TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=89TT2338> <title> Sep. 11, 1989: Neo-Plumbers On The Attack </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989 Sep. 11, 1989 The Lonely War:Drugs </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> PRESS, Page 67 Neo-Plumbers on the Attack </hdr><body> Leaks plus bum scoops add up to official overkill By Laurence I. Barrett Disclosures of sensitive or embarrassing information make political leaders do strange things. Lyndon Johnson occasionally changed plans rather than validate leaks. Ronald Reagan attempted through a cumbersome procedure to check them, then backed off. Richard Nixon launched the notorious White House Plumbers, who ultimately led to Watergate and his downfall. Now the Bush Administration, with Attorney General Dick Thornburgh out front, is trying its own white-knuckle operation to close the spigot. As usual where leaks are concerned, the ostensible solution is more dangerous than the problem. Further, the Government's misguided pressure diverts attention from the press's recent habit of overplaying pseudosensational stories. In the most visible case, Thornburgh is combing his own department for the source of a CBS exclusive last May. The story reported that Congressman William Gray had just been visited by the FBI. True enough, but the implication that Gray was cooking on the investigative griddle was false. While Thornburgh's search is justified, his legal means are dubious. The department, in a drastic policy change, intends to prosecute the as yet unidentified leaker under a law covering theft of Government property. Moreover, Thornburgh says it would be proper to subpoena CBS's phone records. Those techniques, if widely employed, could choke the flow of many kinds of legitimate information. Chairman Don Edwards of the House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights was initially irate enough on Gray's behalf to demand action from Thornburgh. Edwards, along with many journalists, is aghast at the result. Using the theft law, he says, "would be almost like having an Official Secrets Act. We don't want that." If necessary, Edwards says, he will "stomp" on the Thornburgh approach with legislation. Meanwhile, dozens of FBI agents have been rummaging through the State Department and the CIA. Their quarry: whoever gave ABC News sufficient corroboration to broadcast the first story about the investigation of diplomat Felix Bloch. What the FBI has learned so far is that about 150 officials knew that Bloch was under suspicion. That large number virtually guaranteed early disclosure. The threats of prosecution and the FBI's requests that officials submit to lie-detector tests may cow would-be leakers for a time. But if history is any guide, today's neo-Plumbers will have no more durable success than their predecessors. The irony is that the press these days seems to be competing with officials for the role of heavy. The leak-fed scoops of Nixon's day rightly penetrated gross deceptions. Some of the recent gee-whiz tales have been unfair, exaggerated, wrong or all three. Reuven Frank, former president of NBC News, points out that the original source of the Gray story "was out to get him. The story leaked truly was vicious and incomplete." Yet CBS went with it. NBC in May broadcast a more lurid tale, implicating a sailor as a possible mass murderer in the explosion on the battleship Iowa; the Navy later exonerated the man. Last month NBC named an Air Force officer as a suspected spy. All three stories were widely picked up before being deflated. Nor was this trio of tinny exposes unique. Two years ago, after the initial disclosures about Soviet penetration of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, several news accounts trumpeted a worst-case assessment of the damage to security . That estimate, which proved excessive, was apparently peddled by hawks who wished to discredit State Department moderates. Some of the stories in the John Tower confirmation dispute and the Jim Wright investigation, based on partisan leaks, were underreported and overblown. Why all this shooting from the hip? Joan Konner, dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, says TV coverage "is heating up in a jazzy way that we haven't seen before," at least partly because network news divisions are suffering from financial pressure. Under that influence, she says, "the whole ethic of news and public affairs has changed." But television isn't the only offender. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, the country's best-known investigative reporter, says one cause for what he calls "a lot of dud stories" is a decline in reportorial skepticism. Bizarre events such as Gary Hart's downfall and the Iran-contra scandal, he thinks, have conditioned journalists to suspend disbelief. But there has been no suspension of competitive zeal. Both networks and print have moved dramatically toward a star system. The fastest way to stardom is to produce pizazz early and often; the worst sin is being second. This trend discourages solid investigative work with its prolonged drudgery. The national press corps played no part in the initial disclosures of the three biggest scandals since 1985: the Iran-contra debacle, the savings-and-loan implosion and the HUD quagmire. Each of these genuine horrors festered for years without serious press scrutiny. It is much easier to score quickly with a tip about a criminal investigation or a suspected espionage case than to delve into dense layers of financial arcana. In running heedlessly with one-shot leaks, regardless of the informants' motives or the stories' fairness, journalists take the easy way out. But it is the self-damaging way. Shallow scoops and empty exposes undermine the press's credibility. They also reduce public support for the news business when it attempts to defend itself from overkill by the leak police. </body></article> </text>