From: Mary Ann McKenney (mmcke@MINDSPRING.COM)
Date: Wed May 03 2000 - 18:11:33 CDT
Here are 2 different articles from today's papers. No profession is
blameless. BTW Mr White has been placed on administrative leave.
Mary Ann
--------------------------------------
Monday was a bad day for the mainstream press. That's because Tim White, the
publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, testified in court that the Examiner
had offered San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown "favorable treatment on the
opinion
pages if Brown would help block opposition to a proposed merger of the Examiner
and the San Francisco Chronicle."
White quickly retracted his sworn testimony, claiming that he was "tired and
confused" during the questioning. That's probably because he realized that he'd
just admitted that his paper had no journalistic integrity whatsoever.
Yes, that's right...greasing the palm of the mayor of a major city isn't
outside
the realm of even the journalistic profession. The San Francisco Examiner
threw
out its code of ethics in order to hasten its merger with the Chronicle.
And these are the kinds of people we trust to give us unbiased news coverage?
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2000/5/3/15538
-------------------------------------------
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inpolitics-200053215411.htm
Tired and confused
The San Francisco Examiner's publisher testified that he offered Mayor
Willie Brown favorable treatment in editorials if Mr. Brown would support
Hearst
Corp.'s purchase of the San Francisco Chronicle. Hours later, the publisher
said he misspoke.
Timothy White testified Monday that he told Mr. Brown at a lunch
meeting in
August, several weeks after the $660 million purchase of the Chronicle
had been
announced, that the mayor could expect "more favorable treatment" in Examiner
editorials if he supported the sale, the Associated Press reports.
In an e-mail afterward to the head of Hearst's newspaper division and
read
in court, Mr. White said: "I asked Willie how I was going to justify to my
superiors in New York wanting to support him and cooperate with him when he was
seeming to go out of his way to make our lives difficult."
Mr. White's testimony in federal court was later recanted by both the
Hearst Corp. and Mr. White himself.
"It is not now ? nor has it ever been ? a policy of the San Francisco
Examiner to trade favorable editorial coverage for any gains, including
political influence," Hearst said in a statement.
"I was tired and confused by the question," Mr. White said in a statement
distributed by Hearst. "The implication of my answer that the pages of the
Examiner can be influenced, under any circumstances, is absurd."
Mr. White was the first witness in a trial on a lawsuit challenging
Hearst's purchase of the Chronicle.
