Bylines   

Not That Funny

It's every publication's worst nightmare, and yet it happens all the time. Joke copy is inserted at a punch-drunk moment by someone attempting to be funny, but no one laughs when it shows up in the final edition. Such is the saga of Shane P. Whitaker , a reporter for Maryville, Missouri's Daily Forum (circulation 4,129), who was forced to resign after failing to notice that a March 30 column by State Sen. Sam Graves had been altered. In the column, Graves wrote that he wanted to make welfare a safety net, not a hammock, for the needy. This phrase followed: "as long as you are a white male, because those are the people that paid me to get into office." Jerry Pye , the paper's publisher, is still reeling from the incident, despite the fact that the paper ran a personal apology and a corrected version of the column. "Never in our wildest dreams could we have anticipated this," Pye says. "We were mortified, just flat-out shocked." Whitaker, for his part, was mortified as well, and says he is satisfied with taking responsibility for the error even though it was committed by someone not employed by the paper (neither Pye nor Whitaker would say who). He has already bounced back, however, and is the newest reporter on the staff of the Cameron Citizen Observer , a Missouri weekly. "I want to get more attention, for better things, in the future," he says.

No Apology

Combating political correctness head-on, National Review Editor John O'Sullivan lashes out at those who didn't see the humor in the conservative weekly's March 24 cover on the White House fundraising scandal, which caricatured President Clinton , First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Al Gore by portraying them with exaggerated Asian features. Several Asian American groups, including the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), flooded National Review's office with faxes and phone calls demanding an apology for what they described as the perpetuation of stereotypes; they also staged a protest outside the political journal's New York office. But O'Sullivan has no intentions of apologizing. Instead the feisty Brit fired off a salvo to the Associated Press demanding that the protesters, whom he dubbed the "Ethnic Grievance Industry," apologize to the magazine for "boring us with their willful misinterpretations, strained logic, abusive tone and tired rhetoric." Says O'Sullivan, "Anybody can see that the attack is on the president. It would be objectionable to employ stereotypes if they were being used to demean an entire social or ethnic group, but that's not being done." To prove that he can dish it out and take it, O'Sullivan, along with several National Review staffers of hyphenated ethnicity, were featured in the magazine's April 7 issue in a caricature gallery riddled with ethnic stereotypes. "It's always good to take on any issue with some humor, so that it's not as confrontational," says AAJA President Benjamin Seto , "but at the same time there needs to be a tone of seriousness when you're addressing the concerns of a particular group. Instead, [National Review] is ridiculing the group for making comments, which adds to the anger that is developing." Indeed the anger level has risen considerably. When O'Sullivan spoke recently to the Yale Political Union, a mini-riot ensued on the Connecticut campus, during which O'Sullivan was roughed up but not seriously harmed.

A Failed Public Safety Test

Lloyd Sowers , a reporter for WTVT , the Fox affiliate in Tampa, finds himself in a bit of trouble with the feds following a stunt his station described as a "public safety" test. On March 31, the opening day of the Oklahoma City bombing trial, Sowers parked a rented Ryder truck, similar to the one Timothy McVeigh is accused of using in the bombing, in front of a downtown federal building. As it turned out, the truck was spotted by a security camera and a Federal Protective Services officer rushed after Sowers, detaining and questioning him while other officers searched the truck. Sowers ultimately identified himself as a reporter and was released, though federal agents were none too pleased. One agent quoted in the Tampa Tribune described the station's test/stunt as "crying wolf," though WTVT News Director Daniel Webster , quoted in the same article, defended the station's efforts by pointing out that the agents assigned to the federal security detail wouldn't discuss security measures when asked. Webster no longer works for WTVT, and the station's new general manager, David Boylan , says he hopes more discussion will take place before nontraditional newsgathering techniques are employed in the future. "There were no legal ramifications, but there has been a lot of journalistic reflection," he says. "If anything good has come out of this it is that it allows us to review our process."

We Are Not Amused

Once again, big-media brand names on the Internet show they have no sense of humor when it comes to their smaller online colleagues. The New York Times delivers a cease-and-desist order to Howard Cohen , a writer, programmer and self-described "bohemian entrepreneur" who created a parody site last September called "The New Times York." The Times wasn't amused, citing willful trademark infringement and unfair competition in its legal action. But Cohen is undeterred: He recently changed the site's name to "The Street Wall Journal" ( www.c3f.com/ntytoday.html ). He says he hasn't yet heard from the Wall Street Journal 's legal counsel, but that he's hoping to, so he can then "change the name to 'The Wall York New Times-Journal Street' and maybe they'll both file a class action cease-and-desist against me, on behalf of all newspapers." Cohen has chosen to accept the challenge of staying one step ahead of lawsuits rather than trying to fend them off in court. "I enjoy coming up with new names," Cohen says. "The poor New York Times is stuck with their boring name forever."

Is There an Echo in Here?

An article posted on Playboy magazine's Web site ( www.playboy.com ) all but brands New York Post columnist Cindy Adams with the scarlet "P" for plagiarism, alleging that she borrowed the words of Reuters reporter Ben Fenwick . A March 11 exclusive on the Playboy site by Fenwick revealed certain details of the Oklahoma City bombing, some of which were found in internal trial defense documents, which Playboy says Fenwick obtained legally. According to Playboy, a March 20 column by Adams reported many of the same details, in many of the same words. Fenwick wrote that, on the day of the bombing, McVeigh "reached down [in the Ryder truck] and yanked a wire under the seat... The wire was attached to a pull-cord detonator, which burns with a flash when activated." Adams reported that McVeigh "reached under the seat and yanked a wire... The wire, attached to a pull-cord detonator, burns with a flash when activated." Adams claimed in her column, in which she mentioned Fenwick but did not credit him, that she got her information from the same documents Fenwick did, and that she was compelled to protect her source. But Playboy says the documents don't mention the detonator, and that Fenwick based his account on interviews with law-enforcement sources and a photo of an ATF mock-up of the bomb. Adams did not respond to repeated phone calls or a fax requesting comment.