it knows would be useful and could save lives, largely because it does not want to appear elitist. Quinn calls it a "don't-tell-the-children" approach to civil defense information.
SALLY QUINN: The government should say look -- here there are many different layers of -- and many different steps you can take and some of them anyone can afford and some of them are expensive, but we're going to tell you this because we think it's the responsible thing to do. Then you have the option -- you might say okay -- you know we were going to buy a new car this year, but we're not going to do that because we'd rather put an air filtration system in our house. But you're not given the option because they're not going to tell you about that.
JOHN SOLOMON: Ready.Gov is also indecisive when it comes to medicine. It suggests citizens consider keeping potassium iodide in your emergency kit and speak with your health care provider in advance about what makes sense for your family. Yet this type of ambivalence wouldn't seem to ensure a consistent level of national preparation. One internist here in New York told me he isn't prescribing potassium iodide to his patients because he doesn't view nuclear terrorism as a viable threat. He may well be right. But is the government comfortable with health care providers answering inquiries based on their own geopolitical analysis? Most puzzling to Quinn is why the government is not more firmly telling every American to purchase an N-95 Mask which can provide protection from some potential bioweapons including anthrax. That's even the advice Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist gives in his recent book -- When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know about Bioterrorism from the Senate's Only Doctor. Assistant Secretary Neely says Homeland Security doesn't want to give false hope.
SUSAN NEELY: There's no one type of mask -- N-95 or others - that will work in every kind of--terrorist situation, so we don't want to hold up, you know, this is the Holy Grail - this is the only possible solution. As you look at the recommendation in our materials, it's this -- N-95 is an option - there's other kinds of masks that are available at hardware stores and bottom line is use your common sense.
JOHN SOLOMON: This a la carte philosophy may be in part why Ridge's initial briefing in February provoked a rush to Home Depot by some Americans and derision by many others, including one outspoken New Yorker.
DAVID LETTER
MAN: Because of the orange alert what that means is you, you gotta stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting and I was in the hardware store after I got off the subway this morning, and-- [LAUGHS] and I was stocking up on the stuff, and I said ah, this reminds me of my wedding night. [DRUM RIMSHOT/LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE]
JOHN SOLOMON: Part of the problem according to Steven Brill is that late night comics have had more to say about the specifics of civil defense preparations than President Bush. Brill, the author of the new book, After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era, points out that Bush's reticence is in stark contrast to his high profile on international terrorism issues. And it sends a signal to the nation about priorities.
STEVEN BRILL: I think the president needs to do more. This is a place for the bully pulpit. Ridge basically has drawn the straw because -- I think it's because they don't they yet have their political footing on this stuff - you know the only thing worse in their minds than Ridge being made fun of for talking about duct tape would be the president being made fun of for talking about duct tape.
JOHN SOLOMON: Brill observes that leaders in an open democracy generally have a difficult time explaining risk to their citizens, so he suggests it's up to the press to clarify the tradeoffs involved, to not stir up needless panic and to fill the significant gaps in the government's civil defense campaign.
STEVEN BRILL: If I were running a, a major newspaper or television news organization right now, I'd have a major thing on my web that parses through all these questions and provides much more in the way of answers! I would challenge every anchor of every news station and every major editor, national urban newspaper to come to a 3-hour course in dirty bombs and send them home with, with graphics and charts and stuff they can use that explain what this is! Cause that takes a major weapon away from terrorists!
JOHN SOLOMON: Surprisingly there has been little in-depth analysis of the Ready.Gov web site by the media, and few if any press questions to Bush or Ridge on why their recommendations are so limited. Sally Quinn has a theory.
SALLY QUINN: Journalists are a macho crowd for one thing; you know, they'd rather be embedded and, and [LAUGHS] -- shot at than talking about how they're scared and walking around with gas masks!
JOHN SOLOMON: That would be too bad, because ultimately what the media find out about preparing for the potential of domestic terrorism is at least as important to their audience as the tactics of desert warfare. For On the Media this is John Solomon. BOB GARFIELD: In December we discussed on this program a libel lawsuit that has been filed in Australia against an American journalist. The Australian High Court had agreed to hear the case even though the article in question appeared in Barron's, a Dow Jones publication based in New York. The court reasoned that the plaintiff, Joseph Gutnick, had a reputation to protect wherever the article was read -- not where it was published. And because the article could be read on line in Gutnick's home state of Victoria, Australia, the judges there would hear the case. No doubt Gutnick was aware that Australian libel laws are very favorable to plaintiffs. Now the reporter being sued -- Bill Alpert --is going after the Australian legal system with a countersuit. Last month he filed a plea with the UN Human Rights Commission alleging that the Australian Court is violating his rights. Bill Alpert, welcome to OTM.
BILL ALPERT: Hi. It's great to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: Well why is this a matter for the Human Rights Commission. No doubt being sued halfway around the world in a plaintiff-friendly court is a hassle, but is it really an abrogation of your rights?
BILL ALPERT: Well if you consider human rights to include free speech, then it is, and the bizarre problem with laws like Australia is that you can publish a true story and still be punished. Another reason that the UN is a good place to holler about this issue is that Australians invited it! The judges up the chain in the Australian courts said, you know, maybe this will lead to forum-shopping by plaintiffs, but if the Internet requires a change in our libel laws, then the legislature of Australia should change it, or some international treaty should change it.
BOB GARFIELD: Did the Australian courts actually give you the idea of going to the Human Rights Tribunal?
BILL ALPERT: No. I don't think anybody's ever had the idea of doing this.
BOB GARFIELD:Well putting aside for a moment the threats to a free press of this sort of libel-tourism where you can go shopping for the best deal that countries' courts might provide, it's also inevitable that different countries are going to have different approaches to libel law. Are you suggesting that the United Nations be the ultimate authority when there's a conflict between two different legal systems?
BILL ALPERT: People in other systems would complain that these aren't their ideals, but I think generally those people would be the oligarchs who don't like having a light shined on what they do. My publisher, Dow Jones, is very busy in Singapore where the oligarchs control the courts and-- where they're always hauling in different Dow Jones-associated publications and caning them for writing things that embarrass the business interests, or their -the government arms, of the ruling clans.
BOB GARFIELD: Caning, not literally but figuratively through libel action.
BILL ALPERT: So far. So far. [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD:Now, you have more experience than most in these matters because you've been around this bend once before. You were sued in a foreign court in England, correct?
BILL ALPERT: I was! And-- England, which has progressed a little bit beyond Australia, tossed it out and said, "This is an American fight; you know, go take it up on your own doorsteps." The libel law which becomes a hurdle for people writing challenging unflattering stories is in practice mostly a-- a censoring area of law; the whole history of libel law is that it really got going in England in the 1800s when, you know, Lord Haw-Haw wanted to get back at the upstart bourgeois newspapermen who were reporting that he was eating opium in the House of Lords or whatever.
BOB GARFIELD:As a practical matter, has the Human Rights Tribunal of the United Nations given you any indication when it may rule on this case?
BILL ALPERT: Not at all. It, it-- could take forever, and-- in part this case is more a consciousness-raising attempt and also our gift to posterity.
BOB GARFIELD: Very well. Bill Alpert. Thank you very much.
BILL ALPERT: Thanks.
BOB GARFIELD: Bill Alpert, a reporter for Barron's magazine, is being sued in Australia for an article that he wrote in New York. BOB GARFIELD: The airlines, as has been well reported, are seeing dramatic declines in passenger loads, so imagine if they were to now ask 80 percent of their customers to buy all their tickets many months in advance without guaranteeing a price break over last minute purchases. Crazy, no? Yet that's how network TV sells its ad time -- in an annual feeding frenzy going on right now called the upfront market. Advertising Age editor (and my boss in my other job) Scott Donaton joins me now to explain this madness. Scott welcome back to-- you know the-- this other thing I do.
SCOTT DONATON: Thank you, Bob! Glad to be back.
BOB GARFIELD: So correct me if I'm wrong -- the audience for network television has been steadily shrinking for the last 10 or 12 years, hasn't it?
SCOTT DONATON: The audience has been declining and yet the value of television has been mysteriously rising. [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD: And the ratings that are used to measure the audience to begin with are based on a methodology that is dubious at best, and many believe, don't they, that-- that audiences are fairly dramatically over-estimated by those ratings.
SCOTT DONATON: Most people in the, in the television business accept that the numbers used to measure audiences are probably fairly close to being made up, and yet it is the only measure they have, and it's the benchmark that people use, and it perpetuates a system of doing business that is probably about as outmoded as it can get.
BOB GARFIELD:And finally, the next ten years are likely so to redefine the media landscape that there may not even be a network television system as we know it. Is that right?
SCOTT DONATON: Well I think what technologies like TiVo are doing are basically making the end users --the viewers -- you and I -- are becoming the programmers for ourselves! And with all the digital cable systems being rolled out, these personal video recorders as control switch, it is going to basically effectively end the idea of a network because people will create customized programming for themselves, so how do you brand or present a network in that environment? You don't!
BOB GARFIELD:So with all that said, explain to me please why people aren't running in a panic away from network television instead of going and paying ever higher prices per thousand viewers to get on network TV.
SCOTT DONATON: The one word answer, Bob, is fear. This year something like 8 and a half billion dollars in, in advertising money will be committed to this one medium! And the people who are doing this should be committed! And they know it! [LAUGHTER] But nobody wants to be the first to move to try something else, because they're all afraid of being shut out of the old way of doing it, being forced to pay more money later for television advertising and having to explain that to their clients. And as for the TV sales guys, they're making tons of money off of a declining audience! They're raising their prices dramatically, even as the audience drops, so why in the world would they walk away from doing this kind of business? They wouldn't!
BOB GARFIELD:So instead of getting up in the morning - at least during um--upfront and saying how am I going to make any money today selling this clearly declining medium, they're not even having to sell - they're just taking orders.
SCOTT DONATON: They have managed to convince people that although network audiences are declining dramatically that it remains the most effective and the last major mass medium - and at a time when people are splintered all over the place - it is still, even with a smaller audience, almost more valuable, if you will, by being the only mass medium. Advertisers still have something of a blind faith that television works better than any other advertising medium and the network sales guys perpetuate that. By the way, to top this all off, the whole idea that this is a supply and demand marketplace is actually absurd because the networks themselves can decide whether to put a lot of their inventory out there to let advertisers buy or to hold a lot of it back hoping that the prices will rise later. So it's a false inventory; it's a false amount of supply and therefore it's a false demand that's generated!
BOB GARFIELD: What if they held an upfront and nobody came?
SCOTT DONATON:It just won't happen because this is an industry where people are so competitive, to the end, that they will almost never do something to advance their cause as an industry because if you say I'm not doing it -I'm not going to show up - your competitor says well if he's not coming, I am.
BOB GARFIELD:Will there be a point in a few years where there are now only, you know, say 15 to 20 people watching network television and the upfronts are held and they're selling spots to Proctor and Gamble and Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola and so forth for a billion dollars per viewer? I mean isn't that the trend line we're on?
SCOTT DONATON: There will come a time when network shares of audience drop below 30 or 20 percent -- when it will be such a dramatic decline and when media audiences will be so fragmented that advertisers will have no choice but to finally end the television bias that so many of them still have. But right now and for the foreseeable future advertisers continue to spend sometimes 70 or 80 percent of every ad dollar in television, and I don't see any sign that that's coming to an end despite the decline of that medium --not in the next 10 years.
BOB GARFIELD:One final question -- we are right now still in the teeth of an advertising media depression. What must the magazine publishers who have been sucking wind for the last 3 years, what must they think when they see all this cash pouring into network TV?
SCOTT DONATON: This is extremely frustrating to any other media -- radio - newspapers - magazines -billboards -- when they first saw that television was going to be strong through this recession I think they thought it was an indicator that everybody would be. And then they realized, wait a minute, the overall budgets aren't being increased, and therefore if an advertiser spends more on television, they're spending less in my magazine, and this is not a good thing.
BOB GARFIELD:All right Scott. Well, as always, thank you very much and while I have you on the line just want to tell you my column will probably be late this week.
SCOTT DONATON: Wonderful, Bob! Thanks for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Okay, Scott Donaton is the editor of Advertising Age. Coming up, we check in with the new dean of America's pre-eminent school of journalism and check out a new controversy over one of journalism's old mysteries. This is On the Media from NPR.
BOB GARFIELD: We are back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. Couple of weeks ago Columbia University President Lee Bollinger announced that esteemed journalist Nicholas Lemann had agreed to take on the role of dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism --pending approval (somehow not secured before the press release went out) by the university trustees. The announcement, which came almost simultaneously with the statement from Bollinger on the future of journalism education, brought out an old debate over the value of J school. Lemann has been the Washington correspondent to the New Yorker magazine for the past 3 years and prior to that he put in 15 years as the national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. But as some critics are smirkingly observing, Nicholas Lemann himself never went to a graduate school of journalism!
NICHOLAS LEMANN: That is certainly true, and that's been true of most journalism school deans. I frankly don't see why this is considered a killer debating point. The real question is -- two things -- one, if the school were to look like the way Lee Bollinger wants it to look, would I as a young person have wanted to go there? Absolutely, yes. Two, do I think the school can meaningfully add value to the lives of young journalists? Absolutely, yes.
BOB GARFIELD: Why do journalists benefit from a graduate curriculum in journalism?
NICHOLAS LEMANN:The sort of classic answer is that you can get higher level how-to instruction in the basics of journalistic function so that you're ready - you know - job-ready on the first day out of school. A lot of journalists, including myself, find ways to get that training outside of school. A lot of people, conversely, who go to graduate schools of journalism finish their education and youth without having had any of those experiences and decide at age 23, 25, 28 I want to be a journalist and I have no idea how to do it, so journalism school performs a function for them. But even for people who have mastered the basic skills, people who would be future high end journalists, leaders of the profession, can benefit tremendously from some of the knowledge and thinking skills that a great university like Columbia can provide. It's the same as the case for any education --being educated helps you to understand a complex world if you perform a complex function in that world which I hope graduates of the Columbia Journalism School will do.
BOB GARFIELD:Hm! Well it's funny because I hadn't thought I had revealed myself on this subject yet, but you've smoked me out. I may as well just hit you with this assertion which is that journalism is itself a graduate education in so many things -- not the least of which everything you cover -- and that to academize it is in some ways gilding the lily, isn't it? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
NICHOLAS LEMANN: No, it's not. All the arguments you're making are arguments against journalists going to college, for example. I mean let me ask you -do you think journalists should go to college or should they skip college?
BOB GARFIELD: I think everybody should go to college. But if you asked me do you - should you go to college to get some sort of technical education that makes you prepared to step into a job function when you get out, I personally don't think that's what college is about. So I believe a liberal education is the reason for college.
NICHOLAS LEMANN: You can take the liberal education and narrow it and direct it toward the practice of journalism and produce something that, again, is not absolutely necessary but is helpful. The thing that most attracts me as an element in the curriculum is using where you already are - which is one of the world's great universities - to get a sort of basic training in the subject matter areas that most journalists wind up interacting with.
BOB GARFIELD:On the basis of our relationship which is now getting on ten minutes, I believe I have the right to ask you this intensely personal question, and that is why in the world would someone who has been a journalist for his entire career and functioning approximately as a free agent during most of that -- obviously you're working for publications but-- you're determining your own destiny -- why would you take a job that a) leaves you hanging out in the wind while you wait for your designation to turn into an actual hire and then b) why take a job where you actually have to work by consensus and not be the sultan?!
NICHOLAS LEMANN: The day that I start as dean will be the exact 20th anniversary of the day that I left an office for the last time and started working alone at home. There are many pleasures to working alone at home, but one of them is not that you feel [LAUGHS] like the sultan. You feel like a sort of independent free agent. I believe in institutions. Institutions are important. As a journalist you know, my career has impressed that on me, because you know a lot of what we do is cover institutions and institutional change, and to do that with your life means that in some way you're invested in the idea that those things matter. This is a kind of unique opportunity that came to me as a surprise to shape an institution that I care about and I think could have some reverberative good effect on the world beyond just me and the work I can do under my byline. I think it's attractive and eminently justifiable for anybody, really, to spend a portion of their life trying to build an institution rather than spend your whole life just producing work under your name with the idea that that is the highest value, trumping all others.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, Nick, thank you very much and good luck. I, I, I sure hope you get the gig!
NICHOLAS LEMANN: Okay. Thank you. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:Nicholas Lemann is the Washington correspondent for the New Yorker and appointee-designate to the Deanship of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
SOUND CLIP FROM ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN]
REPORTER: The money's the key to whatever this is.
EDITOR: Says who?
REPORTER: Deep Throat.
EDITOR: Who?!
REPORTER: Well that's Woodward's garage freak -- his source in the executive.
EDITOR: Garage freak?! Jesus! What kind of a crazy story is this?
BOB GARFIELD: Since the 1974 publication of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book All the President's Men, insiders and outsiders alike have puzzled over the identity of the reporters' anonymous source known as Deep Throat. Now, just as Woodward and Bernstein's papers have been sold to the University of Texas for 5 million dollars, a journalism class at the University of Illinois has claimed definitively to have sniffed Deep Throat out. They say Fred Fielding, a lawyer in the Nixon White House, is the shadowy source who skulked in parking garages to scent the Washington Post hot on Nixon's trail. William Gaines is the journalism professor who spearheaded the project and he joins me now. Professor Gaines, welcome to OTM!
WILLIAM GAINES: Thank you. Happy to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. We've established the who, what, when and where -- how about the why - why spend four years trying to finger Deep Throat?
WILLIAM GAINES: I saw a list of the ten greatest mysteries of the 20th Century, and Deep Throat was number five! Amelia Earhart was number one. And it struck me at the time that nobody knows what happened to Amelia Earhart, but somebody knows who Deep Throat is and they're not telling us, so I guess that became a challenge, and also added to that challenge was a statement that Ben Bradlee, you know, the editor of Woodward and Bernstein at the time, made recently that somebody could probably take all the information known about Deep Throat and put it in some huge computer and they would be able to figure out who Deep Throat was.
BOB GARFIELD:So it was a game of "mega-clue" -- a process of elimination that finally led you to Fred Fielding in the garage with a leak. Do you think we'll ever know? I mean this is--
WILLIAM GAINES: Well I know!
BOB GARFIELD: -- do you know? I mean do you know to a certainty? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
WILLIAM GAINES: I, I, I know! I know who Deep Throat is! It's Fred Fielding! There's no question about it. Nobody else could be Deep Throat but Fred Fielding. He had access to all the information. He's the only person who fits Woodward and Bernstein's description, and not coincidentally, he has access to all the information that Deep Throat had, some of it almost exclusively. So it just cannot be somebody else.
BOB GARFIELD:All right. Let's just say that you and your class are right -- that Fred Fielding is Deep Throat. I, I, I still have to ask you why? Carl Bernstein for one was apoplectic about this exercise. To paraphrase him, shouldn't you be teaching your students about the sanctity of confidential sources instead of trying to unmask them? How say you?
WILLIAM GAINES: Well, absolutely. I teach my students you never, ever reveal a source. What we have here is a situation where a source has been revealed and by Woodward and Bernstein. They've told us that he smokes and he drinks Scotch and so forth. They've made a, a movie character out of him. That's not how you treat a-- a source! You treat-- you, you keep it absolutely in confidence. So-- what they've done is made a guessing game out of it. A lot of people who have not - are not Deep Throat have been wrongfully named over the years and it's caused quite a stir! And I think that our investigation was more or less driven by public opinion, because people don't like questions of that nature -- they don't like the idea of a journalist saying I know something you know and I'm not telling you. They want to know the answer.
BOB GARFIELD: Inquiring minds want to know.
WILLIAM GAINES: That's right. And journalists should respond to that, and that's what we did.
BOB GARFIELD:I don't want to be too obnoxious about this, but "inquiring minds what to know" is the slogan of the National Enquirer which does, just as you say, it meets the demands of the reading public. It-- Does the fact that the public craves the identity of Deep Throat give you reason enough to provide it?
WILLIAM GAINES: I think so, because these are serious-minded people who want to set the record straight. They don't want Woodward and Bernstein to be in control at the time that Deep Throat dies and is the only person who can testify as to why he did it and what he did. I have had a lot of very interesting e-mails because of our web site, and people want to, to praise Fred Fielding.
BOB GARFIELD:Fair enough. Although if Deep Throat wishes to remain anonymous [LAUGHS] I'm not sure that that's to the point. Let me ask you, let me ask you something else. You yourself are a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for your investigative work, and I imagine in doing the work that you did at the Chicago Tribune in the '70s, I, I presume that some of your work depended on help from confidential sources. How would you like it if someone went in your wake and tried to dig them up and, and identify then?
WILLIAM GAINES: But as long as you don't give out any information about your source, how possibly could they do that? You know in our investigation, the student investigation, we have anonymous sources who provided us with information. A lot of times persons would talk off the record, and both I and the students kept that confidence. We didn't do as Woodward and Bernstein did -- give anybody any kind of a clue as to whether he or she was our particular source with this information. It was, it was like a, a, a military exercise - you know not, not using real bullets, and I hope that what we have done over the years that, that I've done this is arm young reporters with knowledge so they can do investigations of their own that might be more important than revealing who Deep Throat is.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. William Gaines, thank you very much.
WILLIAM GAINES: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: William Gaines is a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois.
BOB GARFIELD: When Woodward and Bernstein sold their Watergate archive, the deal included the promise to keep the identity of Deep Throat a secret until his death. It's a provision that sticks in the craw of former Nixon lawyer Leonard Garment who though himself the author of the book In Search of Deep Throat believes the anonymous source has been mistreated by the men he leaked to. Mr. Garment, welcome to the show.
LEONARD GARMENT: Nice to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: Why shouldn't death be a sufficient cause to release the journalists from their pledge?
LEONARD GARMENT: Because what is a distressing association of words and person during one's lifetime can be as much so to family and friends and reputation after one dies. That is the recent ruling by a 6-3 majority of the United States Supreme Court where they held that the attorney-client privilege survives death for exactly the reason that I mentioned. Now-- the argument that would be made -- and it's a reasonable argument -- is that there is a claim of history, and in the piece I wrote I capitalized History because history always marches in triumphantly to defend some things that history with a small h would not put up with. [LAUGHTER] There is an argument to be made for making available information for, for history, for research, for scholars who are trying to understand what happened during a period of time. But I think on the principle of confidentiality it's wrong to say that there is a dividing line between life and death.
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me why you raise history and then immediately knock it down.
LEONARD GARMENT:Well I don't, I don't really knock it down; I say that the fact is that history is the justification that's given for ignoring the limitation that was imposed by the arrangement for confidentiality. But I think the demands of history can be met by having the kind of general rule that's observed with respect to papers given to the Library of Congress, for example. My own papers I gave to the Library of Congress under circumstances where they remain private, they can remain private for 10, for 20, for 30 years! And I think some reasonable period of privacy should be enforced which would protect the privacy of the living and their immediate family and that without impeding the authors' - in this case Woodward and Bernstein - in presenting their papers - for compensation - they're entitled to set a price upon their papers -- and that meets all of the requirements that I think should be met here.
BOB GARFIELD:I, I noted that you were in some - if not high dudgeon at least medium high dudgeon about the notion of the identity of Deep Throat being prematurely revealed, and yet you have felt free over the last number of years to speculate in public about men living and dead with no apparent concerns about their reputation. How do you reconcile your delight in discussing the topic with your concern for their post-mortem reputations?
LEONARD GARMENT: Well, I think the answer is simply this: that I was somebody who was and still - and still am very curious as to the identity of Deep Throat for reasons having to do with the certainty that whoever Deep Throat is, is somebody I knew very well. I'm not a journalist who, who gave a pledge of confidentiality to sources and who now has sold all of those papers for a very large fee and in fact advertises the virtue of the whole transaction on the basis of it being a, a triumph for confidentiality [LAUGHS] when in fact it's quite the reverse. So I'm simply dealing with the issue of kind of an excessive amount of sanctimony about this particular transaction.
BOB GARFIELD: So then I should regard your piece in the Wall Street Journal as a-- an acceptable level of sanctimony.
LEONARD GARMENT: Well I don't think it's -- I mean you can call it anything you want! I mean -- I don't think it's sanctimony. [LAUGHTER] I mean it-- holy sanctimony! [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD: Well, Leonard Garment, you're very kind to join us. Thank you very much.
LEONARD GARMENT: Thanks for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: Leonard Garment is a former White House counsel; he now practices law in New York and is president of the Jazz Museum in Harlem. [MUSIC] BOB GARFIELD: And finally, former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed Al Sahaf whose angry denials of U.S. military advances made him an international laughing stock is being offered the chance to convert disgrace into celebrity. An Arab satellite TV channel has offered him a job as a commentator, and we can't see why it wouldn't work out. Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy, Iran/Contra figure Ollie North and presidential intern Monica Lewinsky have all cashed in on their notoriety. And then there is this show. [MUSIC]
WOMAN ANNOUNCER: We're back with Inner Circle. Once again, your host, Satan.
SATAN: Here in the Inner Circle -- Prince of Darkness taking your calls. Paramus, New Jersey. You're on the air.
WOMAN: Hi. Am I on?
SATAN: Michelle, from Paramus - you're on.
WOMAN: Hello? Hello?
SATAN: Turn down your radio, sweetheart.
WOMAN: Okay. Hi. First time caller. Long time fan.
SATAN: Thanks.
WOMAN: This Middle East road map that, it just - it strikes me as a deal with the devil -- no offense.
SATAN: None taken.
WOMAN: Don't you think we should stay on the sidelines…
SATAN: [IN HUGE DEVIL VOICE] I DON'T CARE! I DEMAND YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL! [NORMAL VOICE] Akron, Ohio. You're in the Inner Circle.
MAN: These liberals! They really tick me off. They're always, you know--
SATAN: [IN HUGE DEVIL VOICE] YOU ARE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE DARK ONE! YOU ARE MINE! MINE!! MINE!!! [ECHOING DEVILISH LAUGH]
MAN: One other thing, Satan -- who do you pick in the NBA Playoffs?
SATAN: [NORMAL VOICE] You gotta like the Lakers. [MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Katya Rogers and Megan Ryan with Tony Field, and engineered by Dylan Keefe and Rob Christiansen and George Edwards. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl. We had help from Brian Tilley who, I'm sad to report will return to his studies after this week. Brooke Gladstone is our managing editor, Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media from NPR. Brooke will be back next week. I'm Bob Garfield. [MUSIC TAG]
PETER VALENTI: Thanks for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to talk to you for a moment at Qatar. That kingdom has been a very delicate dance with the United States in the last year or so and has gone to some lengths to not be seen not only as a member of the coalition by certainly not as a collaborator with United States interests in the Middle East, and now, after what Saudi Arabia has endured for hosting U.S. troops will itself be the host to U.S. armed forces to be based now in Qatar. Whatever has the local press had to say about that development?
PETER VALENTI: Well that's interesting. We know the U.S. troops are pulling out, and obviously the English press here in the United States is covering it, whereas in Qatar, we're hard-pressed to find anything. The press focus and the government's focus has been on a new constitution which has just been voted for ratification. Qatar will now become a constitutional monarchy in effect, and there's a lot of celebratory articles coming out about this, but really no talk on the troops, and this has been the situation all throughout the war. We know Centcom has been based in Qatar. Other Arab writers and people in and around the Arab world know that Qatar was being used for the war effort, but we really didn't hear much coming out of the Qatar government. In the press we find op-eds and continually writers expressing anti-war position, talking about the hegemony of the United States in the region -- so on the one hand we know they're there, but in terms of what Qatar's official response is, it really hasn't been forthcoming, and the press has, whether intentionally or not, followed in this. On the Saudi side we have to say pretty much the same thing. For example the April 30th Asharq Al-Sawat -- major Saudi paper -- bare bones coverage of the U.S. troops leaving. We had a very brief comment from Prince Sultan who is the defense minister who basically said there's no longer a necessity for U.S. troops. That was his quote, and that was basically the end of the coverage. We do get some sentiments coming from London-based Arabic papers who see that this withdrawal of U.S. troops is a mixed bag. For example, we have the head editorial for Al-Quds Al-Arabi on the 30th which asked is this troop withdrawal the first accomplishment or first success of Osama bin Laden? And what this means is, inside of Saudi Arabia, even for people who may have been in support of the idea of the troops eventually leaving, they see this as sending a very powerful message in that Osama bin Laden's list of goals was, one, of course to cause the collapse of the Saudi government; two, to get rid of U.S. forces. He has met one of his goals! U.S. forces have left. So now this may encourage Al Qaeda in that they met one of their goals.
BOB GARFIELD: In effect, caving in to terrorism.
PETER VALENTI:Yes. Obviously for those in the Saudi government or for those who are pro-U.S., they're very upset about the U.S. government leaving. We do have cynical opinion, once again mainly coming out of Arabic papers in London such as Al-Quds Al-Arabi where op-eds say well, the-- Saudi Arabia could still use the troops and the Persian Gulf could still use them because many countries including Saudi Arabia are a little nervous about Iran. But the United States has really found a new location - Qatar, of course, as we know; but secondly, Iraq. We don't know how long they're going to be there. Arab writers suggest, yeah! - could go as long as 5, 10 years!
BOB GARFIELD:The much-anticipated road map for peace between Israel and Palestine was unveiled this week. It spelled out the next two phases in the Bush administration's plan to establish a Palestinian state. What's the reaction so far to the road map?
PETER VALENTI: Arab opinion is pretty much across the board. You can detect a cautious optimism with a healthy streak of cynicism, but obviously there are some people who are very negative or see it as basically working for Israeli security interests. Jordan's Al Ra'i, an op-ed on April 30th, the title said it all: Sharon will bring about the failure of Abu Mazen's government. The premise that Abu Mazen -- the nickname of Mahmoud Abbas -- will be held accountable and that Sharon expects a hundred percent effort from Abu Mazen to stave off suicide attacks and so forth means that he'll never succeed, so the road map is doomed to failure. The writer goes on to say that Abu Mazen will be held accountable for suicide bombers to rock throwers -- there's no way he can meet the litmus test. Positive reactions we have seen. A good example of this coming out of Al-Quds again a few days ago, was that the road map is indeed a serious development - it's very important -it's the first time in history these major international powers have committed themselves to the formation of Palestinian state, and they will be intrinsically involved in the process. This is a historic day. We also see an interesting editorial that came out of Asharq Al-Sawat, a Saudi newspaper, on April 22nd echoing this sentiment. The fears of these people who are saying positive statements about the road map is that as much as the road map may be a serious or good document, will President Bush have the will power to see it through.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Peter, thank you very much.
PETER VALENTI: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Peter Valenti is a contributing editor for the World Press Review. BOB GARFIELD: This week some computer users downloading music files from the Internet found instead nasty messages that they are violating copyright laws. These are not idle warnings, because the legal landscape and the record industry's tactics have changed. In one case, a federal court ruled that Verizon, the Internet service provider, must turn over the names of individual subscribers using Verizon's servers to download copyrighted files. In another case, four college students settled with the Recording Industry Association of America after being sued for running on campus music file swapping services. New York Times technology reporter Amy Harmon says that the suit signaled a new focus away from big name swapping services and on to Joe Download himself.
AMY HARMON: It was the first time that they directly targeted students in a legal action in their sort of efforts to control Internet piracy, and they were originally asking for literal--billions in damages; 150,000 dollars for each file and there were tens of thousands of files that they said that these students had contributed to other people copying or had copied themselves. But in the end, you know, it was a relatively modest amount that they agreed to pay --between 12 and 17,000 dollars -- and they agreed to, you know, never do it again. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:Making an example of the nickel bag users instead of trying to go after an invulnerable kingpin. And on that subject, there is the third legal development which was a ruling about the kingpins, by which I mean the major file-swapping services. Tell me about that.
AMY HARMON: Yes. There was a decision by a federal judge in Los Angeles that was quite a setback for the record industry and sort of a surprise in that it said that these two of the most popular file-trading services -- sort of the successors to Napster -- they're called Grockster and Morpheus -- were in fact not illegal, and so the users who are copying copyrighted material over them are doing something wrong - those users are, are violating the law -- but that the companies that run these services are not.
BOB GARFIELD: How were Morpheus and Grockster different than Napster which was deemed to be illegal in another federal court decision?
AMY HARMON:Well the analogy that this judge drew was --he said that Napster was more like the owner of a swap meet; that because Napster had a central server and controlled an index of all of the files of all of its users on its own computers, that it had, therefore, a responsibility to monitor what was going on there and to block copyrighted files --because it could whereas Morpheus and Grockster, the technology itself is different. Once users download the software, Morpheus and Grockster don't have any control over what they're doing. There's no central index; they copy from each other; they don't go through a computer that's, you know, owned or controlled by these companies.
BOB GARFIELD:There had been an argument that the record industry historically has been shortsighted in seeing how technology that seems at first threatening would eventually redound to its benefit, but I gather there's no evidence so far that the file swapping which some people have argued only gets music lovers even more interested in buying CDs has done any good whatsoever for the industry.
AMY HARMON: Right. And if you talk to people who do it, a lot of them will say this just makes me buy more CDs, I, I get to sample music that I wouldn't otherwise have heard, and so I, then I go to the record store if I like it. What the recording industry says is they have done surveys of people who use file trading services and that there's sort of a 2 to 1 ratio - you know a third of people might say it makes 'em buy more music, but two thirds say it makes them buy less music.
BOB GARFIELD:Now there's another new development in all of this, and that is that Apple, which dominates the market for MP3 players which play, among other things, illegally [LAUGHS] downloaded songs from the internet, has just launched what it calls an I-Tunes music store, an online store that allows users to download a song -- not for free, but for 99 cents.
AMY HARMON:This is the kind of legitimate service that the record industry wants to see people using; they think it's a pretty good deal for customers. You get access to a lot of music; you pay 99 cents - you don't have to buy the whole CD -- which is very important to a lot of frequent file traders -- you can sort of do an a la carte mixed tape of your choosing and burn it to a CD and it offers the convenience and a higher quality than you would find over a free service. Apple's not the only one; there are other legal alternatives to free file trading. One is called Rhapsody, and you can pay ten dollars a month for access to most of the world's music.
BOB GARFIELD:So do you think we're looking at -- a decade from now -- at an entirely a la carte downloadable music industry where CDs look as ridiculous to us then as vinyl records look to most of us now?
AMY HARMON: I think that the technology is inevitably pushing the music industry toward that world, and honestly, for as much as people criticize the music industry for being, you know, Luddites, they've always adopted new technologies! I mean we've gone from the record to the tape to the CD in a relatively short period of time. So as much as they may dig in their heels at first, they seem like they're about to --whether they want to or not -- embrace the Internet as their primary means of distribution.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, Amy. Well, as always, thank you very much.
AMY HARMON: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD:Amy Harmon covers technology for the New York Times. Coming up, why the Department of Homeland Security doesn't want to seem too pushy, and why advertisers are willing to pay increasing amounts of money for dwindling numbers of TV viewers. This is On the Media from NPR.
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. A recent poll found that while more than two thirds of Americans are concerned about more terrorism occurring on U.S. soil, only 12 percent have developed an evacuation plan. According to another survey, just 30 percent of New Yorkers have stockpiled items in their homes in case of an attack, and only one in ten has a gas mask or any type of respirator. In an effort to increase the level of civil preparedness, the United States Department of Homeland Security recently launched a multimedia public information campaign. Its centerpiece is a web site -- Ready.Gov --which is being promoted through public service announcements featuring Secretary Tom Ridge. According to On the Media's John Solomon, the most striking thing about the effort so far is the lack of urgency in the tone and the depth of the content. Equally surprising is how little the press has covered this particular aspect of the post-September 11th story.
JOHN SOLOMON: Tom Ridge has a tough sales job. His four month old Department of Homeland Security must convince a confused and skeptical public to prepare for a range of terrorist threats he can't fully describe nor predict. In his initial series of PSAs, Ridge has decided to try the soft sell.
TOM RIDGE: To ultimate be the victor in the war again terrorism we need all Americans to be engaged, down to the point where we ask mothers and fathers to think about doing some simple things at home to protect themselves and protect their children.
JOHN SOLOMON: Yes despite the apparent importance of engagement, Ridge is only asking Americans to think about doing -- not telling them to do. The department's web site -- Ready.Gov --takes a similar tack. The introduction indicates that the threat of a biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological attack is very real, but it's less insistent when it comes to advice. Quote: "There are some things you can do to prepare for the unexpected such as assembling a supply kit and developing a family communications plan." Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Susan Neely explains that the "ask not tell" approach comes from recent focus group testing.
SUSAN NEELY: The ones that they liked were the ones that had a re-assuring tone -- that this can help; it wasn't a mandate from government. So I guess that was persuasive to us. You have to work through people's defense mechanisms cause this is a, a scary kind of topic and-- it was clear that people wanted to be engaged in a constructive way, not a, a mandate kind of way.
JOHN SOLOMON: Neely says the campaign is beginning to work through already. Since its February launch Ready.Gov has had 14.5 million unique visitors, and the accompanying toll free number has received 125,000 calls.
WO
MAN: This web site is more about politics than it is about actual giving information to people.
JOHN SOLOMON: Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn has written several articles detailing her efforts to learn how to prepare for a terrorist attack and her frustration with the absence of guidance provided by the government. Though she applauds the Bush administration for launching this type of public information campaign, Quinn doesn't think it's as honest and straightforward as it should be. She says that the department is not strongly recommending some emergency supplies and medicine that it knows would be useful and could save lives, largely because it does not want to appear elitist. Quinn calls it a "don't-tell-the-children" approach to civil defense information.
SALLY QUINN: The government should say look -- here there are many different layers of -- and many different steps you can take and some of them anyone can afford and some of them are expensive, but we're going to tell you this because we think it's the responsible thing to do. Then you have the option -- you might say okay -- you know we were going to buy a new car this year, but we're not going to do that because we'd rather put an air filtration system in our house. But you're not given the option because they're not going to tell you about that.
JOHN SOLOMON: Ready.Gov is also indecisive when it comes to medicine. It suggests citizens consider keeping potassium iodide in your emergency kit and speak with your health care provider in advance about what makes sense for your family. Yet this type of ambivalence wouldn't seem to ensure a consistent level of national preparation. One internist here in New York told me he isn't prescribing potassium iodide to his patients because he doesn't view nuclear terrorism as a viable threat. He may well be right. But is the government comfortable with health care providers answering inquiries based on their own geopolitical analysis? Most puzzling to Quinn is why the government is not more firmly telling every American to purchase an N-95 Mask which can provide protection from some potential bioweapons including anthrax. That's even the advice Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist gives in his recent book -- When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know about Bioterrorism from the Senate's Only Doctor. Assistant Secretary Neely says Homeland Security doesn't want to give false hope.
SUSAN NEELY: There's no one type of mask -- N-95 or others - that will work in every kind of--terrorist situation, so we don't want to hold up, you know, this is the Holy Grail - this is the only possible solution. As you look at the recommendation in our materials, it's this -- N-95 is an option - there's other kinds of masks that are available at hardware stores and bottom line is use your common sense.
JOHN SOLOMON: This a la carte philosophy may be in part why Ridge's initial briefing in February provoked a rush to Home Depot by some Americans and derision by many others, including one outspoken New Yorker.
DAVID LETTER
MAN: Because of the orange alert what that means is you, you gotta stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting and I was in the hardware store after I got off the subway this morning, and-- [LAUGHS] and I was stocking up on the stuff, and I said ah, this reminds me of my wedding night. [DRUM RIMSHOT/LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE]
JOHN SOLOMON: Part of the problem according to Steven Brill is that late night comics have had more to say about the specifics of civil defense preparations than President Bush. Brill, the author of the new book, After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era, points out that Bush's reticence is in stark contrast to his high profile on international terrorism issues. And it sends a signal to the nation about priorities.
STEVEN BRILL: I think the president needs to do more. This is a place for the bully pulpit. Ridge basically has drawn the straw because -- I think it's because they don't they yet have their political footing on this stuff - you know the only thing worse in their minds than Ridge being made fun of for talking about duct tape would be the president being made fun of for talking about duct tape.
JOHN SOLOMON: Brill observes that leaders in an open democracy generally have a difficult time explaining risk to their citizens, so he suggests it's up to the press to clarify the tradeoffs involved, to not stir up needless panic and to fill the significant gaps in the government's civil defense campaign.
STEVEN BRILL: If I were running a, a major newspaper or television news organization right now, I'd have a major thing on my web that parses through all these questions and provides much more in the way of answers! I would challenge every anchor of every news station and every major editor, national urban newspaper to come to a 3-hour course in dirty bombs and send them home with, with graphics and charts and stuff they can use that explain what this is! Cause that takes a major weapon away from terrorists!
JOHN SOLOMON: Surprisingly there has been little in-depth analysis of the Ready.Gov web site by the media, and few if any press questions to Bush or Ridge on why their recommendations are so limited. Sally Quinn has a theory.
SALLY QUINN: Journalists are a macho crowd for one thing; you know, they'd rather be embedded and, and [LAUGHS] -- shot at than talking about how they're scared and walking around with gas masks!
JOHN SOLOMON: That would be too bad, because ultimately what the media find out about preparing for the potential of domestic terrorism is at least as important to their audience as the tactics of desert warfare. For On the Media this is John Solomon. BOB GARFIELD: In December we discussed on this program a libel lawsuit that has been filed in Australia against an American journalist. The Australian High Court had agreed to hear the case even though the article in question appeared in Barron's, a Dow Jones publication based in New York. The court reasoned that the plaintiff, Joseph Gutnick, had a reputation to protect wherever the article was read -- not where it was published. And because the article could be read on line in Gutnick's home state of Victoria, Australia, the judges there would hear the case. No doubt Gutnick was aware that Australian libel laws are very favorable to plaintiffs. Now the reporter being sued -- Bill Alpert --is going after the Australian legal system with a countersuit. Last month he filed a plea with the UN Human Rights Commission alleging that the Australian Court is violating his rights. Bill Alpert, welcome to OTM.
BILL ALPERT: Hi. It's great to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: Well why is this a matter for the Human Rights Commission. No doubt being sued halfway around the world in a plaintiff-friendly court is a hassle, but is it really an abrogation of your rights?
BILL ALPERT: Well if you consider human rights to include free speech, then it is, and the bizarre problem with laws like Australia is that you can publish a true story and still be punished. Another reason that the UN is a good place to holler about this issue is that Australians invited it! The judges up the chain in the Australian courts said, you know, maybe this will lead to forum-shopping by plaintiffs, but if the Internet requires a change in our libel laws, then the legislature of Australia should change it, or some international treaty should change it.
BOB GARFIELD: Did the Australian courts actually give you the idea of going to the Human Rights Tribunal?
BILL ALPERT: No. I don't think anybody's ever had the idea of doing this.
BOB GARFIELD:Well putting aside for a moment the threats to a free press of this sort of libel-tourism where you can go shopping for the best deal that countries' courts might provide, it's also inevitable that different countries are going to have different approaches to libel law. Are you suggesting that the United Nations be the ultimate authority when there's a conflict between two different legal systems?
BILL ALPERT: People in other systems would complain that these aren't their ideals, but I think generally those people would be the oligarchs who don't like having a light shined on what they do. My publisher, Dow Jones, is very busy in Singapore where the oligarchs control the courts and-- where they're always hauling in different Dow Jones-associated publications and caning them for writing things that embarrass the business interests, or their -the government arms, of the ruling clans.
BOB GARFIELD: Caning, not literally but figuratively through libel action.
BILL ALPERT: So far. So far. [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD:Now, you have more experience than most in these matters because you've been around this bend once before. You were sued in a foreign court in England, correct?
BILL ALPERT: I was! And-- England, which has progressed a little bit beyond Australia, tossed it out and said, "This is an American fight; you know, go take it up on your own doorsteps." The libel law which becomes a hurdle for people writing challenging unflattering stories is in practice mostly a-- a censoring area of law; the whole history of libel law is that it really got going in England in the 1800s when, you know, Lord Haw-Haw wanted to get back at the upstart bourgeois newspapermen who were reporting that he was eating opium in the House of Lords or whatever.
BOB GARFIELD:As a practical matter, has the Human Rights Tribunal of the United Nations given you any indication when it may rule on this case?
BILL ALPERT: Not at all. It, it-- could take forever, and-- in part this case is more a consciousness-raising attempt and also our gift to posterity.
BOB GARFIELD: Very well. Bill Alpert. Thank you very much.
BILL ALPERT: Thanks.
BOB GARFIELD: Bill Alpert, a reporter for Barron's magazine, is being sued in Australia for an article that he wrote in New York. BOB GARFIELD: The airlines, as has been well reported, are seeing dramatic declines in passenger loads, so imagine if they were to now ask 80 percent of their customers to buy all their tickets many months in advance without guaranteeing a price break over last minute purchases. Crazy, no? Yet that's how network TV sells its ad time -- in an annual feeding frenzy going on right now called the upfront market. Advertising Age editor (and my boss in my other job) Scott Donaton joins me now to explain this madness. Scott welcome back to-- you know the-- this other thing I do.
SCOTT DONATON: Thank you, Bob! Glad to be back.
BOB GARFIELD: So correct me if I'm wrong -- the audience for network television has been steadily shrinking for the last 10 or 12 years, hasn't it?
SCOTT DONATON: The audience has been declining and yet the value of television has been mysteriously rising. [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD: And the ratings that are used to measure the audience to begin with are based on a methodology that is dubious at best, and many believe, don't they, that-- that audiences are fairly dramatically over-estimated by those ratings.
SCOTT DONATON: Most people in the, in the television business accept that the numbers used to measure audiences are probably fairly close to being made up, and yet it is the only measure they have, and it's the benchmark that people use, and it perpetuates a system of doing business that is probably about as outmoded as it can get.
BOB GARFIELD:And finally, the next ten years are likely so to redefine the media landscape that there may not even be a network television system as we know it. Is that right?
SCOTT DONATON: Well I think what technologies like TiVo are doing are basically making the end users --the viewers -- you and I -- are becoming the programmers for ourselves! And with all the digital cable systems being rolled out, these personal video recorders as control switch, it is going to basically effectively end the idea of a network because people will create customized programming for themselves, so how do you brand or present a network in that environment? You don't!
BOB GARFIELD:So with all that said, explain to me please why people aren't running in a panic away from network television instead of going and paying ever higher prices per thousand viewers to get on network TV.
SCOTT DONATON: The one word answer, Bob, is fear. This year something like 8 and a half billion dollars in, in advertising money will be committed to this one medium! And the people who are doing this should be committed! And they know it! [LAUGHTER] But nobody wants to be the first to move to try something else, because they're all afraid of being shut out of the old way of doing it, being forced to pay more money later for television advertising and having to explain that to their clients. And as for the TV sales guys, they're making tons of money off of a declining audience! They're raising their prices dramatically, even as the audience drops, so why in the world would they walk away from doing this kind of business? They wouldn't!
BOB GARFIELD:So instead of getting up in the morning - at least during um--upfront and saying how am I going to make any money today selling this clearly declining medium, they're not even having to sell - they're just taking orders.
SCOTT DONATON: They have managed to convince people that although network audiences are declining dramatically that it remains the most effective and the last major mass medium - and at a time when people are splintered all over the place - it is still, even with a smaller audience, almost more valuable, if you will, by being the only mass medium. Advertisers still have something of a blind faith that television works better than any other advertising medium and the network sales guys perpetuate that. By the way, to top this all off, the whole idea that this is a supply and demand marketplace is actually absurd because the networks themselves can decide whether to put a lot of their inventory out there to let advertisers buy or to hold a lot of it back hoping that the prices will rise later. So it's a false inventory; it's a false amount of supply and therefore it's a false demand that's generated!
BOB GARFIELD: What if they held an upfront and nobody came?
SCOTT DONATON:It just won't happen because this is an industry where people are so competitive, to the end, that they will almost never do something to advance their cause as an industry because if you say I'm not doing it -I'm not going to show up - your competitor says well if he's not coming, I am.
BOB GARFIELD:Will there be a point in a few years where there are now only, you know, say 15 to 20 people watching network television and the upfronts are held and they're selling spots to Proctor and Gamble and Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola and so forth for a billion dollars per viewer? I mean isn't that the trend line we're on?
SCOTT DONATON: There will come a time when network shares of audience drop below 30 or 20 percent -- when it will be such a dramatic decline and when media audiences will be so fragmented that advertisers will have no choice but to finally end the television bias that so many of them still have. But right now and for the foreseeable future advertisers continue to spend sometimes 70 or 80 percent of every ad dollar in television, and I don't see any sign that that's coming to an end despite the decline of that medium --not in the next 10 years.
BOB GARFIELD:One final question -- we are right now still in the teeth of an advertising media depression. What must the magazine publishers who have been sucking wind for the last 3 years, what must they think when they see all this cash pouring into network TV?
SCOTT DONATON: This is extremely frustrating to any other media -- radio - newspapers - magazines -billboards -- when they first saw that television was going to be strong through this recession I think they thought it was an indicator that everybody would be. And then they realized, wait a minute, the overall budgets aren't being increased, and therefore if an advertiser spends more on television, they're spending less in my magazine, and this is not a good thing.
BOB GARFIELD:All right Scott. Well, as always, thank you very much and while I have you on the line just want to tell you my column will probably be late this week.
SCOTT DONATON: Wonderful, Bob! Thanks for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Okay, Scott Donaton is the editor of Advertising Age. Coming up, we check in with the new dean of America's pre-eminent school of journalism and check out a new controversy over one of journalism's old mysteries. This is On the Media from NPR.
BOB GARFIELD: We are back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. Couple of weeks ago Columbia University President Lee Bollinger announced that esteemed journalist Nicholas Lemann had agreed to take on the role of dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism --pending approval (somehow not secured before the press release went out) by the university trustees. The announcement, which came almost simultaneously with the statement from Bollinger on the future of journalism education, brought out an old debate over the value of J school. Lemann has been the Washington correspondent to the New Yorker magazine for the past 3 years and prior to that he put in 15 years as the national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. But as some critics are smirkingly observing, Nicholas Lemann himself never went to a graduate school of journalism!
NICHOLAS LEMANN: That is certainly true, and that's been true of most journalism school deans. I frankly don't see why this is considered a killer debating point. The real question is -- two things -- one, if the school were to look like the way Lee Bollinger wants it to look, would I as a young person have wanted to go there? Absolutely, yes. Two, do I think the school can meaningfully add value to the lives of young journalists? Absolutely, yes.
BOB GARFIELD: Why do journalists benefit from a graduate curriculum in journalism?
NICHOLAS LEMANN:The sort of classic answer is that you can get higher level how-to instruction in the basics of journalistic function so that you're ready - you know - job-ready on the first day out of school. A lot of journalists, including myself, find ways to get that training outside of school. A lot of people, conversely, who go to graduate schools of journalism finish their education and youth without having had any of those experiences and decide at age 23, 25, 28 I want to be a journalist and I have no idea how to do it, so journalism school performs a function for them. But even for people who have mastered the basic skills, people who would be future high end journalists, leaders of the profession, can benefit tremendously from some of the knowledge and thinking skills that a great university like Columbia can provide. It's the same as the case for any education --being educated helps you to understand a complex world if you perform a complex function in that world which I hope graduates of the Columbia Journalism School will do.
BOB GARFIELD:Hm! Well it's funny because I hadn't thought I had revealed myself on this subject yet, but you've smoked me out. I may as well just hit you with this assertion which is that journalism is itself a graduate education in so many things -- not the least of which everything you cover -- and that to academize it is in some ways gilding the lily, isn't it? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
NICHOLAS LEMANN: No, it's not. All the arguments you're making are arguments against journalists going to college, for example. I mean let me ask you -do you think journalists should go to college or should they skip college?
BOB GARFIELD: I think everybody should go to college. But if you asked me do you - should you go to college to get some sort of technical education that makes you prepared to step into a job function when you get out, I personally don't think that's what college is about. So I believe a liberal education is the reason for college.
NICHOLAS LEMANN: You can take the liberal education and narrow it and direct it toward the practice of journalism and produce something that, again, is not absolutely necessary but is helpful. The thing that most attracts me as an element in the curriculum is using where you already are - which is one of the world's great universities - to get a sort of basic training in the subject matter areas that most journalists wind up interacting with.
BOB GARFIELD:On the basis of our relationship which is now getting on ten minutes, I believe I have the right to ask you this intensely personal question, and that is why in the world would someone who has been a journalist for his entire career and functioning approximately as a free agent during most of that -- obviously you're working for publications but-- you're determining your own destiny -- why would you take a job that a) leaves you hanging out in the wind while you wait for your designation to turn into an actual hire and then b) why take a job where you actually have to work by consensus and not be the sultan?!
NICHOLAS LEMANN: The day that I start as dean will be the exact 20th anniversary of the day that I left an office for the last time and started working alone at home. There are many pleasures to working alone at home, but one of them is not that you feel [LAUGHS] like the sultan. You feel like a sort of independent free agent. I believe in institutions. Institutions are important. As a journalist you know, my career has impressed that on me, because you know a lot of what we do is cover institutions and institutional change, and to do that with your life means that in some way you're invested in the idea that those things matter. This is a kind of unique opportunity that came to me as a surprise to shape an institution that I care about and I think could have some reverberative good effect on the world beyond just me and the work I can do under my byline. I think it's attractive and eminently justifiable for anybody, really, to spend a portion of their life trying to build an institution rather than spend your whole life just producing work under your name with the idea that that is the highest value, trumping all others.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, Nick, thank you very much and good luck. I, I, I sure hope you get the gig!
NICHOLAS LEMANN: Okay. Thank you. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:Nicholas Lemann is the Washington correspondent for the New Yorker and appointee-designate to the Deanship of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
SOUND CLIP FROM ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN]
REPORTER: The money's the key to whatever this is.
EDITOR: Says who?
REPORTER: Deep Throat.
EDITOR: Who?!
REPORTER: Well that's Woodward's garage freak -- his source in the executive.
EDITOR: Garage freak?! Jesus! What kind of a crazy story is this?
BOB GARFIELD: Since the 1974 publication of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book All the President's Men, insiders and outsiders alike have puzzled over the identity of the reporters' anonymous source known as Deep Throat. Now, just as Woodward and Bernstein's papers have been sold to the University of Texas for 5 million dollars, a journalism class at the University of Illinois has claimed definitively to have sniffed Deep Throat out. They say Fred Fielding, a lawyer in the Nixon White House, is the shadowy source who skulked in parking garages to scent the Washington Post hot on Nixon's trail. William Gaines is the journalism professor who spearheaded the project and he joins me now. Professor Gaines, welcome to OTM!
WILLIAM GAINES: Thank you. Happy to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. We've established the who, what, when and where -- how about the why - why spend four years trying to finger Deep Throat?
WILLIAM GAINES: I saw a list of the ten greatest mysteries of the 20th Century, and Deep Throat was number five! Amelia Earhart was number one. And it struck me at the time that nobody knows what happened to Amelia Earhart, but somebody knows who Deep Throat is and they're not telling us, so I guess that became a challenge, and also added to that challenge was a statement that Ben Bradlee, you know, the editor of Woodward and Bernstein at the time, made recently that somebody could probably take all the information known about Deep Throat and put it in some huge computer and they would be able to figure out who Deep Throat was.
BOB GARFIELD:So it was a game of "mega-clue" -- a process of elimination that finally led you to Fred Fielding in the garage with a leak. Do you think we'll ever know? I mean this is--
WILLIAM GAINES: Well I know!
BOB GARFIELD: -- do you know? I mean do you know to a certainty? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
WILLIAM GAINES: I, I, I know! I know who Deep Throat is! It's Fred Fielding! There's no question about it. Nobody else could be Deep Throat but Fred Fielding. He had access to all the information. He's the only person who fits Woodward and Bernstein's description, and not coincidentally, he has access to all the information that Deep Throat had, some of it almost exclusively. So it just cannot be somebody else.
BOB GARFIELD:All right. Let's just say that you and your class are right -- that Fred Fielding is Deep Throat. I, I, I still have to ask you why? Carl Bernstein for one was apoplectic about this exercise. To paraphrase him, shouldn't you be teaching your students about the sanctity of confidential sources instead of trying to unmask them? How say you?
WILLIAM GAINES: Well, absolutely. I teach my students you never, ever reveal a source. What we have here is a situation where a source has been revealed and by Woodward and Bernstein. They've told us that he smokes and he drinks Scotch and so forth. They've made a, a movie character out of him. That's not how you treat a-- a source! You treat-- you, you keep it absolutely in confidence. So-- what they've done is made a guessing game out of it. A lot of people who have not - are not Deep Throat have been wrongfully named over the years and it's caused quite a stir! And I think that our investigation was more or less driven by public opinion, because people don't like questions of that nature -- they don't like the idea of a journalist saying I know something you know and I'm not telling you. They want to know the answer.
BOB GARFIELD: Inquiring minds want to know.
WILLIAM GAINES: That's right. And journalists should respond to that, and that's what we did.
BOB GARFIELD:I don't want to be too obnoxious about this, but "inquiring minds what to know" is the slogan of the National Enquirer which does, just as you say, it meets the demands of the reading public. It-- Does the fact that the public craves the identity of Deep Throat give you reason enough to provide it?
WILLIAM GAINES: I think so, because these are serious-minded people who want to set the record straight. They don't want Woodward and Bernstein to be in control at the time that Deep Throat dies and is the only person who can testify as to why he did it and what he did. I have had a lot of very interesting e-mails because of our web site, and people want to, to praise Fred Fielding.
BOB GARFIELD:Fair enough. Although if Deep Throat wishes to remain anonymous [LAUGHS] I'm not sure that that's to the point. Let me ask you, let me ask you something else. You yourself are a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for your investigative work, and I imagine in doing the work that you did at the Chicago Tribune in the '70s, I, I presume that some of your work depended on help from confidential sources. How would you like it if someone went in your wake and tried to dig them up and, and identify then?
WILLIAM GAINES: But as long as you don't give out any information about your source, how possibly could they do that? You know in our investigation, the student investigation, we have anonymous sources who provided us with information. A lot of times persons would talk off the record, and both I and the students kept that confidence. We didn't do as Woodward and Bernstein did -- give anybody any kind of a clue as to whether he or she was our particular source with this information. It was, it was like a, a, a military exercise - you know not, not using real bullets, and I hope that what we have done over the years that, that I've done this is arm young reporters with knowledge so they can do investigations of their own that might be more important than revealing who Deep Throat is.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. William Gaines, thank you very much.
WILLIAM GAINES: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: William Gaines is a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois.
BOB GARFIELD: When Woodward and Bernstein sold their Watergate archive, the deal included the promise to keep the identity of Deep Throat a secret until his death. It's a provision that sticks in the craw of former Nixon lawyer Leonard Garment who though himself the author of the book In Search of Deep Throat believes the anonymous source has been mistreated by the men he leaked to. Mr. Garment, welcome to the show.
LEONARD GARMENT: Nice to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: Why shouldn't death be a sufficient cause to release the journalists from their pledge?
LEONARD GARMENT: Because what is a distressing association of words and person during one's lifetime can be as much so to family and friends and reputation after one dies. That is the recent ruling by a 6-3 majority of the United States Supreme Court where they held that the attorney-client privilege survives death for exactly the reason that I mentioned. Now-- the argument that would be made -- and it's a reasonable argument -- is that there is a claim of history, and in the piece I wrote I capitalized History because history always marches in triumphantly to defend some things that history with a small h would not put up with. [LAUGHTER] There is an argument to be made for making available information for, for history, for research, for scholars who are trying to understand what happened during a period of time. But I think on the principle of confidentiality it's wrong to say that there is a dividing line between life and death.
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me why you raise history and then immediately knock it down.
LEONARD GARMENT:Well I don't, I don't really knock it down; I say that the fact is that history is the justification that's given for ignoring the limitation that was imposed by the arrangement for confidentiality. But I think the demands of history can be met by having the kind of general rule that's observed with respect to papers given to the Library of Congress, for example. My own papers I gave to the Library of Congress under circumstances where they remain private, they can remain private for 10, for 20, for 30 years! And I think some reasonable period of privacy should be enforced which would protect the privacy of the living and their immediate family and that without impeding the authors' - in this case Woodward and Bernstein - in presenting their papers - for compensation - they're entitled to set a price upon their papers -- and that meets all of the requirements that I think should be met here.
BOB GARFIELD:I, I noted that you were in some - if not high dudgeon at least medium high dudgeon about the notion of the identity of Deep Throat being prematurely revealed, and yet you have felt free over the last number of years to speculate in public about men living and dead with no apparent concerns about their reputation. How do you reconcile your delight in discussing the topic with your concern for their post-mortem reputations?
LEONARD GARMENT: Well, I think the answer is simply this: that I was somebody who was and still - and still am very curious as to the identity of Deep Throat for reasons having to do with the certainty that whoever Deep Throat is, is somebody I knew very well. I'm not a journalist who, who gave a pledge of confidentiality to sources and who now has sold all of those papers for a very large fee and in fact advertises the virtue of the whole transaction on the basis of it being a, a triumph for confidentiality [LAUGHS] when in fact it's quite the reverse. So I'm simply dealing with the issue of kind of an excessive amount of sanctimony about this particular transaction.
BOB GARFIELD: So then I should regard your piece in the Wall Street Journal as a-- an acceptable level of sanctimony.
LEONARD GARMENT: Well I don't think it's -- I mean you can call it anything you want! I mean -- I don't think it's sanctimony. [LAUGHTER] I mean it-- holy sanctimony! [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD: Well, Leonard Garment, you're very kind to join us. Thank you very much.
LEONARD GARMENT: Thanks for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: Leonard Garment is a former White House counsel; he now practices law in New York and is president of the Jazz Museum in Harlem. [MUSIC] BOB GARFIELD: And finally, former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed Al Sahaf whose angry denials of U.S. military advances made him an international laughing stock is being offered the chance to convert disgrace into celebrity. An Arab satellite TV channel has offered him a job as a commentator, and we can't see why it wouldn't work out. Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy, Iran/Contra figure Ollie North and presidential intern Monica Lewinsky have all cashed in on their notoriety. And then there is this show. [MUSIC]
WOMAN ANNOUNCER: We're back with Inner Circle. Once again, your host, Satan.
SATAN: Here in the Inner Circle -- Prince of Darkness taking your calls. Paramus, New Jersey. You're on the air.
WOMAN: Hi. Am I on?
SATAN: Michelle, from Paramus - you're on.
WOMAN: Hello? Hello?
SATAN: Turn down your radio, sweetheart.
WOMAN: Okay. Hi. First time caller. Long time fan.
SATAN: Thanks.
WOMAN: This Middle East road map that, it just - it strikes me as a deal with the devil -- no offense.
SATAN: None taken.
WOMAN: Don't you think we should stay on the sidelines…
SATAN: [IN HUGE DEVIL VOICE] I DON'T CARE! I DEMAND YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL! [NORMAL VOICE] Akron, Ohio. You're in the Inner Circle.
MAN: These liberals! They really tick me off. They're always, you know--
SATAN: [IN HUGE DEVIL VOICE] YOU ARE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE DARK ONE! YOU ARE MINE! MINE!! MINE!!! [ECHOING DEVILISH LAUGH]
MAN: One other thing, Satan -- who do you pick in the NBA Playoffs?
SATAN: [NORMAL VOICE] You gotta like the Lakers. [MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Katya Rogers and Megan Ryan with Tony Field, and engineered by Dylan Keefe and Rob Christiansen and George Edwards. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl. We had help from Brian Tilley who, I'm sad to report will return to his studies after this week. Brooke Gladstone is our managing editor, Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media from NPR. Brooke will be back next week. I'm Bob Garfield. [MUSIC TAG]
- Back to story:
- May 2, 2003
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From the Archive: PSYCHIC TIPS, MEDIA FRENZIES AND TEXAS
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The Edward Snowden Narrative, Privacy vs. Convenience, and More
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'Is Anybody Down' is Gone - For Now
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The Fox News Mole
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Happy Birthday
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Thanks For Everything, Bing
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Is Snowden a Hero, Traitor, or Something Else
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Our Privacy Delusions
- Where do you stand on government surveillance?
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My Voice is My Passport
