Brian Williams  On Ethics and PR


RUMORS AND TRUTH

We don't print rumors. A rumor legally is the same thing as, I mean, you're just as liable for a rumor as you are otherwise. So a rumor is worthless to us. We don't print anything that, people talk about "number of sources" and that type of stuff, but that's a silly kind of a definition. Because it's the quality of the sources that make a difference. And you could have one source on something, and it could be very good, that's a more daring decision to publish and we'll do that on occasion. In most cases, you have more than that, but it's also the quality of the source. If you tell me something about Bill Clinton, you may be twelfth hand on something, but someone else may be an inside adviser, who has access to him and knows. I don't think it's the number of sources, but it's just a source, have a possibility of knowing, do they know it and how truthful do you think they are. And that evaluation is ongoing on every story. I mean, the kinds of stories that we do, we're always running the possibility of litigation. So we're very, very careful.

LAWSUITS

Well, when you say take the risk of being sued, we take the risk in the sense that, if what we have is right, we'll print it, if we think that's what the reader wants to know. We'll take that risk. If you're asking about will we take the risk to be sued, will we callously or carelessly print something, no. Will we do anything that's necessary that's legal to find something out, yes. Absolutely without question.

I think we're careful at the Enquirer as far as lawsuits go. A lot of what we write about are public figures. So invasion of privacy is a very narrow area there. I think we're, I think the rest of the press is catching up to where we've been, they want to do our kinds of stories, now they see the price that you pay and how fine a line you have to walk. But I think there's an Op-Ed piece in the Times, I think, a couple years ago, and it talked about the fact that the Enquirer is actually one of those operations that's always pushing that First Amendment. I think in a sense we do. I think we do a service to the rest of the press because we're out there and we're willing to, we have the resources to be able to, defend ourselves if we're attacked, so I think we do a lot to expand what can become.

Pending lawsuits, we don't get sued very often at all. Suits get announced, which is part of, there's a public relations dance that goes on. We print something, somebody doesn't like it, better do something, announces that they're gonna sue us for a hundred million dollars. They hold a press conference, pass out a press release, and that's the end of it. Nothing ever happens. We hold ourselves to a pretty strong standard here. The assumption is that the Enquirer, if we go to a jury trial, is going to be not as favorably received as, especially a celebrity who's a professional actor or actress who has a certain popularity. So we assume that if we got that far, we've lost. So our standard for ourselves is when we win a trial is we get a judge to throw it out. So it's a much higher standard of proof that we use and we look at that. So we spend very little time in terms of lawsuits. It's really surprising. If you look at the number of suits we have pending say compared to "60 Minutes" or The New York Times or Time Magazine, probably are much less. It's surprising.

THE CAROL BURNETT EXPERIENCE AND ADVICE

It wasn't millions of dollars; it was about, I think, sort of about $40,000. It got tremendous publicity and everything else but it was one of those things that everybody could sort of remember pieces of it, but when you get out and actually check the facts it's not quite that. And that was, that caused us to be probably more careful in terms of what we do. No, I don't think so. I think it just tightened some things up. We recognized that what happens when you get a celebrity in front of a jury, anything can happen. So you want to make sure that you're right, you want to make damn sure you're right and you want to make sure that you obey the law. If you do those two things you really don't have a lot to worry about.

It was very devastating to us from a public relations point of view. Oh, sure, because your recollection of it is we lost a lawsuit and we lost millions of dollars, but there's a strange compact that I think we have with our reader, is that they know that if it's not true, somebody will sue us. So if we're willing to print it then it must be true. Which is a good relationship to have with your reader.

ETHICAL ISSUES AND AN EXAMPLE

Yeah, I think it's always that discussion of what's ethical and what's not. And it's always interesting where the lines were drawn in that regard. I think a good case in point was when the Star, another tabloid, broke the Gennifer Flowers story. And everyone wanted to do that story but everyone had their ethics and this wasn't really the story that they wanted to do. So what they very cleverly did was they did a story about doing a story. I remember watching "Nightline," and then you start out, "Well, should you do the Gennifer Flowers story?" Well, in the course of that discussion, you get to do the story. And you bring out one professor who says, "No no no, you should not do that, and that is horrible," and you get someone else who says, "Well, it's freedom of speech." In the meantime you get to spend 20 minutes telling the Gennifer Flowers story. This is very clever. And I guess everybody got to sleep at night, but they did the same story. When NBC broke the, well, I'll give you a real good example, NBC gave the name in the Kennedy rape trial, they broadcast the name of the woman. We chose not to do that. It was a major debate in terms of what we were gonna do and not do. But we explored it from lots of different angles and we decided not to publish that name and did not publish that name. Then NBC published it. The New York Times ran probably the most searing attack I have ever seen on anybody. In fact, they ran an article that looked like it was a private investigator's file that someone had simply handed them, and the reporter has simply written it right out. Not one source name, if I remember correctly, every possible rumor that you could think of about this woman and her family and everything else was written. It was a hatchet job more than anything else. So I'm sure there are ethics and everyone has them, but I think most people are motivated by getting the story out. And they save the ethics discussions for round table discussions, talking to their alma maters about something.

I think the law is a good example. I think there's some things that we take for granted, in terms of, let's talk about a new reporter, I think that the accuracy that goes on. I think probably unlike most publications, there are more people involved in the story and in what a reporter does. The Washington Post's problems with their Pulitzer that they had to give back, with the reporter who concocted an entire story, probably couldn't happen here. Because that reporter was allowed to keep her sources to herself. And that doesn't happen. A reporter of the sources on the story will be reviewed by at least three editors in succession. And the lawyers. So there isn't a possibility for that. That story would have never gotten through.

SPILLING DA BEANS AND GETTING DA DOUGH

I think the usual example is paying for information. We'll do that and see no problem with it. And I for the life of me cannot see that as big an issue as it is. Everyone has a motivation. If you're the adviser to the president and you hand me a stack of papers, you have a motivation. If I'm paying you I know what your motivation is, I'm very clear as to what's going on. And I understand it. If you're handing it to me out of quotation marks, the goodness of your heart, then there's some ulterior motive there, and I've gotta know what that is. So I can handle your information and see where it's coming from. So I think there's, my own preference is that there's clarity with money. And I have never seen the issue at all.

HURTING PEOPLE WITH COVERAGE

I think the, when we do stories that hurt people, I mean, we do stories that people are hurt by. I think the most telling story that I've been involved with, is we did a story that created quite a stir where we did a story about Paul Michael Glaser and his wife, he was on "Starsky and Hutch," and their small children, their child had died of AIDS. And it was a tough call. It was a very tough call. This is personal information, the emotions were very high, there's a lot of discussion in the newsroom--why would we do a story on it. The feedback from that story, and once again it was very interesting. We were attacked for doing the story. Once again in the course of being attacked, The Los Angeles Times ran a front page story anticipating our story and attacked us for even investigating it. Their front page story attacked us and told the whole story. That's probably the toughest story that I've personally been involved with. And the end result of that was and Elizabeth Glaser has said this since, that an awful lot of people learned that AIDS didn't just hit Haitians and homosexuals, but hit ordinary Americans. Traditional heterosexual white middle-class families. And it could be anyplace and it didn't mean you did something wrong, necessarily. So was there a greater good, yes. Was it an important story to tell, I think so, we ran it. Did people get hurt, yes.

I killed one AIDS story that we had, a prominent actor's since died, I killed the story myself because we had the story straight, because it wasn't that important a story. It wasn't, in fact it was kind of a cold decision in a way, it was "It's not gonna make the front page, it's not gonna do anything, the guy's almost dead, there's no purpose to it, so we can't." Had it been someone of more interest, you know it's interesting that AIDS is kind of an interesting subject in terms of all this. USA Today went after Arthur Ashe. We didn't bother with that. It wasn't something that we really pursued very vigorously. We did the follow stories on it as it became an issue, but it was interesting to see a more traditional press doing what amounts to an Enquirer story.

Yeah, I think Gary Hart was a target asking to be hit. But I think that's the nature of when people have information, they come to the Enquirer because they know we'll print it. Which I think is important. And that picture said it all. That picture of Gary Hart and his lady friend. That's it, that says it right here. That's the Enquirer. And what's interesting is those are the stories that also sell fantastically well.

There's a rush, you know you have it, you got to talk to somebody about it, it's... there's an energy. That's why people do this is that kind of energy. There's a plus and minus to reporting and those are the rushes. And the hang-ups. There's a wonderful story that one of our senior reporters tell, at one time there was a great fascination with UFOs. And so they ran an item in the Enquirer, anyone that they can prove that they have a UFO, we'll pay $10,000 to. And calls came in to beat the band. And every lunatic in America that had access to a phone was bombarding us. And one woman called and this reporter took the call and she said, "I have a UFO. Right here in my living room." He's taking this, "Yes ma'am." Trying to be polite, you never know. But he was pretty sure. And he said, "Put him on the phone. I'll talk to him." She said, "Just a second." She came back, she goes, "He said he doesn't want to talk to the National Enquirer." So that's the downside is we start with a limited access. Someone doesn't want to talk to the Enquirer. They have a preconceived idea of the Enquirer. So our reporters usually start one step down of their access to something, so when they hit a picture like Hart, it's like Christmas.

There are people...I think Weekly World News is a hoot. And I think for what it is, it's a wonderful publication. And there are people in the newsroom who have problems with it. I don't, I think it is what it is and it's very clear about that. And it doesn't impact what we do at all. I hope no one that can see them on the newsstand can't tell the difference; we'll have to fire everyone that's involved in the front page. That's kind of a scary thought. Weekly World News is a black and white tabloid that does a lot of fun stories about babies with two heads and it usually has Clinton meeting a UFO, guardian angels, where you can see the face of God in a tree, what have you. And they just do lots of fun wacky wacky type stories. The Enquirer's a very serious publication that has an emphasis on celebrity journalism and also human interest stories that are all, as far as we know, 100 percent true. So there's no, I really don't think anybody comes to the newsstand and has a problem telling us apart.

Yeah. We own the racks. No great marketing genius, there's three of them and we put them there.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Our relationship with PR is, runs the whole gamut from totally adversarial, we made a request to someone, the PR for someone who just got a new talk show. And we call up and were not too politely told that if we were the last publication on earth they would never deal with us. But on the other hand, a very major, major star's PR was on the phone to us this morning trying to get a story in about a product this star was pushing. So it always depends on what they want and what they have. But there's a range. And some PR people are our sources, some PR people are our sources in a sense that they're pushing something or promoting something and they want to use it. What's surprising is what I see an awful lot with people is that they represent themselves rather than their client. And I think that's something that you see more and more and more of. Is that that person's ego gets involved instead of looking out at what's the best interest of their client.

Well, I'll give you a good example. We're a publication with 20 million readers. If we're invited to a story about, let's take a celebrity who's lost 20 pounds, Okay, a typical Enquirer story. We're gonna do that story anyway. It's not like the PR can say, "Well, you can't do that story." We're gonna do a story. Now we can do the story from sources, and from our own network of information, or we can do that story with the PR. And there's a range of cooperation, you can cooperate officially and unofficially and give us information, but if you're involved in a process, you certainly have an awful lot to do with shaping the story. When the PR says, "Well, I don't deal with this publication," well, they've hamstrung their client. Because they don't deal with someone. Well, the client's gonna be in. There is no choice. The advantage we have over TV is that you can do the Enquirer and not show up at the studio. You have to show up at a studio to get on TV. You can say, "I don't want to be on the Today show." But you can't say I don't want to be in the Enquirer. There's no choice. We gauge celebrities when they're first starting out and their PR's are calling, and they're going, "Can you get me in the gossip page, I got this going on, and this going on" and then they reach a certain plateau where it's like, "Well, I want my privacy, I need to be left alone, I give everything I can to my fans," and then as they slide down, it's like they call and go, "Is there anything we can do to get in the Enquirer, I'm getting married, could you guys cover it?" I got a call once from a former child star asking us to bail him out of jail. "You bail me out, I'll tell you the whole story." No. 'Cause it wasn't a good enough story.

REACTIONS OF THE STARS

I think it depends on the story. If we run a picture of, well, a good point is if you spent $50,000 on security to keep us out of your wedding, so that your public can't see what happened at your wedding, and we show up with a six-page spread of wedding pictures, you're gonna be a little annoyed. So we get that. We just did a whole series of stories with Burt Reynolds and the Loni Anderson divorce, which was a major story. Everyone covered it. We did exclusive interviews with Burt Reynolds, and with his, actually turned out to be his mistress, when we did those stories, they were very pleased with those stories, they're very happy with those stories. They liked those stories better than a lot of stories that they had in other media. So we get that kind of range. Then you get people who, they don't think about us one way or the other. We have a wonderful transcript in our research department of Roseanne Barr being called for the first time by our reporters. And one of the things we do a lot, like all reporters, we tape some of our conversations, and you have the acknowledgement of the tape at the beginning of the tape and then you have this: "The Enquirer! The Enquirer! It's the Enquirer!" It was like this epiphany where she'd made it. She was now a reader, and it's like "I read it! All the time, I read it! I read the Enquirer! It's the Enquirer, it's Alex Smith from the Enquirer!" It's like this moment that you've finally arrived in Hollywood. But they enjoy it. I've been told that Liz Taylor sends one of her errand boys down to the newsstand on Monday to get the tabloids and see exactly what they've written about her. It's where you want to be, in a sense, it's when you finally arrive, as a star, to be in the Enquirer.

HENRY'S TRASH

It's a story that predates me, but they decided to see what Henry, throws away. And they checked the law to see what the property rights were on that, and it was legal, his trash was out on the street, and they went and got Henry's trash and saw what was in the trash. And as I remember there were some things that Henry shouldn't have been throwing away. And that's clever. That goes beyond what a reporter would do, it's a clever idea, and then to execute the idea, that's... I think those are the things that basically make up an Enquirer reporter. Would I go through the trash today? If the story called for it, sure. Wear gloves, yeah, absolutely. I mean it's different kinds of things. We do that. Story calls for getting the trash, that's what we'll do, we'll get the trash.