The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Janet Cooke Falsifying a Story and the Causes and Consequences

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. It was a stunner of a story that began this way: "Jimmy is eight years old and a third-generation heroin addict, a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes, and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms." It appeared on the front page of the Washington Post last September, and caused an uproar here in Washington after local police questioned its validity. It has caused an even bigger one now because it was revealed yesterday that there was, in fact, no Jimmy. He and the story were a fabrication made up by a 26-year- old Post reporter named Janet Cooke.

On Monday it was announced that Ms. Cooke had won the Pulitzer Prize for her "Jimmy" story. That announcement led to a series of events that unraveled her deception, caused the Pulitzer committee to withdraw the prize and award it to someone else, caused Ms. Cooke to resign in disgrace, and caused the Post to formally apologize today to its readers. It has also forced many in journalism to report and comment on villainy in their own house for a change, and to ponder what Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee said were the resulting grievous wounds to press integrity. Tonight, the causes and possible consequences of those wounds. Robert MacNeil is off. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, the unraveling started on Tuesday. Ironically, when erroneous facts in Ms. Cooke`s autobiographical submission to the Pulitzer committee were discovered. First, Vassar College informed the Post that Ms. Cooke had not graduated either magna cum laude or at all from there. Then the Associated Press called the Post with the news that Ms. Cooke had not received a Masters Degree from the University of Toledo, either. Within hours, Post editors had gotten Ms. Cooke to admit the falsehoods in her educational credentials, but for a while Ms. Cooke insisted that the story was accurate. And as she had done from the start, she continued to insist on protecting her sources.

In fact, she had even said once that one source had threatened to kill her if she led authorities to Jimmy. Finally, after more questioning, examination of her notes and tapes, and even a trip through Jimmy`s neighborhood, Ms. Cooke admitted in the early hours of the following morning that Jimmy himself did not exist. Now, for some insight into the process by which Ms. Cooke`s piece was selected, we go to one of the jurors responsible for nominations to the Pulitzer board. He is Edward Shanahan who served as a juror in the feature category. Mr. Shanahan is editor of the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts. Mr. Shanahan, as a juror in the category in which this piece won, what`s your reaction to what has happened?

EDWARD SHANAHAN: Well, at the outset I was stunned to learn that her piece and her entry had been given the Pulitzer Prize. The fact was I didn`t, and so far as I know, no members of the jury that judged the category of feature writing ever read her piece.

HUNTER-GAULT: So how did that happen?

Mr. SHANAHAN: Well, I`m not sure that`s been satisfactorily explained at this point. We, the five members of the jury, spent three full, long, tiring days in March reading, reviewing, evaluating about 160 entries in the feature writing category. It was work that was done with professionalism, with dedication on our part, and in the end we came up and we had a consensus. And in a ranking of one, two, three, we had three recommendations which we sent along to the board. And she was not among those three recommendations. Apparently, according to press reports that I read now, at some point the board apparently thought that they had a better idea.

HUNTER-GAULT: That is the Pulitzer board, which is made up of Columbia officials and other editors and executives of newspapers.

Mr. SHANAHAN: Exactly. They felt that either our recommendations were wanting in one way or another, or that this entry which had been submitted in another category -- in general reporting or spot news reporting -- was a stronger candidate for feature writing, and so on their own -- and there`s a history for this, apparently -- on their own they awarded her work the Pulitzer, When I heard about this on Monday afternoon when the prizes were announced, I sort of shook my head, and I simply said to myself, "Oh, oh. They`re up to it again."

HUNTER-GAULT: If the feature jury had read this piece, do you think the outcome would have been different? I mean, if it had been there among your submissions for consideration?

Mr. SHANAHAN: I can`t say. And I haven`t talked to the other members of the jury. But one of them -- Bob Maynard. editor of the Oakland Tribune -- says that he had his own reasons to be suspicious about the story and about authenticity. And he says that he would have raised some red flags at the time as he did in some of the stories that we reviewed, and as others did as we discussed in some detail the material that was presented to us.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you know enough about this story since all this stuff broke that you could say what might have troubled you about it? I mean, for example, there was a lot of use of confidentiality, anonymous sources, and things like that. I mean, would any of those things have troubled you?

Mr. SHANAHAN: I don`t think so. I think we would all operate pretty much on the assumption that the newspapers had screened the stories pretty carefully, and that therefore we presume them to be authentic. The fact is, in the feature writing category the bizarre is almost the norm so that --

HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that?

Mr. SHANAHAN: Well, stories such as "Jimmy`s World" wouldn`t be unusual in that category of feature writing. There are very many bizarre stories that are submitted. That`s just in the nature in the kind of material that is presented for consideration in that category.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, briefly, is there anything in the Pulitzer awards process itself -- the jury process or the board selection process -- that screens for hoaxes and fabrications? I know you just said that you accept the recommendations of the newspapers -- that they have checked; but do you have any safeguards within the process?

Mr. SHANAHAN: Not at all. And we were troubled to some extent by the number of entries coming from the same newspaper -- that the newspapers themselves aren`t doing a very good job of screening entries. There were at least four and perhaps more entries -- authentic entries -- in the feature category from the Washington Post.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we`ll come back. Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Next, the perspective of another newspaperman, Les Payne, who was a member of the Newsday team which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for reporting on heroin use. He is now the paper`s national editor. First, Les, did you read the original story when it came out in September?

LES PAYNE: Yes, I did. I read it the day it ran, as a matter of fact.

LEHRER: What did you think of it? Did you smell anything about it at the time? How did it smell to you?

Mr. PAYNE: We all gain wisdom in retrospect, but I can certainly say that after reading the story, it had a scent of implausibility to me at the time.

LEHRER: Why?

Mr. PAYNE: Well, there were a number of things. I reread the story recently. But at the time, for instance, the celebration of heroin addiction -- the mother celebrating the son`s heroin addiction -- to me was very curious. The fact that it was more celebration than despair. I mean, I`ve covered the drug scene since 1972 on and off on various assignments, and I`ve never witnessed that sort of thing. Another thing about it which caught my eye was the fact that we had in Jimmy`s case a fourth grader who said that he was more interested in math because he wanted to grow up and use math to get by on the street. I mean, that just didn`t sound right to me, and there were other things in the story that really caught my eye.

LEHRER: Do you think that they were such that the Post editor should have caught them?

Mr. PAYNE: Well, given what we know now, without question I think they should have, and I`m pretty sure there were people at the Post who raised - - and I understand did in fact raise reservations about the story.

LEHRER: Do you now as an editor press reporters who are using confidential sources as Ms. Cooke did to prove to you that their stories are correct?

Mr. PAYNE: Without question. I mean, they`re -- for instance, Ms. Cooke was a young reporter on the staff. I mean, she was not a veteran; she hadn`t been on the staff for 20 years, and hadn`t gained the kind of credibility that comes with being an experienced reporter, and so without question, a young reporter should have been pressed to the hilt to find out the nature of those confidential sources. I think that although the reporter clearly is the eyes and the ears of the paper out on the street, it is the job of the editors to make sure that her account, or his account, is accurate.

LEHRER: Well, how far do you go on that, Les? I mean, for instance, let`s say an editor had some question. I mean, would it mean actually for somebody on the editor`s behalf doublecheck her sources, and doublecheck the authenticity of the story?

Mr. PAYNE: There are a number of built-in guidelines. I worked a story last summer, for instance, which had a similar ring to it. There was a heroin addict who shot heroin in his groin area that was reported by a reporter. I took the time -- two things: one is, the reporter should be the kind of reporter who could work that story -- - who could work sources in the drug community. Another check that you would look for is to make sure that the reporter has credibility. And failing that, I mean, you can always send somebody with that reporter to make sure that the story is accurate.

LEHRER: What is there in the system -- in the process -- Les, to keep reporters honest?

Mr. PAYNE: Well, hopefully, the reporter who comes into the craft is principled, and is out to really disclose the truth as opposed to making a reputation for herself or for himself. Aside from that, I think that a vigorous and intelligent editorial board certainly should be in operation. I also think that, for instance, familiarity -- reader familiarity -- with the community guards against those kinds of distortion. I think another thing is -- powerless-ness is one of the things that may lead a reporter to feel that he or she could get away with that kind of a story.

LEHRER: In what way?

Mr. PAYNE: In the sense that, for instance, if you had an interview with the President of the United States who is taping you while you`re interviewing him, clearly you`re going to be very, very careful to make sure that every preposition is right. But when you`re on the street, and when you have a readership which is distant, which is remote, which is unfamiliar with a community, then the chances for that kind of distortion - - it`s more readily --

LEHRER: Finally, let me ask you this. Do you know of any other cases where stories have been fabricated, or parts of stories have been fabricated -- to your own personal knowledge?

Mr. PAYNE: I`ve heard second and third hand. I mean, within the craft there are accounts of stories. There was an account of a reporter up at Attica during the Attica uprising back in 1971 who said that he had witnessed guards who were being held by prisoners -- he had witnessed their throats being slit. That turned out not to have been true -- it was a fabrication. He had not witnessed that. There was a case in Detroit back during the disturbance there in which a reporter -- pressed, I`m sure, by his editor - - went out and got an interview with snipers on the roof that police said were there, and it turned out that that was a fabrication. So there are larger fabrications that we are aware of in the craft, and there are also smaller ones that we see day by day. Hopefully, many of them are caught.

LEHRER: Thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Now, for the views of a former member of the Pulitzer board. He is Norman Isaacs, also a former editor, who this year served as chairman of the Pulitzer jury on commentary. In his other incarnation, Mr. Isaacs is chairman of the National News Council, a press watchdog group. Norman, is there anything that the Pulitzer board could have done at that level to avoid what happened?

NORMAN ISAACS: Yes. Mr. Shanahan`s plight is that nobody bothered to call him. It`s not unusual for the board to shuffle things around. In the local -- this was a mis-entered piece of work. The local reporting story, the board felt, clearly belonged to the Longview [Washington] paper for its coverage of the Mount St. Helens. Obvious. They didn`t know what to do with the Washington Post story, and decided to put it in the feature category. At that point, there should have been some calls made to the chairman of the jury and perhaps to others to take some pulse readings about how they were going to feel.

HUNTER-GAULT: And you think they might have gotten the feedback, the kind of caution that -- that red flag that Ed Shanahan --

Mr. ISAACS: Yes, they might well have.

HUNTER-GAULT: As a former newspaper editor, what are your thoughts on how a piece like this -- a piece of fabrication -- slipped through the entire process, I mean, starting from going back before publication all the way up to the Prize?

Mr. ISAACS: Well, I`m a primitive, you know, Charlayne. You know from old about that. Reporters don`t put stories in the paper or on broadcast programs. Editors do. That`s what editors are for. There are some obvious flaws. As Les said, you look at hindsight, and that`s the only perfect science. But that business about being -- having her life threatened. The story itself also talked about the boy`s life perhaps being in danger. If that`s so, the editors promptly should have offered full protection, and should have started getting into that.

HUNTER-GAULT: You mean both to her and to the --

Mr. ISAACS: Both to her and for the sake of the boy. In other words, if her life was at stake -- if any reporter`s life is at stake, an editor`s going to move in very quickly, want to know all the facts, what it`s all about. And if the reporter at that time resisted, you would have a clear warning signal that, hey, something`s wrong.

HUNTER-GAULT: But she said that if she revealed anything that led authorities to any of the people involved, that --

Mr. ISAACS: I don`t buy that. I can`t imagine any situation in which I could be involved where I wouldn`t want to know the source. I`m the one sitting in the driver`s seat. I may be the one who has to go to jail. And I certainly wouldn`t want my newspaper under fresh ownership, which could very well happen. You see, trust and faith in a reporter is fine. I believe in it. But there has to be an equal trust and faith by the reporter in the editor. And if you can`t trust me, and I press you and tell you that I have a responsibility to know, and if you say, "I still can`t, it`s my confidence," just reach out, shake hands, and say, "You`re now my ex- reporter. I`ll help you get a job on some paper that doesn`t care much about this, and you can be confidence-happy for the rest of your life."

HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, Norman, is this an aberration, or do you see other examples of this that just don`t come into the public light?

Mr. ISAACS: Oh, I think -- no, this is an aberrant story, certainly. But we have a sort of national syndrome. It`s rather become fashionable for reporters to want stories without sources named. It sort of adds an aura to the story they think. And editors, I`m afraid, have swallowed this whole line, and there`s much too much confidentiality appearing, not enough drive for attribution. I`m offended personally, I`ve been this last year -- this last couple of years. I have reporters call me up at the News Council, ask for comments about things, and one of the first things they say to me is, "If you don`t want to be quoted by name, I`ll be glad to offer that," and, you know, this is something I hadn`t even thought of. You don`t have to ask for it anymore. And I`ve questioned people out in the general community I run into once in awhile when they`ve been in the stories. Several of them have verified that same thing. They`re offered protection even before they`ve even --

HUNTER-GAULT: Asked for it

Mr. ISAACS: That`s right.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We`ll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: A final word, now, from Hodding Carter, who comes at this from more than one perspective. He was a newspaperman, editor of his family`s newspaper in Greenville, Mississippi, then Assistant Secretary of State and principal press spokesman under Cyrus Vance, now the host of Inside Story, a public television program on the press which premieres next month. Hodding. has the use of confidential sources gotten out of hand?

HODDING CARTER: Oh, I think it did sometime in the last 15 years. It became a symbol of a really important story if it was so important that you had to have someone duck behind anonymity, then it had a standing which went beyond naming the source.

LEHRER: What`s happened in the last 15 years to cause that to happen?

Mr. CARTER: Now, what has happened, I`m not sure. I think among other things, though, there was a wave of folk coming off campuses and coming into the business who had a pretty strong sense of how you did the game. And I think some of the finest reporters in this business helped lead them to that conviction. It comes out of Watergate to some degree; that is, the notion that to have a really good story, you`re going to have to have a really hidden source.

LEHRER: Do you agree with Mr. Isaacs that an editor has a right to know a confidential source that a reporter is using in a story?

Mr. CARTER: I guess that I couldn`t agree more. Having been a publisher as well as editor, I can tell you that while the reporter`s name might have been on the line, that paper was really on the line. And certainly I would ask and demand, finally, to know.

LEHRER: Well, what would you say to a reporter who said, "Hey, Mr. Carter, why don`t you trust me? I mean, if I tell you then the word`s going to get out, it`s going to destroy all of everything I`ve built up over the years as a reporter," and all of that. What do you say to him?

Mr. CARTER: I`d say, "I trust you, and you`re going to have to trust me. And also trust me to defend you in that court one day. And one of the ways you can be sure I`m going to do it is for me to know that I`m standing behind a good story. Now, let`s trust each other."

LEHRER: What do you think the damage to the press generally is going to be as a result of this Cooke episode?

Mr. CARTER: Well, first, I don`t think that the vast majority of folk out there is sitting around right this minute talking about the fact that this thing happened. I --

LEHRER: I hope they are, as a matter of fact.

Mr. CARTER: Well, let`s go to a second thing. As far as the general -- but of those who are talking about it, what has got to be the situation is they are sitting there thinking, "I`ve been betrayed a little bit. I`ve been let down. I now have to start questioning other stories. I`ve got to start worrying about whether or not there are other fakeries being pulled off on me." And I think it hurts. It hurts them; it hurts the business. It hurts the whole process because, finally, integrity, trust, truth are the only binding agents in this connection between the public and the press. Now, I hope another effect out there arising from this is going to be a definite effort by editors and publishers around the country to tighten up the process. The American Society of Newspaper Editors ran a survey a couple of years ago -- over 200 newspapers replied -- asking about how they treated confidential sources. Three -- three newspapers said they had some kind of written -- written -- program for dealing with that question. The rest sort of played it on the cuff, ad hoc, as the situation arose. That`s an invitation to disaster.

LEHRER: You think that may change as a result--

Mr. CARTER: I would trust that at this point all over the country, folks are sitting down and saying, "It`s time for us to tighten up inside because what happens to the Washington Post or the truly great newspapers, with people who are thinking constantly that they`re under scrutiny, can certainly happen to us."

LEHRER: Thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Ed Shanahan, do you agree with Hodding Carter`s damage assessment here -- how much it hurt the press in general?

Mr. SHANAHAN: Oh, I think so. And beyond that, I think that this process that we call the Pulitzer prizes has been hurt as well, and I think that`s as serious a damage that`s been inflicted as on the press generally because the Pulitzer prizes were for the most honored work in the course of a year, and I don`t know that giving out a prize to this kind of a story under these circumstances is going to be something that can be repaired very soon.

HUNTER-GAULT: Les Payne, do you think that the resignation -- immediate resignation -- of Janet Cooke and the immediate rush to apologize to the public for this by the Post is going to be enough to end, or at least mitigate, the damage assessment to the Post?

Mr. PAYNE: Not to end. I`m sure the Post right now as we sit here is going by a tick-tock account of what really happened and how this thing -- this story -- was allowed to flow through all of its filters, and I`m sure it`s considering how they can reset those filters, and make sure it doesn`t happen again. And I`m sure other papers internally are examining their own structure to make sure that there is not a similar incident there. So I think that the incident itself had an -- after the fact had been caught -- will certainly cause some very serious rethinking and reworking of the structure.

HUNTER-GAULT: Norman, what about the whole reaction of the public? I mean, you know, in recent years, there have been a lot of attempts to curb the first amendment rights, and complaining about confidentiality. I mean, do you think that this is going to have an impact there to perhaps reignite those calls for curbs on reporters` freedom?

Mr. ISAACS: Sure. You know that George Gallup and Dan Yankelovitch have had studies within the past year which show a mounting percentage of citizens who want laws to force the communications media to be more accurate, and to be fair. This, obviously, is a blow at first amendment rights. But the feeling of distemper in the public runs pretty deep, and this is going to have that kind of effect. It fuels that fire. Now, the question, really, is not the immediate fire. Because we`ve got some time to go here. The question to me that`s important is, what are publishers and editors going to do about this very thing? Now, Hodding -- I agree with Hodding that there`s a lot of soul-searching going on right now. The question is, how deep is the soul-searching going to be? How strongly are publishers and editors going to react? There has to be better training inside newsrooms. Much better training. It`s been sloppy for years, and young people are getting no guidance. We know that from all kinds of evidences we receive. And I think that the gatekeeper process is greatly at fault. And this is the weakest link in the whole chain.

HUNTER-GAULT: The gatekeeper being the editor?

Mr. ISAACS: The gatekeeper being the editor. A whole series of editors. That`s the weak link.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We have to move on. Jim?

LEHRER: Hodding, is Les Payne right when he said a moment ago that it`s the less powerful in society who get fooled around with more when it comes to editors and reporters?

Mr. CARTER: I can`t draw that vast a conclusion because, one, I don`t think there`s a conspiracy out there anyway to fool around -- and I want to say that quickly now, that there is not some vast cottage industry in the press out there manufacturing stories, or when they discover there`s a manufactured story, trying to conceal it. I mean, the Washington Post stood right up, looked you in the eye, and said, "We have just made one monumental error. We apologize, and we`re going to print exactly how it happened." That`s not the mark of somebody who`s in the business of kidding around with the public. But if the point is that it`s a lot harder for folk of certain strata in the society to get redress of grievance if they are, in fact, victimized by a bad story, then certainly that just goes without saying. It is one of the bad ways things are, because the phone call from the friendly, local pol/ banker/lawyer is going to get a correction a lot faster than the phone call from the unknown guy off the street. That`s just the way it is.

LEHRER: Les Payne, let me ask you. Let`s say that as a result of this episode, that the use of confidential sources is curtailed extensively by all newspapers around the country. What would be the harm from that, if any?

Mr. PAYNE: I think it would be very severe. I think that as the old Zen Buddhist saying goes, that in pointing to the moon, we must not mistake the finger for the moon. I think that the whole existence and the utility of confidential sources is absolutely essential to the newspaper business. I think that in this case, we`re not talking about confidential sources; we are talking about phantom sources. And that`s a very critical difference, obviously. And so the system as we`ve been discussing here should certainly make sure that these phantom sources are not allowed to see the light of day within their newspapers. But it does not go to the first amendment problem, as far as I`m concerned, with the kind of severity that I think Mr. Isaacs here was suggesting. Nor do I think it goes to the real question of confidential sources. I think confidential sources are essential, and vital to the practice of the craft of journalism in this country.

LEHRER: But it was the use of -- I mean, it was the excuse of the confidential sources that kept Janet Cooke from being discovered up `til now.

Mr. PAYNE: I think there were other things that were at play there other than these phantom sources.

LEHRER: I see. You agree with that. Mr. Shanahan?

Mr. SHANAHAN: I agree. It seems to me also, one of the outcomes of this may be for us to look a little more carefully at this enthusiasm we have for writing stories to win prizes. I have the feeling that young reporters conceive of stories, go out on stories, and write stories with the idea that this is a prizewinner. And somehow that`s more important than the story itself or telling the story.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Hodding?

Mr. CARTER: Is -- well, there`s another problem here, too. There is a very strong sense -- and this was very true of that whole wave of reporters -- that there are some truths out there -- the truth about life on the street, truth about power, corruption, whatever it may be -- and to get the truth out, it`s not too bad if you mess around with the facts a little bit. Now, that needs to be beaten out by good editors -- going back to Norman`s point. Good editors have got to tell these reporters that won`t walk.

LEHRER: Hodding Carter, thank you very much. Gentlemen in New York, thank you very much, and good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim

LEHRER: For the record, we were unable to contact Janet Cooke to extend an invitation to participate in this program tonight. We were able to contact the Washington Post, but they declined to send a representative. We`ll see you tomorrow night. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.