Hoist by His Own Quotes

By Janice Castro

David Stockman learns about reporters--the hard way

President Reagan was making his way out of the White House press room after concluding his fifth news conference last Tuesday when CBS White House Correspondent Lesley Stahl held up a copy of the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly (circ. 335,800). David Stockman, Director of the President's Office of Management and Budget, was on the cover. Had the President, asked Stahl, seen Stockman's critique of his economic program in the magazine? The President, taken aback, replied that he would ask Stockman what he had said. He did. And the furor that followed (yeeNATION)provided a closeup look at the symbiotic relationship between those unnamed government officials quoted every day on the front pages of newspapers and the reporters who cover them.

Ironically titled "The Education of David Stockman," the 24-page Atlantic article by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor William Greider, 45, was a painstaking, often sympathetic portrait of a tenacious ideologue disillusioned by the hard realities of politics, both inside the Oval Office and on Capitol Hill. Stockman's candidly pessimistic observations were made during 18 interviews between December 1980 and August 1981. Stockman's first reaction to the firestorm of criticism that greeted the Greider story was a flat denial--not of the views he is quoted as expressing, but of Greider's right to quote him. Said he: "Do people think I'm a dope? Does anybody think I'm stupid enough to say things like that with my name attached to it?" Greider was incredulous: "Nowhere in our conversations did he ever say a word about 'This is all off the record,' or 'You're not going to quote me, right?' " The journalist noted that the interviews had been taped and that Stockman had posed for an Atlantic photographer last month. Stockman soon softened his objections to the piece, explaining that there had been a "misunderstanding" but "not an act of bad faith" on either side.

Greider, a respected 13-year veteran of the Post and a friend of Stockman's for about four years, said he had won Stockman's cooperation by agreeing in advance that the interviews would not be published in the newspaper. Instead, a long magazine story would be produced several months later. Post Managing Editor Howard Simons, who clears all freelance work by his staff, approved the project. Says Greider: "Nobody will talk with such consistency and intimacy for a daily newspaper."

These ground rules are not uncommon in Washington. Reporters are always eager to find out what the Government is really up to. Public officials are often just as eager to feed the press their side of things, either to promote a pet project or ensure their place in history. Indeed, Stockman had granted similar briefings to several other journalists. One danger in these arrangements is that reporters might repay such helpful sources with flattering coverage. Another is that journalists might find themselves reporting public statements that are at odds with what they have been told in private.

In the Post's case, both Greider and Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee say that the background sessions with Stockman helped guide the newspaper's coverage of Reagan's economic program. Says Greider: "If you went back you would see a lot of Post stories reflecting my conversations with Stockman." To bolster this claim, an article in last Friday's Post by Robert G. Kaiser listed four stories that had included information supplied by Stockman. In two of them, it was attributed to him; hi the others, it was attributed to a White House official. Bradlee said the Post was not embarrassed that one of its staffers made headlines with a story in another publication. "You're confusing form with substance," he said. "The substance has been in the Washington Post."

But many editors feel that the Post squandered a dramatic scoop and possibly misled its readers by not revealing that the architect of the Reagan economic plan did not believe in his own program. Says Chicago Sun-Times Publisher James Hoge:

"This advance promise of anonymity for such a long period of time, at such a critical tune, really ratchets the issue of unnamed sources up a couple of notches.

Once they saw what Stockman was telling Greider, why didn't they assign some economics people to do that story?" Adds Los Angeles Times Editor William Thomas: "Greider was walking a pretty thin line. If he were working for me, I would want those quotes, those contexts and Stockman's identity in my newspaper."

Up in Boston, the capital flap took Atlantic Editor William Whitworth, 44, by surprise. He did not see the Stockman story as a political blockbuster, rather more as a "good piece of reporting that explains something about how this budget business works that I have not seen explained in quite the same way."

The magazine's owner, Real Estate Magnate Mortimer Zuckerman, 44, who bought the financially troubled 124-year-old literary journal almost two years ago, immediately rushed 500 more copies to Senators, Congressmen and the Washington press, and raised newsstand distribution from 70,000 to 100,000 copies.

The Stockman article is the latest in a series of major articles that Whitworth has secured since coming aboard six months ago. Excerpts from Robert Caro's book on Lyndon Johnson prompted a flurry of news stories. Zuckerman expects a similar reaction to two selections from Garry Wills' forthcoming book, The Kennedy Imprisonment, an analysis of John Kennedy's presidency, to run in the January and February issues. Later in the year, the Atlantic will publish parts of Reporter Seymour Hersh's book on Henry Kissinger. The magazine's editors insist that their primary focus remains in-depth nonfiction and literate fiction. Says Zuckerman: "We really are not pursuing breaking news--but we don't mind making it."

--By JaniceCastro.ReportedbyMaureenDowd/ Washington and Barry Hillenbrand/Boston

With reporting by Maureen Dowd, Barry Hillenbrand

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.