The Reporter And the Duchess   

Journalist Michael Isikoff encounters Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, while appearing on "The Late Show with David Letterman."

Nobody has ever mistaken Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff for the Duke of Earl. But when he appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" to discuss his reporting on the White House sex scandal, his fellow guest was Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who was promoting a cookbook.

The normally rumpled Isikoff was decked out in a new suit for the occasion, prompting his onetime boss, Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., to say it looked as if Isikoff had gotten a Paula Jones makeover.

When Isikoff met the duchess in the green room before the show, he says, she looked at him with "utter and total contempt." But after the show she asked him for his card. "There's some matters I'd like to discuss with you," she said in her very proper British accent.

But Isikoff choked. "I give my card to every joker in the world and then the Duchess of York asks for my card and I can't find it," he says. "I was totally flustered." He did manage to write his phone number on a piece of paper.

Three days later, to Isikoff's surprise, Ferguson's personal assistant came to see him in Washington with a story for him to pursue. Says Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Ann McDaniel, "I told him he could work on it when he was finished with this." – A.C.S.