*DEBATING THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

*NIGHTLINE’S DAYS NUMBERED

BLACK HAWK DOWN ACTOR BLASTS MOVIE

Yesterday, I raised questions about how the Wall Street Journal treated apparent requests by its slain journalist Danny Pearl for more support in the field, and access to a course that teaches safety techniques to reporters in conflict zones. That happened before his death.

My story was based on a very reliable and thoughtful source, citing someone on the paper close to Pearl who was distressed by the way the Wall Street Journal was coming off so heroically in all the coverage. I then dutifully sent the column to editors at the Wall Street Journal in New York and the Asian Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong seeking comments. Unhappily, my emails to executives like Peter Kahn and his wife Karen Eliot House bounced back. So I will try again, and, sadly, there was no word from the East.

AN UNEXPECTED PHONE CALL

No sooner was my story picked up this morning in Jim Romenesko’s always comprehensive media news site on Poynter.org then the phone rang. On the other end, with a faltering voice, someone who declines to identify himself, is telling me that the report int his column that The Journal let Pearl down is l00% right on. “Absolutely correct!” were the words. He also reveals that this is a very sensitive issue at a paper that is still in mourning for a beloved colleague.

When I asked him how he knew, he took a deep breath before saying “I work for the Wall Street Journal.” He was speaking on background so I have to paraphrase but most telling comment was that I was on to something that goes much deeper than even I could imagine.

I am thinking to myself — it must have been hard for this guy to call me. He is obviously unhinged by what happened. He wants to talk but like many reporters who come up against their bosses and institutions is afraid that it could mean his job. Having worked for years inside a big media company, I know exactly what it feels like to feel that you don’t have freedom of speech in an environment that is publicly committed to freedom of the press.

Heavy.

WAS DANNY PEARL HARMED BY HIS OWN NEWSPAPER?

He goes on to say that all three points enunciated in yesterday’s weblog are on target. (You can scroll down to read the original report.) He adds that Pearl not only sent in a memo requesting help before he was kidanapped, but called as well. He says he saw the memo which has since disappeared. He told me about the safety course run by ex SAS officers in England by a company called AKE. Apparently, some journalists there did take such a course. It must be said that even had he taken a course, Pearl may have met the same fate. On other hand, he was worried enough to reach out to AKE and they had tried to be helpful to him even though he was never enrolled in he course. I heard that they were sufficiently alarmed for him, and his situation, that they sent him a medical kit. Pearl’s efforts to insure his own saftety before the kidnapping has not been reported on before.In short, he knew what the risks was dealing with and had sought help.

Apparently it was not forthcoming.

My caller told me that if and when I did get Journal execs to comment, I would get denials and obfuscation.( Let’s see what happens.)

I have had to wrestle with what to report. Was he telling he truth? It sure sounded like it. He didn’t sound like a disgruntled nay sayer at all. He obviously took pride in his craft and he paper. I say this having been around reporters most of my life. I know he wanted to go on the record but couldn’t. I hope I am doing justice to his concerns by talking about them so openly.

What is going on down there in Journal land? It sounds like there are some real pissed off foreign correspondents who apparently feel they are treated as second class citizens. Many close readers of the paper have commented on a decline in foreign news reporting over the years. I seem to remember it being better 15 years ago. They are beoming a ground zero in a new debate about reporter safgety.

Is the Wall Street Journal putting the lives of its own people at risk by indifference or skimping on support services? That’s a frightening thought that I have been trying to explore with present and former staffers. Personally, I was close to the late John Kwitny who left the Journal and told me some tales out school that suggested that all was not well in the world of Dow Jones.

OTHER VIEWS: A CURRENT JOURNAL REPORTER ON BACKGROUND

Today I can also share some views from a well known member of the staff, who, also, also didn’t want his name used. He knew Pearl well. I also have some context offered by he is a former reporter who worked with Pearl. And then my own source returns with additional comments

First here’s a Wall Street Journal reporter, writing thoughtfully on “background” from somewhere in the world. He thinks I overstate the problem.

“I think there’s some truth to this but that it’s overstated:

“(1) The training course. I remember that this was one of many things thatwere being debated at the paper during the weeks after 9/11. It didn’trelate specifically to Danny. The paper decided against it and with goodreason. To me, these courses are exploitive–they teach useless things andcost a bundle. You learn how to do a handbrake-180 turn in a limo. What’sthe value of that? Especially in Danny’s case? These guys kidnapped himintending to kill him, at least this is what everyone is reporting. Whatwould a course have taught? How to strangle your captor with your handcuffsand escape like in a movie? I doubt it… To put it in context, no othernewspapers that I know of have sent reporters to these courses.

“(2) Fixers. I think every newspaper after 9/11 struggled to get researchersand translators in Pakistan. Suddenly, instead of a few correspondents likethe Post/NYT and Journal buzzing around Pakistan, you had hundreds ofpeople, especially from television, paying outrageous amounts. But I don’tsee the link to Danny’s kidnapping. He wasn’t put onto these people by hisfixer. He sought them out and took a gamble. This wasn’t his fixer’sdecision.

“(3) The Journal isn’t spending enough to compete in the big leagues. I agreethat bean counters have a bigger role at our paper and we need more supportoverseas, but the Journal has more correspondents overseas than the Timesand the Post combined. I don’t think the Journal is a novice to coveringthese parts of the world. Our CEO won a Pulitzer Prize for covering a war inPakistan…

“I hope this doesn’t sound too defensive but I think it’s easy to say”the paper should have done more.” To me, what really happened was somethingsimilar to 9/11–we were shocked at our vulnerability. Reporters assumedthat we had a bye–that we weren’t targets. It turns out we are…”

A FORMER JOURNAL REPORTER WEIGHS IN.

Here’s another view, from a veteran Journal investigative journalist and a friend of mine, G Pascal Gregory, now teaching journalism in Berkeley, writing a piece circulated by Alternet.org (More about a controversy on Alternet tomorow)

“Along with the search for the killers of Daniel Pearl, there is another search going on: for the meaning of his death, especially among journalists. While we may never know why the Wall Street Journal reporter was murdered, his death carries a message for reporters — and for all Americans — who travel to the poor, angry and confused places of the Earth.

“Having walked in his shoes — we were both foreign correspondents at the Journal — I can only shudder at the horror Pearl faced when an enterprising interview turned into an abduction: his own. As journalists, we are used to witnessing the suffering of others with a kind of stoic detachment, a hard- eyed mentality that serves to shield us from the ultimate news flash — that most of what’s awful in the world lies beyond explanation.

“But we often are unprepared to suffer ourselves. We are protected by the unwritten rule that nobody in their right mind messes with a visiting journalist, especially an American. Maybe they mistreat their local reporters, but not us. We are untouchable. We are always one phone call, or plane ride, from safety.

“Whatever one calls this mentality — to some it’s another example of American arrogance — it helps us revel in enterprise, to get things done in strange places, to sift the wheat from chaff, and, most importantly, to believe in our own independence. We represent, we tell ourselves, no one but our readers.

“That belief is crucial to our ability to function in foreign countries. Danny’s captors accused him of serving the U.S. and Israeli governments. He did nothing of the sort, of course. Such charges are as specious as they are predictable. In my own travels, across the former Soviet Union, in West Africa and in southeast Asia, I constantly heard similar charges. I would try to explain — as Danny must have — the tradition of press freedom in America, that we are neutral, as our Constitution guarantees, that we seek to report honestly about the people and places we see, even in the face of government pressure to do otherwise.

“That has become harder to do since Sept. 11. Not taking sides is un- American, we are told. Displays of patriotism remind us that we, too, are American citizens, just like those who died so cruelly on Sept. 11. Aren’t we entitled to take sides, too?

“For media executives, the pressures are equally acute. Newspapers and television stations want their readers and viewers to feel they are on their side, that we are all in this war on terrorism together. Thus the full-page newspaper displays and television icons of the proudly flapping American flag.

“In this climate, it has become increasingly difficult for editors to resist the pressure to take sides with a government that is presumably fighting the good fight.

“Thus, in mid-January, the Wall Street Journal admitted that it had turned over to the Department of Defense a discarded laptop computer purchased in a Kabul market by one of the paper’s foreign correspondents. The computer contained many files created by al Qaeda terrorists.

“The Journal’s managing editor, Paul Steiger, decided the Defense Department could not only assist his reporters in interpreting the documents, but that the government’s war against al Qaeda also might benefit from the paper sharing the knowledge gleaned from its find.

“As the Journal’s foreign editor told the New York Times, “If something is abandoned, and it comes into our possession, and we determine that lives could be at stake, we will hand it over to the authorities.”

“Pearl was kidnapped two days after this “policy” was disclosed in the New York Times.” There is no evidence that this “policy” was responsible for Danny Pearl’s kidnapping — at least none that we know of. You should read the rest of this piece on Aternet.org.

ANOTHER QUESTION: DOES THE GOVERNMENT REWARD PUT REPORTERS AT RISK?

My source was back with some more comments after my piece was sent to him: ” This just in from a colleague re: Pearl: It strikes me that the US government’s offer of a $5 million reward for information leading to the conviction of Pearl’s killers is strange. I can’t remember this ever being done for a reporter before and I wonderwhy? Why should a reporter, more than any other citizen, be treated this way? Secondly, this now makes every other foreign corespondent in that region a target as thugs sit around and say to themselves: If we snatch so-and-s correspondent, maybe we can get a reward for his return. Third, my South Asian colleagues tell me that this once again raises the suspicion that Pearl was a spy, which we know he wasn’t.”

FINALLY, MY ORIGINAL “DEEP THROAT ” IS BACK

Those were comments from his unnamed friend. But, happily. he also shared a few of his own: “On survival training. FYI, I believe there was one WSJ reporter who did in fact go to such a course. And I believe there are a number of others from other news organizations, especially in Europe. John Owen, distinguished journalist and the former director of the Freedom Forum’s London Center (now closed), was an advocate of such survival training ” Indeed, I met former UK military trainers who run such courses for the BBC. They were very impressive and, in fact, they told me that kidnapping is certainly one of the threats journalists are taught how to avoid.

“* I’m not a good source for this, but it’s my impression that the WSJ does not put the kind of resources behind some of their foreign operations as even some of the print competitors do — not to mention the networks. Someone could do a point-by-point comparison: armor-plated Land Rover to armor-plated Land Rover, armed guard to armed guard, etc. The issue is not the number of reporters in the field (especially in financial centers), but how they are prepared and equipped for conflict zones.

* As to the point that the Pearl case is “similar to 9/11–we were shocked at our vulnerability. Reporters assumed that we had a bye–that we weren’t targets. It turns out we are.” With all due respect, it has become very, very clear in recent years, at least since the Balkan wars, that Western reporters do *not* have a bye. (Third World reporters have been targets in their own countries in a *systematic* way at lest since the 70’s.)The attitude of your source is precisely what contributed to a corporate culture that put Pearl at risk, and continues to put others at risk. The history of Western reporters’ growing vulnerability to violence is out there for all to see. I’m not saying that Pearl’s death was inevitable. I am saying that, like 9/11, to use your source’s own analogy, all the “intelligence” was out there — it’s just that hubris, pride, arrogance, and what used to be called “white-skin privilege,” got in the way of people taking it seriously.”4

So there you have it, five separate views. Not a bad start. I am still going to seek out the official response from the Journal and welcome you all to join the conversation about what are really life and death issues affecting journalists on the job and our need to be informed. Please write dissector@mediachannel.org if you want to add your take.

NOW BACK TO THE COLUMN I WAS WRITING BEFORE I WAS SO PLEASANTLY INTERRUPTED

Follow my eyes now, as they skip across the front page of today’s New York Times, as the month of March begins with predictions on CNN that the winter we have mostly escaped here in New York will pay us its last respects in the next few weeks with a new freeze and possibly a final kick in the butt. The weatherwoman was all smiles gleeful because she will then have some storms to tell us about. The times was all storms: the big local news is about the Appeals Court decision throwing out the conviction of a whit police officer charged with taking part in the l977 police station torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. (Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post couldn’t contain its joy featuring a picture of office Charles “Chuck” Schwarz on p l with the headline “HOPE AT LAST” and the lead of column by the often odious Steve Dunleavy who is described as having “crusaded for Schwarz’s release.” Editorializing? Nah –not when the whole paper often reads like a editorial.)

CHENEY’S ADVISORS WERE CAMPAIGN DONORS

Digression ended, we move back to this stunning revelation on the ongoing storof Vice President Cick Cheney’s battle to keep secret his dealings with energy industry bigs. The Times went aound and behind the legal skirmishing to actually interview members of the task Force and look at the correspondence. Behold: their enterrpising initiative discoveed what everyone suspected: “an apaprent correlation been large campaign contributions and access to Mr Cheney’s task force. Moving leftwards, we have a picture of Israeli armord vehicles smashing their way into a Palestinian refugee camp killing “at least” ll. In paragraph 6 we learn “Israel did not spell out why it had chosen to launch the attacks today.” Bear in mind, this ocurred even as new hope flickers for a new peace agreement, this time brokered or at least proposed by the Saudi’s. We only get to that in paragraph 7 wehre we learn that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has “kept his distance from it.” This what you call a buried lead, and a refusal to explicitly connect the dots in a way that might explain what’s really going on. War seems to break out just as peace seems possible,. I wonder why. Don’t you

EEE

Moving down the page, there is more on an EEE scheme — Enron Executive Enrichment, that is. It is about how the company’s profits were being inflated at the same time that execs pulled money out of the company for themselves. How broadly is this scam practiced by other companies. You won’t find that out here. Moving over to the bottom left of the page, we have another stunner: Democratic leaders are finallu questioning the White House over the expansion of the War onTerror without ” a clear explanation of its aims.” One aspect of this, is the dispatching of US forces to Georgia (the one in the Far East, not the US South.) More on that below.

ENTERTAINMENT TRUMPS NEWS AGAIN

But then, for us media junkies, more on the priorities of our media goliaths in this era when news like the ghoulash I have just dessceibed invariably misses as much of the story as it tells. Late night comic David Letterman is being wooed by Disney;s ABC. Mickey money is apparently making him dizzy. The former NBC entertainer who moved his show for millions more to CBS is not about to hit the trifecta by jumping to ABC. A move which will put Letterman’s show on more stations will also result in the death by network of the best news program on TV — NIGHTLINE.

Ted Koppel, the journalist that every journalist often admires, will have to be sacrificed on Michael Eisner’s cross of hoped for gold. Bear in mind that this is the one network show that offers a relatively in depth approach to major news stories, the one that covers the world with some regularity, and the one that deviates from the what the pack is doing. Two nights ago, they offered a fair and compelling backgrounder on the criminal trial of the civil rights leader formerly known as H. Rap Brown in Atlanta. Last night, they followed up on aspects of the war on terror, raising some questions about the effectiveness of the all the terror alerts the governement has been issuing. Nightline has been a breath of fresh air in the pollion of most TV news. What does Disney say about this? Nothing on the record. Instead BilL Carter quotes an unamed executive this way. “The relevancy of Nightline is not there anymore.” Here we are in a world crisis and America’s one regularly scheduled journalistic program is no longer relevant. What are they smoing over there? You can answer that for yoursef. To quote the new movie that has just opened, its about money, “all about the Benjamins,” as ABC complains about the “older audience makeup of the program, viewers who are less attractive to many advertisers.

So there you have it , a front page that begins by reporting on the news of the today ends with a quote that best news show on TV is no longer relevant.

QUIZ: WHAT OTHER WORLD LEADER HAD A BUNKER?

Finding ways to be safe has preoccupied the Bush Administration according to the Washington Post. Is this paranoia or simple prudence? You tell me:

“Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret

” Spurred by Terror Threat, Bush Ordered 100 Officials to ‘Bunker Duty’ toEnsure Federal Survival” -

By Barton Gellman and Susan Schmidt

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, March 1, 2002; Page A1

“President Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 seniorcivilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington,activating for the first time long-standing plans to ensure survival offederal rule after catastrophic attack on the nation’s capital.

“Execution of the classified “Continuity of Operations Plan” resulted notfrom the Cold War threat of intercontinental missiles, the scenariorehearsed for decades, but from heightened fears that the al Qaedaterrorist network might somehow obtain a portable nuclear weapon,according to three officials with first-hand knowledge. U.S.intelligence has no specific knowledge of such a weapon, they said, butthe risk is thought great enough….

BLACK HAWK ACTOR DOWNS BLACK HAWK MOVIE

Finally today a salute to a media here written up on the NATION.com I will be back tomorrow with all the other items that I couldn’t get to

Protesting Black Hawk Downby Adrian Brune

“It’s one thing to have Somali groups protesting Black Hawk Down for whatthey say is an inaccurate and racist portrayal of Somalis. It’s quiteanother to have one of the actors in the Oscar-nominated movie, anaccount of the 1993 US military intervention in Somalia that lefteighteen American soldiers dead, openly denounce the movie for the samereason.

“But that’s exactly what Brendan Sexton III did in front of a group ofnearly 200 students at Columbia University on February 11. Sexton, whohas appeared in such movies as Boys Don’t Cry and Welcome to theDollhouse, said the film oversimplifies and inaccurately portraysSomalis as “savages without any reason to oppose the US militarypresence in Somalia.”

“He said he originally agreed to take the part because in the script hischaracter openly denounces the military action. But, he said, “AfterSeptember 11, they edited out the speech my character, Alphabet, made.”

“Sony officials said they were unaware of Sexton’s comments and that theyhad no comment.”

COME TO THE ENTERTAINMENT SUMMIT TOMORROW

I will have more to say about entertainment and news tomorrow when I keynote a Global Entertainment Summit in New York, a trade show for the industry and interested members of the public. Tix are still available. Here is the info from organizer Steve Zuckerman:

“The music and film industry will be converging tocreatenew business alliances in an industry that has seen major consolidations. Leaders such as Miles Copeland, John Waters, Les Paul, Lenedra Carroll,Fred Davis, Danny Schechter, the producers of In the Bedroom and othersare keynoting, with over 40 panels, workshops and a trade show floow,the Global Entertainment & Media’s focus on reinventing the music and filmindustry’shas already drawn significant attention”.

Event dates: Fri and Sat March 2 and 3

Times: 11- 7 pm both days, doors open at 10 a.m. both days

Tickets: $50 per person

EWebsite: www.globalentertainmentnetwork.com

Be There or Be Square. Keep your letters and calls coming. Write dissector@mediachaannel.org