The Boston Phoenix
September 25 - October 2, 1997

[Don't Quote Me]

Man bites dog

Steve Brill prepares to hound the media elite. Plus, the case of the missing Herald award-winner, and a defense of Matt Drudge.

by Dan Kennedy

Long before editor/publisher/entrepreneur Steve Brill found himself with $30 million and no place to go, he took delight -- sadistic delight, some say -- in exposing the foibles and shortcomings of his fellow journalists.

Especially those who worked for him. At the American Lawyer, which he founded in 1979, he was infamous for his cruel editing style and front-page corrections, complete with the offending reporter's name.

"He's really a great journalist and an incredible reporter. As a manager, he's a taskmaster and can be brutal," says a former Brill employee. "He puts a very high premium on integrity and getting it right. Sometimes he was an asshole about it, but I can't disagree with the principle."

Now, out on the street following a bruising, unsuccessful attempt to reacquire the American Lawyer and his more famous creation, Court TV, from Time Warner, the brash, cigar-chomping Brill is getting ready to whack the media elite right between the eyes.

Brill's idea -- not yet past the blueprint stage -- is for a monthly magazine called Content, intended to cover and uncover the media. The launch will probably be in May, he says, though he may move it up a month. The model will be the American Lawyer, the Trade Journal from Hell, which exposed the not-always-attractive inner workings of a previously unexamined profession and became a must-read even among those lawyers who cursed it. The American Lawyer, a small magazine with an outsized influence, has jump-started the careers of a number of talented journalists, such as Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart (Blood Sport, Den of Thieves).

Brill openly disparages the two established media journals, the American Journalism Review and the Columbia Journalism Review. "What the media do all the time is talk to each other," he says, comparing his would-be competitors to a "bar association meeting" at which lawyers wring their hands and ask how they can improve their public image. "We're going to be a consumer guide for the information age, not a place for navel-gazing," Brill says. He's talking about a monthly circulation of 300,000 to 500,000, and a staff of 100.

But you have to wonder whether Brill has looked at the competition lately. Media criticism and media reporting have become staples of general-interest magazines, newspapers, and new-media outlets. For starters, consider the New Yorker, the New Republic, Salon, and Vanity Fair, which ran an in-depth profile of Brill. And though the two journalism reviews may not do much to market themselves, AJR in particular has become pretty damn sprightly and independent. The current issue, for instance, includes an in-depth look at USA Today's rise to respectability, a profile of sports guy Keith Olbermann, and a piece that Brill himself would probably like to run: a tough article on the perils of celebrity journalism.

It's also hard to take Brill's circulation predictions seriously. Both AJR and CJR have circulations around 30,000 -- nearly double that of the American Lawyer, whose appeal is considerably more insidery than Brill might like to admit. Political commentator Terry Eastland, whose consumer-oriented Forbes MediaCritic folded last year (its circulation never made it higher than 10,000), notes that it's a lot easier for a publication to take on, say, one or two hot media stories than it is to fill up an entire issue with nothing but media.

Brill certainly seems to be aware of that problem. Clearly, his heart is in the big journalism exposés: he suggests that Content will take on such topics as how the Boston Globe has changed under the ownership of the New York Times Company, errors by TV magazine shows like 60 Minutes, and the speaking fees commanded by rich and famous journalists such as Cokie Roberts of ABC and NPR. But to broaden Content's scope, Brill says he'll look at advertising, Web sites, and other types of nonjournalistic media.

The timing is auspicious. Right now the media are going through one of their periodic hand-wringing exercises, blaming their excesses for the death of Princess Diana. It's the perfect 1990s media moment: even though it's almost certain that the car crash that took Diana's life was caused by a drunken, drug-addled limo driver rather than out-of-control paparazzi, the media can't let go of the myth they created. Their penchant for elevating metaphor over fact has now turned on them.

Brill, though, refuses to buy into the conventional wisdom. Ask him why the public hates the media and he replies: "I don't know if the public does. I think the public is frustrated by the blur between what is real and unreal. As much as the public hates the media" -- hmm, guess it does after all -- "they're consuming more than ever." Even with newspaper circulation dropping and network news audiences shrinking? "There's a lot more media out there," he replies. "The pie is out there, but there are a lot more pieces."

For years, Brill has been telling anyone within earshot that journalists are the only professionals who are less accountable than lawyers. To the extent that he can change that, his pugnacious voice will be welcome.


The Boston Herald must be feeling both pride and embarrassment.

Pride because on the cover of The Best of Photojournalism: 1996 (Running Press) is a photo by one of their own, veteran staffer Brian Walski. The shot, the first-place winner in the political-photo category, is a beauty. A CLINTON-GORE sign is reflected in the window of a New Hampshire diner. Seen through the reflection is Bob Dole, grinning puckishly and offering a heartfelt thumbs-down.

Embarrassment because the Herald never ran it.

Walski is surprisingly matter-of-fact about what happened. It seems that he took the photo early on the day of the primary; by the time the next day's paper was ready to close, the editors had breaking-news photos of Dole conceding to Pat Buchanan. Besides, Walski says, the photo didn't look nearly as striking transmitted by computer as it does on high-quality stock.

"I never really thought much about it, but now it's won every contest I've entered," says Walski. "So much is produced in the course of a day, and a lot of it just slips through."

The book itself, which presents the results of the annual "Pictures of the Year" contest sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association and the Missouri School of Journalism, is worth seeking out for anyone who loves photojournalism, a too-often-overlooked craft. This year's volume is the 22nd annual edition.

According to editor Bill Kuykendall, an associate professor at Missouri, the judges have beefed up the domestic categories in recent years, partly in response to complaints from photographers that the top prizes were invariably awarded for foreign coverage. The results include some truly striking homegrown essays. Perhaps the most moving is a portfolio by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Brian Peterson on a family devastated by AIDS.

For more information, see the "Pictures of the Year" Web site at http://www.missouri.edu/~photowww/poy/index.html.


What is Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal looking for? Justice -- or the silencing of a particularly irritating White House critic?

Blumenthal, a former journalist who has worked for the New Yorker and the Boston Phoenix, was grossly wronged by cyberspace gossip columnist Matt Drudge ("Don't Quote Me," News, August 15). The Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com) alleged that "top GOP operatives" planned to out Blumenthal as a wife-beater, with an "influential Republican" saying that "there are court records of Blumenthal's violence against his wife." It was completely false, and a lawyer could argue that Drudge had acted with reckless disregard for the truth -- the standard required by the libel laws in regard to a public figure such as Blumenthal.

But Drudge retracted the item and apologized within hours, which is something the law looks upon favorably. Blumenthal certainly has a right to allege that he was harmed. The question is, How much? It seems like a considerable stretch to put a $30 million price tag on it, but that's exactly what Blumenthal has done in his libel suit against Drudge, who scratches out a living from voluntary contributions and content-provider fees from America Online.

"The fact that Mr. Blumenthal's 137-page complaint seeks to recover $30 million from me has no relation to anything that I have done -- unless the White House views me as a reporter who should not be in business," Drudge said in a recent statement.

The 30-year-old Drudge has become a minor celebrity by using the Web to pass on juicy rumors about show business and politics. He has boasted that he's right 80 percent of the time, and that in any case he's not a real journalist. Presumably he's learned that a journalist is anyone who practices journalism, and that 80 percent isn't good enough.

Blumenthal's suit illustrates a major flaw in the libel laws. Currently there's no way to punish libel except by extracting money from the offender. There needs to be some lesser sanction. I'm not a big fan of news councils, but in this case an evaluation by a diverse, impartial board would be preferable to an adversarial court proceeding that would likely result in the Drudge Report's passing into history.


Newton mayor Tom Concannon received an unexpected boost in the Boston Herald September 17.

The day before, he'd had his clock cleaned in the mayoral preliminary election, losing to State Representative David Cohen by a margin of 6718 to 3602. With the third candidate receiving just 224 votes, that would certainly appear to give Cohen a lock on victory in the November 4 final.

The Herald, though, reported that the two "will campaign for the corner office with Concannon being the heavy favorite."

Will someone please buy the city desk a calculator?


Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www1.shore.net/~dkennedy/


Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com


Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here


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