New Times at The Washington Times?
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)
Transcript
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD:
And, I'm Bob Garfield. This week, The Washington Post announced the appointment of an executive editor to succeed the retiring Leonard Downey. Marcus Brauchli, forced out recently from the managing editorship of The Wall Street Journal by new owner Rupert Murdoch, will be only the third executive editor at The Post since Ben Bradley rose to the position in 1968.
He will not, however, be the only new top editor in town. Over at The Washington Times, the conservative daily owned by a subsidiary of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, former Post and AP reporter John Solomon took over the executive editorship in January and has already made his presence felt. Last month, for instance, The Times broke a page one investigation revealing how Iraq veterans are being used as guinea pigs in drug experiments.
Among Solomon’s first acts as boss, one ridiculed in the right wing blogosphere, was to abolish The Times┤ use of such politically inflected descriptors as “homosexual” and “illegal alien” when journalistic convention has long since settled on “gay” and “illegal immigrant.”
JOHN SOLOMON:
The rationale that I had and my colleagues had was that some of these terms — homosexual “marriage,” with quotes around marriage, and illegal aliens — were at times distracting our readers. For instance, illegal alien both illegal and alien mean you don't belong.
I thought, and I believe the newsroom thought, that the term, illegal immigrant, actually conveyed more information, illegal is still stating that they didn't belong here but immigrant, getting at their intention, their motive, which is that they were trying to enjoy the benefits of immigration but without going through the legal process. And so we removed a redundancy, and I think we added some value.
BOB GARFIELD:
Nonetheless, to the world of ideologues, that was kind of a shot across the bow. Was there any grumbling within your organization?
JOHN SOLOMON:
None whatsoever; in fact, it was widely supported, top to bottom. And, you know, it’s always been a conservative center right newspaper on its editorial pages. That’s a great position for it. It’s been a valuable voice in that respect.
When I came in, I made a conscious decision that I would run the news section of the newspaper, create a bright line to make sure that the newspaper did fair and balanced and accurate and precise news every day and leave the job of opinionating and influence making in Washington to an expert in that field.
BOB GARFIELD:
The Washington Times has always been dwarfed by The Washington Post by a factor of six or seven, something like that. But it has also been the conservative counterpoint. It seems to me that under John Solomon the newspaper’s become sort of like a mini Wall Street Journal, hard right on the editorial side but within the news pages, right down the middle, which raises the question [LAUGHS] does the world need a second Wall Street Journal?
JOHN SOLOMON:
Wall Street covers Wall Street. We cover Washington, and we have a unique perch in the nation’s capital, the power center of the world. And so is there room for a Wall Street Journal like newspaper in Washington? The answer is overwhelmingly yes.
And there’s validation of this. Are we losing position? Absolutely not. Advertising’s up since I got here. More importantly, Web traffic has more than doubled. In fact, it’s closing in on tripling in less than four months. What does that tell you? People want relevant, compelling news regardless of what’s on the editorial pages.
BOB GARFIELD:
The consensus seems to be that the newspaper has been the linchpin of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s decades long effort to curry favor with conservative political figures, from Dwight Eisenhower to George Bush, and that in short, The Times is a loss leader for the church’s worldwide fundraising campaign.
In that environment, was it difficult for you to sign on for this job?
JOHN SOLOMON:
I don't think the religious affiliation of some of the owners or the executives in this company has any more bearing on what I do as a journalist every day than the religious affiliation Don Graham had when I was at The Washington Post or Lou Bacardi when I was at the Associated Press.
At the end of the day, if you are free to editorially pursue the values of journalism, you’re going to do as good a news job at The Washington Times as you would at The Post or The New York Times.
BOB GARFIELD:
However, in the past, that separation between [LAUGHS] church and state, as it’s called, has not always been sacrosanct. The founding editor of the paper resigned, complaining about editorial interference mind you, that was 20 years ago — but resigned nonetheless.
And in the intervening time there have been, you know, there’s been a lot of really positive publicity about the Reverend Moon’s appearances around the world and so forth that probably would not have made the cut if the newspaper did not have church affiliation. So how sure are you that they're going to keep their nose out of your business?
JOHN SOLOMON:
I can tell you I talked to Wes Pruden, my predecessor here. He couldn't think of an instance in his entire 10 year, 15 , 16 year tenure where anyone in ownership or even leadership above him tried to exert any influence over the editorial report. He had an independence clause in his contract making sure that he had editorial independence. I can assure you I feel, both contractually, morally and ethically, that I have editorial independence.
And I've seen things at other news organizations where I've either worked or been working with as a representative from the AP where there were instances where ownership would cool something down or do something. Here, I don't see any interference, and if there ever was, I'm sure you would hear about it from me first.
BOB GARFIELD:
All right, John. Thank you so much.
JOHN SOLOMON:
Thanks again.
BOB GARFIELD:
John Solomon is executive editor of The Washington Times. John Gorenfeld is the author of the recent book, Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom.
He says that Solomon misses the point. It’s not about Unification Church interference in the newspaper’s editorial decisions. Rather, he says, it’s the use of The Washington Times itself as a Trojan horse for the church’s dubious fundraising and other activities around the world — activities, he says, which cannot be cleansed by the most earnest editor, much less changes in the stylebook.
JOHN GORENFELD:
I think John Solomon, who isn't a movement conservative, has come in very idealistically. He's made some moves towards the mainstream, like no longer allowing “gay marriage” to be in scare quotes. But, look, this is great news for the Reverend Moon’s church, which was really suffering some PR problems in the last few years.
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, from day one, The Times has claimed to be independent of the church and of Moon himself. But you say that’s baloney. Why is it baloney?
JOHN GORENFELD:
What I decided in talking to editors of The Washington Times over the years, including some who had quit, saying that they had blood on their hands for empowering a man that they considered a cult leader, what I discovered was that among some people it was really considered a joke that there was this separation, considering that whether it was demanding that the editorial page favor the Unification Church’s stance on South Korean policy or, more recently, even running full fledged plugs for Reverend Moon initiatives at the United Nations, it’s really not much of a wall but more of a floor.
And in fact, on the third floor of The Washington Times building are church offices. And I think if The New York Times had the Church of Scientology on the top floor and if Tom Cruise was showing up, as Moon has, raving about how his newspaper has contributed to the church’s agenda, I think they would get a lot of flak for that.
BOB GARFIELD:
Let's right now get to that idea of how the paper does fit into Moon’s modus and his motives. [LAUGHS] The book begins with an absolutely astonishing moment on Capitol Hill in 2004. Can you tell me about the coronation?
JOHN GORENFELD:
Yeah, well the Washington Times Foundation arranged for Reverend Moon to be honored on Capitol Hill as the Messiah, as the Second Coming and the King of America. And a number of congressmen were present while he donned a magnificent crown and robes, and there were congressmen bowing to him, literally, and bringing his holy costume.
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, a lot of prominent politicos who do show up at Moon events and offer endorsements of various kinds seem to have been caught unawares. But others who are associated with Moon’s operations are actually on the payroll. They get large speaking fees and so forth, like President George H. W. Bush.
JOHN GORENFELD:
George H. W. Bush has long maintained a relationship with Reverend Moon, taking over a million dollars to tour Japan and Argentina with Sun Myung Moon or his wife, showing up in 1995, most notably, to help bail out the Unification Church from a lot of trouble it was in for separating desperate widows from their life savings, saying that their husbands were in hell and wouldn't escape unless they gave millions of yen to the Unification Church.
In Buenos Aires, George H. W. Bush called Reverend Moon “the man with the vision whose newspaper restores sanity to Washington, D.C.”
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, here’s a guy who says he’s talked to Stalin in hell, person to person [LAUGHS], and has been convicted of tax fraud — in fact, was in prison like five minutes after The Washington Times first appeared. He conducts mass arranged marriages in stadiums. He’s accused of brainwashing children and using them as almost slave labor.
He’s got followers who are appointees in the Bush Administration. He was, as you said [LAUGHS], crowned as the Savior in the Dirksen Office Building. Why aren't people just showing him the door? How does he continue to operate? Maybe he is God.
JOHN GORENFELD:
[LAUGHS] Well, he’s richer than God. Conservatives have been enormously grateful for what they see as the balance that’s been provided by Reverend Moon’s newspaper and so they've been willing to work with this guy, even as more and more shocking things have happened over the years.
What we're looking at is one of the most dazzling acts of either con artistry or public relations in modern day history. The enormous outlay for The Washington Times has made the Unification Church part of conservative history, whereas otherwise they might well have been booted from the country in the 1980s.
The issue isn't so much the idea of getting tentacles within the administration or having some sort of actual power. What it is, is this cynical relationship with conservatives that’s allowed Reverend Moon, in places beyond our borders, to continue bilking all sorts of people out of money and ruining a lot of people’s lives while finding a surprisingly comfortable home for himself right here in Washington, DC.
BOB GARFIELD:
Okay John, well, thank you so much.
JOHN GORENFELD:
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
BOB GARFIELD:
Reporter John Gorenfeld is author of Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom.
[MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD:
And, I'm Bob Garfield. This week, The Washington Post announced the appointment of an executive editor to succeed the retiring Leonard Downey. Marcus Brauchli, forced out recently from the managing editorship of The Wall Street Journal by new owner Rupert Murdoch, will be only the third executive editor at The Post since Ben Bradley rose to the position in 1968.
He will not, however, be the only new top editor in town. Over at The Washington Times, the conservative daily owned by a subsidiary of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, former Post and AP reporter John Solomon took over the executive editorship in January and has already made his presence felt. Last month, for instance, The Times broke a page one investigation revealing how Iraq veterans are being used as guinea pigs in drug experiments.
Among Solomon’s first acts as boss, one ridiculed in the right wing blogosphere, was to abolish The Times┤ use of such politically inflected descriptors as “homosexual” and “illegal alien” when journalistic convention has long since settled on “gay” and “illegal immigrant.”
JOHN SOLOMON:
The rationale that I had and my colleagues had was that some of these terms — homosexual “marriage,” with quotes around marriage, and illegal aliens — were at times distracting our readers. For instance, illegal alien both illegal and alien mean you don't belong.
I thought, and I believe the newsroom thought, that the term, illegal immigrant, actually conveyed more information, illegal is still stating that they didn't belong here but immigrant, getting at their intention, their motive, which is that they were trying to enjoy the benefits of immigration but without going through the legal process. And so we removed a redundancy, and I think we added some value.
BOB GARFIELD:
Nonetheless, to the world of ideologues, that was kind of a shot across the bow. Was there any grumbling within your organization?
JOHN SOLOMON:
None whatsoever; in fact, it was widely supported, top to bottom. And, you know, it’s always been a conservative center right newspaper on its editorial pages. That’s a great position for it. It’s been a valuable voice in that respect.
When I came in, I made a conscious decision that I would run the news section of the newspaper, create a bright line to make sure that the newspaper did fair and balanced and accurate and precise news every day and leave the job of opinionating and influence making in Washington to an expert in that field.
BOB GARFIELD:
The Washington Times has always been dwarfed by The Washington Post by a factor of six or seven, something like that. But it has also been the conservative counterpoint. It seems to me that under John Solomon the newspaper’s become sort of like a mini Wall Street Journal, hard right on the editorial side but within the news pages, right down the middle, which raises the question [LAUGHS] does the world need a second Wall Street Journal?
JOHN SOLOMON:
Wall Street covers Wall Street. We cover Washington, and we have a unique perch in the nation’s capital, the power center of the world. And so is there room for a Wall Street Journal like newspaper in Washington? The answer is overwhelmingly yes.
And there’s validation of this. Are we losing position? Absolutely not. Advertising’s up since I got here. More importantly, Web traffic has more than doubled. In fact, it’s closing in on tripling in less than four months. What does that tell you? People want relevant, compelling news regardless of what’s on the editorial pages.
BOB GARFIELD:
The consensus seems to be that the newspaper has been the linchpin of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s decades long effort to curry favor with conservative political figures, from Dwight Eisenhower to George Bush, and that in short, The Times is a loss leader for the church’s worldwide fundraising campaign.
In that environment, was it difficult for you to sign on for this job?
JOHN SOLOMON:
I don't think the religious affiliation of some of the owners or the executives in this company has any more bearing on what I do as a journalist every day than the religious affiliation Don Graham had when I was at The Washington Post or Lou Bacardi when I was at the Associated Press.
At the end of the day, if you are free to editorially pursue the values of journalism, you’re going to do as good a news job at The Washington Times as you would at The Post or The New York Times.
BOB GARFIELD:
However, in the past, that separation between [LAUGHS] church and state, as it’s called, has not always been sacrosanct. The founding editor of the paper resigned, complaining about editorial interference mind you, that was 20 years ago — but resigned nonetheless.
And in the intervening time there have been, you know, there’s been a lot of really positive publicity about the Reverend Moon’s appearances around the world and so forth that probably would not have made the cut if the newspaper did not have church affiliation. So how sure are you that they're going to keep their nose out of your business?
JOHN SOLOMON:
I can tell you I talked to Wes Pruden, my predecessor here. He couldn't think of an instance in his entire 10 year, 15 , 16 year tenure where anyone in ownership or even leadership above him tried to exert any influence over the editorial report. He had an independence clause in his contract making sure that he had editorial independence. I can assure you I feel, both contractually, morally and ethically, that I have editorial independence.
And I've seen things at other news organizations where I've either worked or been working with as a representative from the AP where there were instances where ownership would cool something down or do something. Here, I don't see any interference, and if there ever was, I'm sure you would hear about it from me first.
BOB GARFIELD:
All right, John. Thank you so much.
JOHN SOLOMON:
Thanks again.
BOB GARFIELD:
John Solomon is executive editor of The Washington Times. John Gorenfeld is the author of the recent book, Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom.
He says that Solomon misses the point. It’s not about Unification Church interference in the newspaper’s editorial decisions. Rather, he says, it’s the use of The Washington Times itself as a Trojan horse for the church’s dubious fundraising and other activities around the world — activities, he says, which cannot be cleansed by the most earnest editor, much less changes in the stylebook.
JOHN GORENFELD:
I think John Solomon, who isn't a movement conservative, has come in very idealistically. He's made some moves towards the mainstream, like no longer allowing “gay marriage” to be in scare quotes. But, look, this is great news for the Reverend Moon’s church, which was really suffering some PR problems in the last few years.
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, from day one, The Times has claimed to be independent of the church and of Moon himself. But you say that’s baloney. Why is it baloney?
JOHN GORENFELD:
What I decided in talking to editors of The Washington Times over the years, including some who had quit, saying that they had blood on their hands for empowering a man that they considered a cult leader, what I discovered was that among some people it was really considered a joke that there was this separation, considering that whether it was demanding that the editorial page favor the Unification Church’s stance on South Korean policy or, more recently, even running full fledged plugs for Reverend Moon initiatives at the United Nations, it’s really not much of a wall but more of a floor.
And in fact, on the third floor of The Washington Times building are church offices. And I think if The New York Times had the Church of Scientology on the top floor and if Tom Cruise was showing up, as Moon has, raving about how his newspaper has contributed to the church’s agenda, I think they would get a lot of flak for that.
BOB GARFIELD:
Let's right now get to that idea of how the paper does fit into Moon’s modus and his motives. [LAUGHS] The book begins with an absolutely astonishing moment on Capitol Hill in 2004. Can you tell me about the coronation?
JOHN GORENFELD:
Yeah, well the Washington Times Foundation arranged for Reverend Moon to be honored on Capitol Hill as the Messiah, as the Second Coming and the King of America. And a number of congressmen were present while he donned a magnificent crown and robes, and there were congressmen bowing to him, literally, and bringing his holy costume.
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, a lot of prominent politicos who do show up at Moon events and offer endorsements of various kinds seem to have been caught unawares. But others who are associated with Moon’s operations are actually on the payroll. They get large speaking fees and so forth, like President George H. W. Bush.
JOHN GORENFELD:
George H. W. Bush has long maintained a relationship with Reverend Moon, taking over a million dollars to tour Japan and Argentina with Sun Myung Moon or his wife, showing up in 1995, most notably, to help bail out the Unification Church from a lot of trouble it was in for separating desperate widows from their life savings, saying that their husbands were in hell and wouldn't escape unless they gave millions of yen to the Unification Church.
In Buenos Aires, George H. W. Bush called Reverend Moon “the man with the vision whose newspaper restores sanity to Washington, D.C.”
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, here’s a guy who says he’s talked to Stalin in hell, person to person [LAUGHS], and has been convicted of tax fraud — in fact, was in prison like five minutes after The Washington Times first appeared. He conducts mass arranged marriages in stadiums. He’s accused of brainwashing children and using them as almost slave labor.
He’s got followers who are appointees in the Bush Administration. He was, as you said [LAUGHS], crowned as the Savior in the Dirksen Office Building. Why aren't people just showing him the door? How does he continue to operate? Maybe he is God.
JOHN GORENFELD:
[LAUGHS] Well, he’s richer than God. Conservatives have been enormously grateful for what they see as the balance that’s been provided by Reverend Moon’s newspaper and so they've been willing to work with this guy, even as more and more shocking things have happened over the years.
What we're looking at is one of the most dazzling acts of either con artistry or public relations in modern day history. The enormous outlay for The Washington Times has made the Unification Church part of conservative history, whereas otherwise they might well have been booted from the country in the 1980s.
The issue isn't so much the idea of getting tentacles within the administration or having some sort of actual power. What it is, is this cynical relationship with conservatives that’s allowed Reverend Moon, in places beyond our borders, to continue bilking all sorts of people out of money and ruining a lot of people’s lives while finding a surprisingly comfortable home for himself right here in Washington, DC.
BOB GARFIELD:
Okay John, well, thank you so much.
JOHN GORENFELD:
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
BOB GARFIELD:
Reporter John Gorenfeld is author of Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom.
[MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
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