MEDIA BRASS KEEP SECRETS FOR BOHEMIAN GROVE (8/9/95) By Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon The founder of USA Today recently gave a speech to 1,500 of this country's most powerful men. What did he tell them? Sorry -- it's a secret. Al Neuharth spoke at Bohemian Grove, the all-male encampment in Northern California where much of America's government and corporate elite gathers each summer for two weeks of speeches and fun activities like mock-Druid fire rituals. A few days ago, we got an unauthorized peek at the official program -- which described Neuharth's topic as ''a look inside media newsrooms and boardrooms.'' That sounded interesting, so we called and asked for the text of his speech. The normally talkative Neuharth was tight-lipped. ''I went there with the understanding that I would adhere to their privacy rules,'' he replied. ''I think I'd have a little ethical problem giving you the text... I just don't want to do what they would consider unethical.'' But THEY -- the managers of the Bohemian Club, which sponsors the ultra-exclusive retreat -- didn't rigidly insist on secrecy. Thanks to a ''waiver,'' Neuharth said, he was allowed to write his impressions in a USA Today column: It was all harmless relaxation for some great guys. ''No nudes. No Druids. Fun and fellowship... '' The Bohemian Grove program identified Neuharth as chairman of the Freedom Forum -- a $ 700 million foundation dedicated to a ''free press.'' So, we mighask: Why did the head of that foundation agree to get together with other power-brokers to deliver speeches when everyone present was sworn to secrecy? The day before his own speech, Neuharth was among 2,200 men who heard an address by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And what did Gingrich have to say to the assembled movers and shakers? ''I'm sorry,'' Gingrich staff writer Robert George told us. ''We do not have a copy of that speech, and it will not be transcribed... The Bohemian Grove events are basically private functions.'' But matters of great public concern are discussed at Bohemian Grove. The day before Gingrich's speech -- with a crucial telecommunications bill gliding through Congress and some humongous media mergers in the offing -- a top AT&T executive supplied an assessment of ''the complex web of futuristic communications.'' A week later, former President George Bush spoke at Bohemian Grove. In fact, every Republican president since Coolidge has been a member. Presidential campaigns have been hatched there. In modern times, participants have included secretaries of state (Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker), Jimmy Carter, William Randolph Hearst Jr., Walter Cronkite, David Gergen and David Rockefeller. Notables have also included the presidents of such media outlets as CNN and the Associated Press. All of this gets very little news coverage -- a fact that has long frustrated Sonoma County businesswoman Mary Moore, an activist who lives five miles from the deluxe camp. ''The media trivialize everything about Bohemian Grove,'' she contends. Yet many diligent journalists have tried to report about what goes on there. ''The problem is,'' Moore says, ''when the story gets to the top boardrooms, then it gets killed.'' Journalist Dirk Mathison found out the hard way. In July 1991, when Mathison was the San Francisco bureau chief of People magazine (owned by Time Warner), he hiked over back-country trails and sneaked into the Grove's 2,700-acre spread three times. But on his third foray, Mathison ran into a Time Warner exec who recognized him -- and threw him out. Mathison had already learned a lot. For example, a former secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, presented a lecture containing a Pentagon estimate that 200,000 Iraqis were killed during the Gulf War a few months earlier. The Pentagon had not released its death count to the public; at Bohemian Grove, Lehman was more candid. But Mathison's eyewitness report never made it into the pages of People. The story was mysteriously killed. The Mathison episode illustrates how difficult it can be for journalists to report fully on America's political and economic elite when their bosses are loyal members of that elite. Today, amid media mega-mergers and deregulation fervor, the conflict between gathering news and protecting the powerful is more severe than ever. A dramatic instance of that conflict can be found each summer at Bohemian Grove. So, we have a suggestion for Al Neuharth if he really believes in a ''free press'': Provide a Freedom Forum grant for Dirk Mathison to update the story that People magazine refused to print. -- Cohen is head of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Solomon is co-author of ''Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the News Media.'' Prison Voices Often Muted (8/2/95) By Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon Few people are talked about more -- and heard from less -- than prisoners. Rarely do we turn on a television or pick up a newspaper and learn what prisoners have to say. Without direct communication, they don't seem very real to us as human beings. As a result, it's much easier for us to demand ever-harsher prison terms. This summer, a flickering national media spotlight has fallen on Death Row in Pennsylvania. Mumia Abu-Jamal -- an African-American advocate of radical change who has worked as an award-winning radio journalist -- is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 17. As novelist E.L. Doctorow documented in a lengthy New York Times article (July 14), there are many reasons to doubt that Abu-Jamal is guilty of murdering a police officer -- the criminal conviction that put him on Death Row. Yet, for a long time -- despite years of work by activists pressing his case -- national media virtually ignored him. The Fraternal Order of Police in Philadelphia has fought for the ''principle'' of silencing prisoners like Abu-Jamal. This spring, the group waged a fierce campaign to prevent publication of his new book, ''Live from Death Row.'' Fortunately, the publisher, Addison-Wesley, proved to have more backbone than National Public Radio. In May 1994, NPR announced plans to air a series of Abu-Jamal's already recorded commentaries about crime and prison life. But when Philadelphia police objected, NPR management caved in -- and ''All Things Considered'' listeners didn't hear a word from Abu-Jamal. Since late last year, the prison system has rejected requests from scores of journalists to interview Mumia Abu-Jamal. Several TV networks meekly accepted the rejections and then canceled plans for stories. But last month, the Society of Professional Journalists -- and five other national organizations of reporters and editors -- petitioned a federal court to protect the First Amendment in Abu-Jamal's case. ''Inmates are not required to check their constitutional rights along with their personal belongings when they pass through prison gates,'' the groups declared. The right of prisoners to be heard -- and of the public to hear them -- seems to be quite perishable in the United States. The pattern is clear: When prison authorities don't like the content of what a prisoner has to say, they try to nullify the First Amendment. On rare occasions, media outlets resist such interference. Much good resulted from the San Francisco Chronicle's decision to go to court in 1988 on behalf of a 48-year-old prisoner. By then, Dannie Martin had been writing articles for that newspaper for two years. Trouble arose only when the Chronicle published a piece by Martin that criticized the Lompoc, Calif., federal prison administration for its ''gulag mentality.'' The warden retaliated -- ordering Martin thrown into solitary confinement and then transferred to a prison in Phoenix. ''They wanted to put chains and shackles on my voice,'' Martin said later. He added: ''I committed bank robbery and they put me in prison, and that was right. Then I committed journalism and they put me in the hole. And that was wrong.'' Dannie Martin and his editor at the Chronicle, Peter Sussman, persevered with their path-breaking efforts. Between 1986 and 1991, the Chronicle published more than 50 of Martin's eloquent articles about life behind prison walls. With poignant humor and insight, Martin wrote about realities that are routinely fenced off from people on the outside. (His articles, combined with Sussman's narrative, appear in the book ''Committing Journalism,'' now out in paperback.) When his writings became a courtroom issue, Martin testified: ''Letters I got from people outside made me realize to what extent they don't have any idea what's in a criminal's mind. They see a guy on TV bust someone's head, and he's off the picture... He doesn't have a wife and family. He's just a thug. They see him for a minute, and he's gone. And they wind up with a stereotype of what a criminal is, and it's wrong.'' Sussman, one of the nation's most experienced editors on prison issues, notes that abuses ''are bound to flourish in closed, authoritarian institutions'' such as prisons. Journalism has a responsibility to intrude into places that rarely see the light of day. ''In his dispatches from prison, Dannie did not exonerate his fellow prisoners,'' Sussman points out. ''But he gave them back their names and personalities and families and the same vulnerable emotions we all have. He restored their human complexity. That may be the first step out of our quagmire of crime and punishment.'' -- Jeff Cohen is executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Norman Solomon is co-author of ''Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the News Media.'' Gingrich Off the Hook in Susan Smith Case? (7/26/95) By Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon Newt Gingrich has gotten away with it. Again. Even after a South Carolina jury declared Susan Smith guilty of murdering her two sons, reporters are not pressing Gingrich about the Smith case. Many seem to have forgotten that nine months ago, he loudly proclaimed the infanticide to be a campaign issue. Back in early November, the motor-mouthed Gingrich had much to say about the case -- offering a treatise so wrongheaded that it's almost laughable. Except there's nothing funny about the Susan Smith tragedy... or Gingrich's attempt to exploit it for an election-eve advantage. Here's what Gingrich said three days before last November's election when asked by an Associated Press reporter how the campaign was going: ''Slightly more moving our way. I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things.'' Gingrich concluded, ''The only way you get change is to vote Republican. That's the message for the last three days.'' Two days later, less than 24 hours before the polls opened, Gingrich defended his comments on the Smith case as no different than what he'd been saying for years -- that violence and related ills arise from a Democratic-controlled political system: ''We need very deep change if we're going to turn this country around.'' Asked if the change he was offering the country would stop killings like those in South Carolina, he replied, ''Yes. In my judgment, there's no question.'' Today, reporters should ask Gingrich an obvious question: Does he still impute blame to the Democrats for Susan Smith's deed? Journalists might also ask Gingrich about Smith's stepfather, Beverly Russell. Prior to the kids' disappearance, Russell was busily campaigning not for the depraved Democrats but for Newt Gingrich and his minions. Russell was a Republican leader in South Carolina and local organizer of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. During the nine days that Susan Smith had the country hunting for a nonexistent carjacker, Russell urged nationwide prayer for the two missing kids: ''All we can do is pray. This is a nightmare.'' A prominent businessman and stockbroker, Russell married Smith's mom after she divorced Smith's dad (who later committed suicide). From the age of 6, Russell raised Susan Smith in an upper-middle-class, church-going home. Gingrich's campaign comments notwithstanding, the home was free of counterculture and welfare-state influences. But Susan Smith attempted suicide at age 13 and, at age 15, told authorities that her stepdad had been sexually molesting her for at least a year. Her mother helped talk her out of pursuing charges against Russell. At age 18, she attempted suicide again. The child-abuse case against the well-connected businessman smells of a cover-up. It's not known exactly how long the molestation went on because the case file mysteriously vanished. And Susan Smith was not even represented in court by a lawyer or guardian, as required for minors. The social service worker who investigated the molestation testified at the murder trial that although Russell admitted the abuse and agreed to seek counseling, she was ''concerned'' that law enforcement closed the case so quickly. Whatever counseling Russell underwent had little impact. The murder trial revealed that he was still having sex with his stepdaughter as recently as two months before she killed her kids. While nothing can begin to excuse the horrendous act of drowning children in a lake, it's clear that Susan Smith suffered far more trauma in her youth than any girl should have to endure. And most of the trauma was inflicted not by McGovernik Democrats or welfare bureaucrats -- but by an abusive stepfather who publicly championed ''family values'' and ''school prayer'' as partisan Republican issues. The truth is that sexual abuse of children in the home is widespread -- and crosses all ideological lines. It's also true that the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act was dismembered this year by Gingrich-led ''pro-family'' forces in the House. Newt Gingrich should be pressed to discuss these realities. After all, he's the one who originally declared the Smith case in play as a political football. Journalists shouldn't let him simply drop the ball at his convenience. -- Jeff Cohen is executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Norman Solomon is co-author of ''Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the News Media.''