The NYT is in total glee over this one. Murdoch has a real "black eye" out of it.
THE NEWS MEDIA
Murdoch Is Said to Be Source of Post's Gephardt 'Exclusive'
By JACQUES STEINBERG and DAVID CARR - NYT
When The New York Post tore up its front page on Monday night to trumpet an apparent exclusive that Representative Richard A. Gephardt would be Senator John Kerry's running mate, the newspaper based its decision on a very high-ranking source: Rupert Murdoch, the man who controls the company that owns The Post, an employee said yesterday.
The Post employee demanded anonymity, saying senior editors had warned that those who discussed the Gephardt gaffe with other news organizations would lose their jobs.
Mr. Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation, called his tip in to the Post's news desk just after 10 on Monday night, between the first and second editions, the employee said.
The employee said that Mike Hechtman, an editor on the city desk, then rewrote the paper's article on Mr. Kerry's choice, which originally said only that it would be announced Tuesday morning. The article was rewritten on a tight deadline to say unequivocally that the running mate would be Mr. Gephardt. The article carried no byline and cited no source, saying only, "The Post has learned.''
The front-page headline for the first edition, about a fire on Long Island, was replaced in subsequent editions with a headline for the Gephardt article.
Reached at The Post last night, Mr. Hechtman referred a reporter to Howard Rubenstein, a Post spokesman.
Mr. Rubenstein said the paper "stands by its flat denial that Rupert was the source of the story, nor did he order the story in.'' Mr. Rubenstein emphasized that his own source for this denial was Col Allan, the paper's editor in chief.
Mr. Rubenstein said that Mr. Murdoch did tend to call the paper "from time to time to find out how things are going.'' Asked if Mr. Murdoch telephoned anyone at the newspaper that night, Mr. Rubenstein said, "I don't know.''
Mr. Rubenstein said that Mr. Allan ordered the article rewritten Monday night and had himself written the headline for the cover of the newspaper. It said: "Dem picks Gephardt as VP candidate.''
Mr. Murdoch, asked by CNBC about the Gephardt article in a brief interview on Tuesday from a conclave of media and technology executives in Sun Valley, Idaho, seemed to point to others. "Everybody made a mistake and they are embarrassed and they have apologized for it and it happens even on NBC sometimes,'' he said.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
