Getting the Word Out Amid the Hotbed of News
Date: 26 December 1993
By Diane Ketcham
Diane Ketcham
IT had been one difficult day for Jennifer McLogan, the new Long Island correspondent for WCBS-TV News. "It was Pearl Harbor day," Ms. McLogan recalled. "So we went up in antique planes with Long Islanders who fly over the Statue of Liberty and drop roses. We were almost to the statue when the pilot says, 'I have some bad news for you.'
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Ruling That Limits Post-Trial News Interviews of Jurors Stirs Legal Fight
Date: 26 December 1993
By Charles Strum
Charles Strum
At the close of most high-profile trials, a judge can be expected to turn to the jurors and do two things: thank them for their service and warn them about the tenacious reporters who will immediately seek them out for post-mortems. Although there are no official rules or guidelines, judges in Federal and state courts customarily tell juries that they are under no obligation to reveal details about their deliberations, though they are not expressly prohibited from doing so.
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THE YEAR IN THE ARTS: Television/1993; Women Gained Fast, But PBS Held Its Lead, And the Old-Timers Won in a Walk
Date: 26 December 1993
By Walter Goodman
Walter Goodman
Honeymoons -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, Janet Reno and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were treated with gallant deference by much of television news; it was sort of reverse sexism. Let's hope that as such estimable women become more familiar presences on the screen, they will invite the journalistic skepticism other public figures must endure. Worm Turns -- Ross Perot, whom television carried to prominence, took a prime-time beating from Vice President Al Gore in their debate over Nafta. The surprise was not that Mr. Perot showed his nasty streak but that Mr. Gore seemed almost animated.
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Topics of The Times; Reporter First Class
Date: 26 December 1993
An old actor's adage holds that tragedy is easy, but comedy is hard. In journalism, by the same token, war reporting is simpler, but covering labor disputes is hard. The labor reporter confronts an eruption of passion, a fog of conflicting claims over arcane details, self-serving leaks from closed-door negotiations and real or perceived pressure from potent antagonists. To write fairly and clearly about a bitter strike requires persistence and tact, analytical skill and a safecracker's nerves. A. H. Raskin displayed those qualities during his many years as labor reporter for The New York Times. Though invariably writing against deadlines, Mr. Raskin, who died Wednesday at 82, rarely sinned against fact or fairness. It was a feat that became his trademark, beginning with his coverage of the Great Depression in the 1930's and continuing until his final years as assistant editor of this page in the 1970's.
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Singapore Secrets Act
Date: 25 December 1993
To the Editor: "Trial in Singapore Tests Press Curbs" (news article, Dec. 5) criticizes Singapore's Official Secrets Act for being so broadly worded that it bars the release of any information that the Government deems confidential. This law was enacted in British-governed Singapore based on the laws of Britain. The Singapore Government will not allow anyone to use the excuse of "Western-style freedom of speech or information" or "investigative reporting" to divulge classified information. This attitude may strike Americans as quaint.
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Time for U.S. to Relent on Haiti and El Salvador
Date: 26 December 1993
To the Editor: "My worst fears are realized," William Walker cabled from the United States Embassy in El Salvador in 1990. Thanks to documents released on United States activities in El Salvador we know that the Ambassador reported to Washington that United States military advisers had for some time been training the Salvadoran civilian financiers of the death squads -- in his words, "gun-toting Soldier of Fortune-magazine-subscribing, rich young extremists" -- at United States expense. As you report (front page, Dec. 14), Mr. Walker stopped the training, over our military's objections. After the sordid disclosures of a dozen years of United States policy in El Salvador, his indignant tone rings slightly off-key. Indeed, embarrassed Pentagon officials wondered aloud if Mr. Walker had not read their memos informing him that United States advisers were providing weapons and training to those they agreed were "pretty much" as the Ambassador described them. Who, let alone the United States Ambassador, could be surprised that our tax dollars supported private war games with Salvadorans known to bankroll death squad activities? Or amazed that, as you report, the United States military defended its wealthy students because they merely paid others to kill, and resisted Mr. Walker's attempt to halt the training, so as not to insult the military sponsor of the trainees, himself among the worst human rights offenders? Outrageous? Certainly. Astonishing? Not really. The Reagan Administration conceived of, financed and trained the Salvadoran army's "elite" Atlacatl Battalion, which made El Mozote a household name in human rights circles by massacring an entire town of 700 civilians in 1981. The Bush Administration was still training the Atlacatl on Nov. 13, 1989, three days before its commandos marched into the Jesuit university residence to murder six priests and two women. In the Jesuit case, and other instances when embarrassed by Salvadoran clients, United States officials, including Mr. Walker, offered denials, followed by limited admissions in the face of mounting proof and, ultimately, questionable accounts of what they knew and when they knew it. Successive administrations provide the American public with new examples of official credulity tinged with cynicism. Most recently, Clinton Administration officials intoned their respect for the professionalism of Haiti's military leaders, despite rampant officially sponsored terror, only to express shock and outrage when military henchmen scared off United States ships carrying military trainers and then shot the Justice Minister, Guy Malary, to death on the streets of Port-au-Prince. As a Nov. 14 front-page article disclosed, United States officials have reasons to know better. Senior members of a military intelligence and counternarcotics unit, formed and paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, ran drugs, engaged in political terror and threatened to kill the local Drug Enforcement Agency chief. For many Haitians, including the martyred Justice Minister and likely the exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the damage is irreversible. New death squad killings in El Salvador offer the United States an opportunity to restore some squandered credibility on human rights by pushing for investigations and prosecutions, regardless of where the evidence leads. In Haiti, United States diplomats must insure that the military's aggression is not rewarded, as some fear, with a blanket amnesty, an infusion of foreign funds and a pliant civilian government in exchange for a face-saving exit for United States policy. As Haiti and El Salvador slide into news media eclipse, only public attention will police our leaders. In a sense, those United States trainers of death squad patrons have done their country a service. They have reminded all of us beyond any lingering doubt that our Government cannot be trusted to police itself. ROBERT O. WEINER Coordinator, Americas Program Lawyers Committee for Human Rights New York, Dec. 15, 1993
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NEWS SUMMARY
Date: 26 December 1993
International 3-19 REPORT CITES NORTH KOREA BOMB A classified C.I.A. report says that North Korea has made at least one nuclear bomb. If the report is confirmed, many American officials fear, the news could cause an arms race in the area. 1
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NEWS SUMMARY
Date: 25 December 1993
International 2-5 BLOODSHED IN THE HOLY LAND The Israeli commander of a special military unit that hunted fugitive Palestinians was gunned down in Christmas Eve violence in the Gaza Strip. 1 YELTSIN PROPOSAL QUASHED The Commonwealth of Independent States rejected a proposal to grant special status to Russians living in member countries. 1 Children were taken hostage in Russia. A4
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The Year Bill Clinton Won the Pennant
Date: 26 December 1993
By Ronnie Dugger
Ronnie Dugger
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
How Television and the Presidential Candidates Changed American Politics, 1992.
By Tom Rosenstiel.
Illustrated. 368 pp. New York:
Hyperion. $24.95.
MAD AS HELL
Revolt at the Ballot Box, 1992.
By Jack W. Germond
and Jules Witcover.
534 pp. New York:
Warner Books. $24.95.
AIR WARS
Television Advertising in Election Campaigns,
1952-1992.
By Darrell M. West.
224 pp. Washington:
Congressional Quarterly.
ON THE LINE
The New Road to the White House.
By Larry King with Mark Stencel.
Illustrated. 200 pp. New York:
Harcourt Brace & Company.
OUT OF ORDER
By Thomas E. Patterson
301 pp. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. $23.
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SUNDAY, December 26, 1993; Bang! Who's Dead?
Date: 26 December 1993
No doubt Santa was besieged by requests this year for goodies from Smith & Wesson, Ruger and Colt. Given recent news of shootings on the Long Island Rail Road and in Yonkers, and abductions and murders in St. Louis and California, it's easy to imagine a fearful nation tearing through wrappings in hope of finding guns and ammo. Anyone who got a gun, or has one already, might consider watching "Unforgiven" over the holidays instead of "Miracle on 34th Street" or "It's a Wonderful Life." One of the themes of "Unforgiven," a 1992 Clint Eastwood western available on tape, is how hard it is to shoot someone. Depending on the circumstances, it may require character, determination, insanity or rage. But it always requires a clarity of intent that decency can only interfere with. Of all the shooters in the movie, Eastwood's character, a man named William Munny, is the most convincing and effective killer. Nearly everyone else is troubled by empathy, uncertainty or hesitation.
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