One of the really great things about living in the area of Your Nation's Capital is that you get to meet and chat with interesting people.
Yesterday for example, there was a small luncheon sponsored by BMW which featured former CBS foreign correspondent Marvin Kalb discussing his book, "One Scandalous Story" which is an indictment about the way the Washington press corps pounced on the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. "The Press and the Dress" would have been, in my opinion, a better title.
Nevertheless, the Mullings Rule for Non-Fiction remains in effect: Either I have to be mentioned or there have to be pictures. This book meets neither requirement.
Here's a secret to all of you who are working on your non-fiction Washington-based book: Include an index. That way, the friends of every person mentioned will buy the book; as will the enemies of every person mentioned. If you don't include an index you know what you get? You get very well-paid lobbyists thumbing through - but not buying - your book in front of the "New Non-Fiction" rack at Borders.
Mr. Kalb (who now is attached to Harvard University) maintains that it was the lack of professional standards among the press corps which led to the Clinton impeachment; especially the early piling on.
The professional standards which were lacking were a dependence on sole-sourced stories; a dependence on anonymously-sourced stories; and a reporting overload which included (on Friday, January 22, 1998 the day after the Lewinsky story broke:
-- The Washington Post: 25 stories; 22,799 words;
-- The Los Angeles Times: 20 stories; 16,032 words;
-- The New York Times: 12 stories, 8,546 words;
-- The Wall Street Journal: 1 story, 122 words in the "Washington Wire" column.
I mention the WSJ's Washington Wire because while the frenzy was still building, I was asked by a Journal reporter what I thought about Clinton using Presidential golfing buddy Vernon Jordan and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson as a two-man placement service to find Ms. Lewinsky a job - preferably NOT in Washington.
My answer, as reported in that column, was: "If trying to get a former lover out of town becomes a disqualification for holding public office, our parking problems are over."
Still true.
Mr. Kalb is an accomplished journalist. He is an accomplished author (having written or co-written 10 previous books). He is charming. I think he may be just a little jealous of the star status which is accorded many TV personalities today. He specifically pointed to Ashleigh Banfield as someone who had "no previous journalistic experience" but because she was in downtown New York on September 11 has become MSNBC's go-to gal.
He was wrong about Ms. Banfield. She came to MSNBC from the Fox affiliate in Dallas where she won an Emmy for reporting. Prior to that she had worked as a producer and reporter at several television stations in Canada.
In the introduction to the book, Mr. Kalb recounts an anecdote about seeing two of President John F. Kennedy's Secret Service agents hustling a girl up a private elevator in a New York City hotel. In the ensuing maneuvering, Kalb - CBS' Diplomatic Correspondent - was knocked to the floor (for which one of the agents later apologized).
"Never," he writes, "for one moment did I even consider pursuing and reporting what I had seen."
Can you imagine a Secret Service Agent playing "hide the honey" knocking NBC's Diplomatic Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, to the floor in similar circumstances?
Or maybe this is the better question: Was Marvin Kalb qualified to decide whether that was a story or not? Was the world a better place when reporters decided what we needed to know?
Short of national security issues, I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether I want to know - at one end of the scale - about what the Fed is doing about the discount rate; or - at the other end - what a grand jury is doing about Gary Condit; or neither.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, a photo and link to Kalb's book, a picture of Ashleigh, and a pretty good Catchy Caption.
If you are working at a lobbying firm, a government affairs office, a coalition, or a PAC you should take a
look at this page to see how advertising in Mullings might serve your organization very well:
� 
