The trouble started when Clinton gave a rare 20-minute sit-down interview about global warming to a “reporter” dispatched by the network. The guy with the notebook: Leonardo DiCaprio. ABC’s Washington bureau and media critics howled about more blurring of the line between entertainment and news. ABC News president David Westin sent out an e-mail response, which promptly leaked, in which he insisted that DiCaprio was not sent to do an interview, but only a “walk-through… All roles of journalists must be played by journalists (duh!),” said the e-mail. (The “duh” is Westin’s.)
When both White House officials and DiCaprio’s people contradicted him, it looked as though Westin was dodging and weaving. Joked Clinton: “It isn’t the mistake that kills you–it’s the cover-up.” Leogate started with plans for a one-hour news special on the environment tied to Earth Day. Network news programs have a difficult time attracting younger viewers. DiCaprio cares about the environment and had been shopping around the idea of a prime-time special for a year and a half. Some network insiders maintain the plan for the show called for short “MTV-like” news segments by ABC reporter Chris Cuomo, followed by a quick tour of the White House with DiCaprio and Clinton. A “Steadicam” was flown in from New York to film the tour, but an elaborate three-camera setup was also put in place so the president and the actor could sit down for a chat. ABC producers prepared DiCaprio for the talk, helping him with research and questions. On the morning of the filming, White House staffers canceled the tour, and the two men taped just the interview. Westin says his e-mail was erroneous because he didn’t know at the time how thoroughly ABC had prepped DiCaprio. “If I had known that, I would have written a different e-mail,” Westin told NEWSWEEK.
Westin also caught flak recently when critics thought Diane Sawyer’s conversation with Elián González was exploitative. ABC maintained it was a “visit,” not an interview, and that the move had been vetted by several child therapists who said Elián would not be hurt by it. It was Westin, however, who killed producers’ plans to hype the interview with frequent promos.
Network news divisions will keep trying to win new viewers, and complaints about lower standards may be inevitable. “The journalistic police,” former MTV newscaster Tabitha Soren called them last week in The New York Times. Her message: Chill. Viewers are smart enough to distinguish between DiCaprio and Edward R. Murrow.
