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* LAUREL to Connecticut magazine, for a nonroutine examination of an unhealthy policy. checking up on that ever-so-responsible GE commercial that stresses the value of early detection in breast-cancer treatment, urges busy women to make time for regular mammograms, and, along the way, promotes GE;s newly developed breastcancer-detection system, associate editor Nora FitzGerald discovered a sign of not-so-benign neglect: the company that "brings good things to life" was disallowing payment for mammograms in its employees' medical plan -- unless the employee showed symptoms of cancer already. What's more, the Fairfield-headquartered company appeared to be immune to both the letter and the spirit of the Connecticut state law that mandates such preventive screenings: GE's medical plan -- a plan for all its employees nationally -- was conveniently issued in another state. (FitzGerald's piece ran in Ma; in July, GE announced that the plan would be expanded to cover routine mammograms.)
* DART to the Philadelphia Daily News, for a detour around the news. When repairs that had long closed a Center City street were finally completed on May 13, the tabloid devoted its entire front page, as well as its entire third page, to the news of the reopening -- and, not incidentally, to news of an upcoming paper-sponsored celebration, a giant "YO! Philadelphia" block party featuring, among other delights, a YO! mug-toss game, a YO!deling contest, YO! T-shirts, and yo-yos. Subsequent coverage of the party was similarly loaded with YO!s: one the News's front page, in photo captions and headlines, and in inside stories (some sixteen YO!s in one May 18 piece alone). YO!, as the paper reminded its readers (lest they miss the point?) is also the name of the paper's new entertainment section.
* LAUREL to Time magazine and associate editor Richard Behar, for a mindchilling status report on the Church of Scientology and its continuing spread into the mainstream. Based on 150 interviews and a review of hundreds of documents, Behar's May 6 cover story showed how, despite the abundant testimony of defectors about physical abuse, mind control, and financial ruin; despite the indictment, prosecution, or conviction, both in the U.S. and abroad, of numerous Scientologists for extortion, burglary, wiretapping, tax evasion, and fraud; and despite the death of its founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, in 1986 (just as he was about to be indicted), scientology -- a "ruthless . . . hugely profitable global racket," as Time put it -- not only survives, but thrives. It does so, Behar revealed, with the help of "Mafia-like" tactics, First amendment protections, big-name celebrity followers, advice from Hill and Knowlton (which has since dropped the account), income from fees for "flowing up the bridge" (to enlightenment) that average from $ 200,000 to $ 400,000 a person, and a wide array of front organizations (which Behar named) in the fields of consulting, health care, book publishing, and education. (In a sidebar Behar detailed Scientology's attempts to threaten, harass, and discredit him during his five-month investigation -- attempts that clearly did not work.)
* DART to Al Neuharth, erstwhile chairman of Gannett and current columnist for Gannett's USA Today, for journalistic inosmia. When the Church of Scientology, stung by a Time expose (see above), counterattacked with a $ 3 million two-week barrage of full-page, four-color, anti-Time supplement, in USA Today, Neuharth sniffed around the subject in a June 21 column in which he told his readers how "amused" he was by the Time-Scientology "debate," likening it to a fight between "the pot and the kettle" in which "neither is better than the other." Just as "the Church of Scientology is not really a religion; it's a cult or philosophy," Neuharth analogized, "Time really isn't a newsmagazine; it's a magazine of opinion and interpretation." He went on: "I have absolutely no doubt" about why "Time and its parent company" don't pass "my smell test" (one of his reasons: the value of Neuharth's Time Inc. stock would be higher today "if the bosses two years ago" had not "rejected Paramount's $ 200 a share offer and feathered their own nests"). But while allowing as how Scientology doesn't pass his "smell test" either, the Plain Talk writer temporized, "I'm not absolutely sure why." (Did the sweet mask the stench? Maybe Neuharth should and go back to Behar's piece and take another whiff.)
* DART to the Atlantic city, New Jersey, Press, and staff writer David Spatz, for letting journalistic credibility take a back seat -- and putting advertising behind the wheel. In an effort to sell more used cars, truck vans, compers, pick-ups, and cycles, The Press in tandem with Sammons Communications, the local cable operator, is offering a "one low price" combination deal in which private sellers get a three-line classified ad in The Press and a thirty-second do-it-yourself commercial on Sammons's Channel 2. For the "camera shy," the paper's July 9 announcement promised, its entertainment writer, David Spatz, would be at the warehouse drive-in studio "to help you (along with the lovely Darlene) . . . or, if you prefer not to be on camera, David and Darlene will do the on-camera selling!" The deal also calls for each commercial to be aired five times on the VideoCar Bazaar, with "David" as regular host.
* DART to the Anchorage, Alaska, Times, for a classic example of hot-air journalism. the front page of the paper's June 8 metro section featured a 10-by-6-inch, four color photo of publisher bill Allen, together with his two guests, Mayor Tim fink and Governor Walter Hickel, as they prepared to embark on the inaugural ride of the Times's new hot air balloon. The red, yellow, green and blue vehicle sported the Times's large black logo; the bonding publisher, mayor, and governor sported bright-red Times-logoed jackets. The accompanying article was frothy with smiles and quips and champagne. The caption topping the picture read FLIGHT OF FANCY FOR THE HIGH AND MIGHTY. Some readers thought they saw journalistic standards sink out of sight.
* LAUREL to The Kansas city Star and staff writer Joe Stephens, for detecting the smoke and finding the fire. When in the February 26 primary an obscure candidate of rcity council -- Joe Spinello, a man with no history of pubic service, a man who had not registered to vote for more than a decade, but a man who happened to belong to the family that owned the Shady Lady Lounge, a local trip bar with reputed ties to the mob -- suddenly bested all but one of his six competitors, Stephens's investigative alarm went off. Cross-checking the computerized database he has developed on mob-related businesses and individuals against local, county, and state records, Stephens was able to show, nine days before the general election (and within the Star's self-imposed time limit for such damaging preelection disclosures) that two-thirds of Spinello's campaign financing came from such dubious sources as reputed mob associates, their families, and their businesses. Stephens also documented a number of occasions when Spinello had been in the company of some rather shady gentlemen -- including a man the FBI calls one of the three top leaders in the Kansas city crime family. In the general election, Spinello was handily trounced.
* MINIDART to The Miami Herald, for a fitting footnote to the summer's sorry saga of purloined words -- to wit:
* After the July 2 page one revelation by The Boston Globe that H. Joachim Maitre, the dean of the college of communications at Boston University, had in his May 12 commencement speech "before a crowd of future journalists . . . repeated nearly word for word portions of an article by a nationally known film critic but never acknowledged the source"; and
* after The New York Times, in a bylined piece by Boston bureau chief Fox Butterfield on the following day, had picked up the story, incorporating additional reporting and interviews and noting, in the sixth of eighteen paragraphs, that the plagiarism charges had been "first made . . . in an article in The Boston Globe"; and
* after The New York Times, in a page 3 editors' note on July 11, had confessed that its July 3 article had contained "a passage of five paragraphs that closely resembled five paragraphs in the Globe article" involving comparisons "of he same sets of quotations from the disputed texts" and was therefore "improperly dependent on the Globe's account"; and
* after The Washington Post in a July 12 piece had fleshed out the story behind the Times's editors' note by identifying the sources who had brought those close resemblances to the Times's attention (an anonymous letter writer and the conservative Olin foundation), by raising the question of whether "any action will be taken against Butterfield," and by reminding its readers of previous complaints against the Timesman's work (in his Palm Beach rape story Butterfield had identified the woman by name); and
* after The Washington Post on July 13 had published a page 2 "clarification" of its own, in which it explained that a July 7 story on mosquito and grasshopper infestation in Florida had "violated Post policies" by appearing "to be based on original interviewing and reporting, when in fact most of it was taken from material previously published by The Miami Herald and the Associated Press," as well as by failing "to credit the original sources of the material used'"; and
* after a related July 13 piece by Post media writer Howard Kurtz had clarified the clarification, detailing the plagiarized passages and reporting that the employee who wrote the story, Miami bureau chief Laura Parker, had "left the paper" (while noting that managing editor Leonard Downie, Jr., "would not say whether Parker had resigned or been fired, calling that an internal personnel matter"); but
* before July 18, when, in the course of a plagiarism wrap-up inspired by yet another case (this one involving a Stanford University instructor who had lifted passages from a Washington Monthly piece for a book on corporate management), Kurtz revealed that the Post had indeed "fired" Parker "last week" and that the Times had "suspended" Butterfield -- without, however, indicating which paper had acted first, thus leaving readers to wonder who was playing at brinkmanship in the attribution was (although it was clear that no executive at either the Times or the Post would be following the example of the president of Japan's Kyodo New Service, Shiju Sakai, who, according to the AP, upon discovering that fifty-one medical articles by a Kyodo senior writer were almost identical to a series published seventeen years before in a Japanese newspaper, took a 10 percent pay cut for a month, then resigned),
The Miami Herald on July 13 picked up from the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service Kurtz's piece on the Post's plagiarism of the mosquito story and its apology to the Herald. as sent out over the wires, the piece had included a paragraph in which John Pancake, the Herald's state editor, was quoted as saying, among other things, that "I wish I could tell you [plagiarism] never hapened at The Miami Herald, but I suspect it has." None of Pancake's words or thoughts or sentiments appeared in the Herald's version in any way, shape, or form, with or without attribution.
