MAGAZINE REVIEWS

The story behind the story

by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Sep 12, 1998) -- Journalism about journalism is often nothing more than solipsistic navel-gazing, but occasionally the story behind the story is as interesting as the story itself.

The Boston Phoenix

His dubious glasnost/perestroika/Gorbachev metaphors aside, Dan Kennedy’s “Mikhail Storin” in the Sept. 3 issue of the Boston Phoenix offers an incisive look at the state of editor Matt Storin’s Boston Globe in the wake of the Patricia Smith/Mike Barnicle debacles.

“[I]f ever there was an institution in need of openness and restructuring, it’s the Boston Globe,” writes Kennedy, suggesting that Storin’s tenure as editor of the venerable Boston daily is shaky at best.

With daily circulation dropping and the paper’s credibility damaged by the discovery that its two top columnists were fabricating details in their columns, the Globe is under siege, says Kennedy. And with a five-year, noninterference agreement with the New York Times -- which bought the paper in 1993 -- set to expire on Oct. 1, the timing is ripe for some sort of deus ex Sulzberger to foment change from above.

In a sidebar, Kennedy ponders possible replacements for Storin. He labels executive editor Helen Donovan -- a Berkshire Eagle alumna -- as the “consensus choice.”

Brill’s Content

In “Not the First Time” in the September issue of the new media watchdog monthly, Brill’s Content, authors Abigail Pogrebin and Rifka Rosenwein cover similar terrain to Kennedy’s. Their take on the affair is that Patricia Smith only lasted as long as she did at the Globe because editors knew that to call her on the carpet for fabrications -- which in her case were suspected as long ago as 1995 -- would be to jeopardize star columnist Mike Barnicle, whose questionable history as a columnist dated back to 1973.

In a sense, Barnicle was Smith’s insurance policy for the last few years. Once the floodgates opened on Smith’s shady methodology and she could no longer be saved, Barnicle was left hanging by a thread, and it was virtually inevitable that he’d have to go, too. While their piece was written before Barnicle finally resigned, it puts the whole affair into the larger context of Boston’s racial politics.

In the same issue, an intrepid investigator tries to unlock the age-old mystery of how a couple gets included in the wedding announcements in the Sunday New York Times. There is no written policy explaining the criteria for selection. The Times runs about 16 percent of the submitted announcements -- there is no fee, nor is there any explanation given to those who don’t make the cut.

By analyzing the content of the announcements that do make the cut, Brill’ s was able to generalize that Ivy League graduates employed full-time in finance or business have the best chance of being listed, but it’s no guarantee. Apparently, in the end, it’s the whim of the editors that determines who gets profiled. The mystery remains.

Mother Jones

Steven Brill himself -- the founder of Brill’s Content, along with American Lawyer magazine and Court TV -- gets interrogated by media critic James Ledbetter in the Sept./Oct. issue of Mother Jones. Ledbetter plays hardball with Brill, asking him pointed questions about conflicts of interest, the liabilities of cross-ownership and the problems with accepting cigarette advertisements.

Ledbetter is no slouch, but Brill fields his questions with deft agility. He comes across as intelligent, thoughtful and principled. In the end, he says his independence might well cost his magazine its readership. The interview, no puff piece, is a tribute both to Brill and the independent-minded Mother Jones.

The New Yorker

Helmut Kohl has been chancellor of Germany for 16 years -- as long as Franklin Roosevelt would have been president had he not died in office. But if the opinion polls are accurate, these are Kohl’s last days in office. When Germans go to the voting booths later this month, they are expected to vote for the 54-year-old Social Democratic candidate, Gerhard Schroder.

In Jane Kramer’s profile of “The Once and Future Chancellor” in the Sept. 14 issue of the New Yorker, we meet a Schroder whom, as it has been noted before, resembles our own Bill Clinton in more ways than one. From his hearty appetite and bulging waistline to his “piercing” blue eyes to his thoroughly modern, professional wife who works the campaign with Schroder as one-half of a “power couple,” Schroder seems awfully familiar.

As the governor of Lower Saxony, he represents a region which is about as close to the center of power in Bonn as Arkansas is to Washington, D.C., in both geographical and cultural terms. He built his popularity at home upon a foundation of provincial interests, most of which he has now cast aside in favor of “the pragmatics” of the middle, or the New Middle, as he himself refers to it. “He sees himself as a fixer, a mediator, a something-for-everyone, consensual sort of person,” writes Kramer.

While he seems successfully to be riding this flexibility to the Chancellery, critics accuse him “of taking so many sides on the same issue that it amounts to having no position at all.” When Kramer confronts Schroder with his overreliance on the “Clintonblair” model, as Kramer calls it, Schroder just shrugs. It’s better to be Clintonblair than Dolemajor, he seems to feel.

George

The September issue of George Magazine -- what I like to think of as Vanity Fair for policy wonks -- is devoted in large part to looking at the distaff side of politics. Features include the “20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics,” the “Top 10 Most Forceful First Ladies,” and “Model Diplomacy,” which examines the growing involvement of supermodels in world affairs of the political kind (I’m not making this up). There’s also an interview with the cultural politician and actress formerly known as Roseanne Barr -- she’s now just “Roseanne” -- and examples from a cache of love letters exchanged by Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.

There is one piece in the issue actually worth reading. In “King of the World,” former tennis champ Billie Jean King remembers her groundbreaking match against Bobby Riggs, which took place 25 years ago this month. While it was a bit of staged lunacy by an over-the-top showman, it was also a cultural watershed -- a real showdown which helped gain respect for female athletes and advanced the women’s movement in general. King is right to feel proud about her role in that small bit of cultural history, and her portrait of Riggs, who became a friend in later years, is tender and touching.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Sept. 12, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]