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* DART to WJW-TV, Cleveland, and anchors Denise Dufala and Martin Savidge, for not caring enough to send the very best news. At the close of each night's eleven o'clock newscast, one of the anchors salutes a member of the community by wishing the honoree a "Happy Birthday . . . from American Greetings and all your friends at TV-8. Along with a beautiful rose," the anchor gushes on as the camera pans to a brilliantly crimson specimen of the American Beauty variety, "you'll also be receiving an American Greetings card to celebrate the day." This repeated mention of the Cleveland-based company is reinforced twice more with loving shots of American Greetings' name on the back of the envelope and of the signature on the card ("American Greetings and WJW -- TV-8").
* DART to WKRC-TV, Cincinnati, for a case of temporary professional insanity. Having been courteously granted permission to store some cameras in the back of several Hamilton County Common Pleas courtrooms in readiness for televising future trials. WKRC proceeded to equip the cameras with hidden devices that secretly captured courtroom activity in pictures and sound. The WKRC investigation -- conducted in violation of federal wiretapping laws, of the civil rights of witnesses and jurors, and of constitutional rights to privacy -- was aimed at a ratings-week expose of the less than zealous work habits of courtroom personnel (as The Cincinnati Enquirer later sniffed in disgust, "Some scoop"). Eventually -- after a curious judge spotted one of the bugs, after the FBI turned the case over to local authorities, after the county judges decided not to press charges, and after one reporter was fired, two news executives were suspended without pay, and the station manager delivered an on-air apology -- the case was closed.
* DART to The Atlanta Constitution, for following its stylebook so slavishly that it failed to read between the lines. When the paper picked up from The Washington Post a bylined report by Kevin Sullivan about the arrest of two men charged with the murder of basketball superstar Michael Jordan's father, it also picked up the accompanying photos, which clearly showed that one of the defendants -- "Daniel Green," as he was identified in the caption -- was black, and that the other defendant -- "Larry Demery" -- was not. Equal treatment in the captions, however, wasn't echoed in the Constitution's report, in which Larry Demery was referred to as "Mr. Demery" while Daniel Green became just "Green"; in nine separate instances in the page-one story, the Post's original references to "Demery and Green" were changed by Constitution copy editors to "Green and Mr. Demery." Responding the next day to what the paper characterized as a how-come question mildly posed by "several readers," the Constitution explained that it was the paper's policy to withhold the honorific from those convicted of felony crimes, as Daniel Green had been. Nevertheless, those "several readers" had obviously opened the paper's eyes: future stories on the case would refer to both men by their last names, the editors promised, and the general policy on bestowing titles would be reviewed.
* LAUREL to the New York City weekly Village Voice and reporters Wayne Barrett and Kristen King, for showing that the meter hadn't yet run out on a 1980s scandal. Recalling earlier revelations of bribery and corruption in the Parking Violations Bureau -- revelations that had helped defeat Mayor Edward Koch and install David Dinkins in City Hall -- Barrett and King ticked off the minute details of a dubious 1993 deal involving efforts to privatize the agency. Among the Voice's disclosures: that the outside company that had been awarded a $ 200 million contract to manage the collections and other functions of the PVB was in fact the same company involved in the 1980s scandal, now operating under a different name; and that Dinkins administration officials, for reasons ranging from naivete and sloppiness to apparent conflict of interest and possible malfeasance, had, by giving preferential treatment to the company in the selection process, eased its way back into the lucrative fast lane. On the tail of the Voice's disclosures came a Department of Investigations report, cancellation of the contract, the departure of at least one senior Dinkins aide, and a ban against doing city business with the company for the next five years.
* DART to all journalistic larcenists, petty and grand, who break the Eighth Commandment. Among the alleged perpetrators entered on CJR'S overflowing blotter: the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Post, and business editor Tom Caruso, whose bylined August 31 report on the sale of goods and services through interactive computers housed in kiosks was transcribed verbatim from a bylined AP story by Evan Ramstad (with four localizing sentences dropped in); the Cleveland Plain Dealer and reporter Keith C. Epstein, whose "Deadly Delays," an impressive series that appeared in the wake of two air crashes involving Cleveland-bound planes, was clearly indebted to "A Fatal Stall," a ground-breaking report on the first of the crashes by Newsday's award-winning staff writer Glenn Kessler; CNN's Larry King, who this winter declared that the story on the possible link between cellular phones and cancer "first broke on CNN's Moneyline," thus ignoring the fact that the news had been released six weeks before by the Virginia Cooperative Extension at Virginia Tech (replied a CNN representative to a Virginia Tech complaint, "Well, we broke it on the broadcast medium"); and The Seattle Times and columnist John Hinterberger, whose 1992 feature on the junk-food cravings of local chefs consisted of ingredients that were much the same as those contained in John Marshall's feature for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1986.
* LAUREL to The Boston Globe, for lingering in the State House lobby. In a five-part series (beginning May 23), the paper's Spotlight Team exposed the inner workings of a Massachusetts legislature insiders' club in which lobbyists and lawmakers give and get. Based on a ten-month investigation that included a computerized study of all donations of more than $ 50 to 186 incumbents and 54 newcomers elected to the 1991-92 legislature, matched to the jobs of 41,286 donors identified through corporate records, news clips, and street lists, "Beacon Hill's Money Game" exhaustively documented a "climate of corruption" -- secret junkets, secret payoffs, secret fundings, secret deals -- in which special interest and public interest became easily confused. The series prompted a grand jury investigation, currently under way.
* DART to the York, Pennsylvania, Dispatch, for expanding the definition of "vanity press." Its Sunday, June 27 edition carried a full-front Style feature on local women who had made it in a male-dominated working world -- including one Nancy Conway, editor and publisher of the Dispatch. Surprisingly for a piece headed BREAKING THE GLASS CEILING, most of the ten women interviewed waved away gender as an issue in their climb to the top ("Maybe I was too dumb to notice," said one. "It doesn't seem to me that I've had to break through anything," said another. "I wouldn't say I've broken a glass ceiling," said a third, "since the term connotes to me . . . going through some distinct discrimination"). Conway, however, took the opportunity to weigh in with a complaint that in previous jobs at six other news organizations she had been denied promotions and raises because she was a woman. Not surprisingly, Conway's observations got more space than those of anybody else.
* DART to WXIA-TV, Atlanta, and reporter Dean Phillips, for going Hollywood. In the course of covering the trial of a man charged with murder-for-hire, Phillips signed a deal to make a movie about the case with a California production company whose payment scale was tied to the dramatic impact of the case (top dollar going to a scenario that would warrant a six-hour miniseries). Phillips's reportage included the airing of a three-part interview with a witness who claimed to have been present at a parking-lot meeting between the slain woman's husband and the alleged assassin -- but it did not include the fact that the witness had failed a lie detector test and that his account had been discredited by police. Upon being subpoenaed by the defendant's outraged attorney, Phillips testified under oath in court about the deal, which, he said, had been approved by his bosses at WXIA. (One week after his court appearance -- and after publication of a piece in The Atlanta Constitution exploring the ethical issues raised by the journalist's actions -- WXIA announced on the air that Phillips had been fired.)
* DART to WCYB-TV, Bristol, Tennessee, for getting too close to the story. In an effort to pick up public support in its fight for fees from cable companies that carry its signal, the station this fall first organized a rally at a local mall -- where, beside free hot dogs, the main attraction was its autograph-signing, picture-posing news staff -- then reported on the rally as news. (Note to readers: this item is based on reports from viewers, newspaper accounts, and editorials, rather than on firsthand viewing of the broadcast, as is our normal practice. Station manager Joe Macione and news director Steve Hawkins refused to provide CJR with a transcript or tape.)
* DART to the Jefferson City, Missouri, News-Tribune, and reporter Tom Loeffler, for under-par journalism. In the course of a June 10 bylined story about an upcoming celebrity tournament sponsored by the ProAthletes Golf League, Loeffler swung straight into the rough: six selfstroking paragraphs about a hole in one that had highlighted the PAGL's Media Day tournament promoting the event. Included were the names of three witnesses to the triumph, a description of the iron used, details about the wind conditions that had prevailed, and a sportingly modest quote from the ace himself -- reporter Tom Loeffler. (Loeffler's performance was almost matched by the Knoxville News-Sentinel's food editor, Louise Durman, who, in a bylined September 8 feature about a paper-sponsored cooking school, reported that "News Sentinel food editor Louise Durman will be at the cooking school to sell and autograph copies of her cookbook, Recipes Upon Request.")
