Transcript
Word Watch
April 14, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Throughout the programming day of February 21st, Fox Newschannel ran a promo featuring an "exclusive" interview with Linda Tripp on their talk show Hanaty and Combs. Fox made that claim despite the fact that Tripp had been interviewed by Charles Gibson the day before on ABC's Good Morning America! And that was just a month after ABC's news magazine 20/20 had promoted its own interview with Tripp with Correspondent Nancy Collins as an "exclusive." Exclusive, even though Collins had also interviewed Tripp for the December issue of George Magazine which of course prominently slapped "exclusive" on the cover. In journalism the word "exclusive" isn't all that exclusive any more, so now the latest installment in our Word Watch series where we examine the media's overuse and abuse of certain words. On the Media's John Solomon gives us "exclusive."
ANNOUNCER: Tonight a Dateline/Court TV network exclusive. Was it a tragic teenage party?
JOHN SOLOMON: Exclusive used to mean having a story that no one else had. A scoop. Breaking news. But the definition has expanded. Take the cover of Newsweek's February 26th edition. It featured the headline Sleepless Nights and Secret Pardons: The Inside Story of Bill's Last Days. In block letters, slugged at the top of the page was: EXCLUSIVE. Yet most of the article turned out to be information that could be found in other places. Newsweek senior editor Deirdre Depke acknowledges that the term's meaning has broadened. No longer just a scoop or a story that only one news organization has, exclusive now can mean unique or definitive. Depke says that's why the Clinton inside story was exclusive.
DEIRDRE DEPKE: The story did have the narrative tale of Clinton's final days in office that I think was exclusive. It did contain information that had not been reported before. And frankly it was written and presented in a way that no one else had tried to do and really was quite definitive.
JOHN SOLOMON: Newsweek also trumpeted as exclusive three interviews it had with Ariel Sharon, even though he had made himself available periodically to the Israeli media. Depke says that Newsweek's three interviews were American exclusives; a distinction that the magazine did not feel important to explain to its readers.
DEIRDRE DEPKE: For the reader, the point is you're delivering a very important interview with a critical person, and I don't really care if you're calling it an exclusive for the third time. They know that it's significant.
JOHN SOLOMON: Typical of the sliding standard for exclusives was Larry King's intro to his March 26th show with new Texas Tech University basketball coach Bobby Knight. [DRAMATIC MUSIC]
LARRY KING: Tonight! The most controversial coach in college baseball is sporting new team colors. An exclusive hour with Bob Knight now of Texas Tech University. We'll take your calls. And along with us...
JOHN SOLOMON: This exclusive came only two days after Knight held a press conference covered by most of the media organizations in the Western world. Using that same criterion, the press could promote practically everyone on one interview as exclusive, and it usually does in an effort to pump up its stories in the increasingly competitive marketplace. But what is the effect on the consumer of exclusivity inflation?
LADY: Well I think what happens is you'll get your viewer and as soon as he realizes or she realizes -- I've seen this -- they flick off.
JOHN SOLOMON: Scottie Williston is a former CBS deputy foreign editor and a visiting professor at the Columbia School of Journalism.
LADY: So they might have great numbers at the start of something, but they don't sustain it, and people don't pay any attention to it. It's how many people look down and really pay attention to that exclusive on a tabloid in the supermarket? I think there's definite costs to news coverage.
JOHN SOLOMON: In that spirit, On the Media wants to be clear that this report is not an entire exclusive analysis of the term "exclusive." In March, Brill's Content included a story about how Vanity Fair magazine misused the word "exclusive" on some of it is photos. So--with an electronic media exclusive on the word exclusive, this is John Solomon for On the Media. [MUSIC TAG]