US NEWS MORE LIKE NEWSWEEK, IT'S LOSING MILLIONS, IT'S A CRISIS ATMOSPHERE. MORT ZUCKERMAN LOVES IT.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302270001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302270001-0
WASHINGTONIAN
March 1987
MEDIA
By Judith Adler Hennessee
Mort's Magazine
US News Looks More Like Newsweek, It's Losing Millions,
It's a Crisis Atmosphere. Mort Zuckerman Loves It.
T here's a new team again at US
News & World Report, and
they're redesigning the new
design and refocusing the focus,
their fingers crossed that this time it
will really work.
Revamping a newsmagazine is
like turning around a battleship in a
stormy ocean, and US News, the num-
ber-three newsweekly, is particularly
creaky. It was badly managed, with all
the leaderless sins of employee owner-
ship, and had little visibility; it is still not
exactly a household word, but David
Gergen, the newest editor, feels much
more confident now.
Gergen. who served in the White
House, had no journalism experience.
But now he has two old pros from News-
week, Mike Ruby and Mel Elfin, to
streamline the news operation. Clay
Felker, founding editor of New York
magazine, has been imported as a guru
and is drumming up new talent and tutor-
ing Gergen in the arcana of editorship.
Sitting on top of this eclectic pyramid
is real estate developer Mortimer B.
Zuckerman. owner, chairman, and edi-
tor-in-chief. Zuckerman, the source of
all the flurry and scurry. is pouring mon-
ey into the magazine in an effort to make
it respected and influential. The money
is part of the solution. Zuckerman, with
his passion to reshape the magazine in
his own image, is part of the problem.
Two and a half years after Zuckerman
bought the magazine for $163 million,
VS News is still lurching along in search
of an identity. It is on its third group of
editors under him, and sorting out the
masthead is like digging through over-
lapping layers of the nine cities of Troy.
There still are remnants of the pre-
Zuckerman Stone Age during which the
"old-olds" flourished, a calm, slow
time of peace and a little prosperity when
US News was "the magazine that dared
to be dull."
Post-Zuckerman, the Early Evans
Juduh Adler Hennessee lives in New York and is a
contributing editor for Manhattan. inc. magazine.
qge ushered in change and new begin-
nings; it paralleled and was followed by
the brief and tumultuous Coffey Era,
filled with earthquakes and volcanoes
and populated by the "new-olds," most
of whom survive.
In the aftermath came the current Ger-
gen Era. with its layer of "new-news"
(subspecies: Newsweek refugees), char-
acterized by healing and growth but
wracked by an occasional eruption.
Ever since he bought the magazine and
declared himself a journalist by fiat,
Zuckerman has been having the time of
his life. He flies around the world-
Moscow. Bonn, Tokyo-interviewing
government officials. Many of them are
people nobody ever heard of, but he did
get an interview with Kurt Waldheim in
Vienna that was duly published under his
byline. Zuckerman wanted it to be the
cover story, but Gergen talked him out
of it in favor of a cover on William
Rehnquist. who had just been nominated
to be chief justice.
Gergen isn't really a journalist, ei-
ther. He served in the Nixon and Ford
administrations and was White House
communications director during Ronald
Reagan's first term. This may not be
such a terrible thing but it may account
for the somewhat cavalier attitude
among top management toward the sepa-
ration of the editorial and business
staffs, the journalism equivalent of
church and state. When the Chernobyl
story broke last spring, it was the circu-
lation department. not the news depart-
ment, that dictated the cover line
"Nightmare in Russia. "
"We have a lot of input on covers."
says executive vice president William
Hams.
The newsroom told Gergen that Cher-
nobyl was in the Ukraine, not Russia,
and the production people warned him
that he would have a problem with the
Ukrainians, who do not consider them-
selves Russians and are very aggressive
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302270001-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302270001-0
W
about letting everyone know it. "'Russia
had more 'pop' than 'the USSR.' " says
Gergen. " 'Nightmare in the Soviet Un-
ion' didn't work. "
A group of Ukrainians picketed the
US News building. "Gergen, Go Back to
Grade School," one sign read. Gergen
invited them in for coffee. "They told
me Ukrainian history," he says. "I
think the Ukrainians had a point. "
Despite his inexperience as a journal-
ist, Gergen is in demand as a talking
head. His clout comes not from being the
editor of US News but from his previous
place of employment. It's a compromis-
ing situation, a newsmagazine editor
pontificating on television about his
White House connections. But Gergen is
aware that he has to be careful. "It's
very important that I be as objective as I
can," he says. "I think it's good for the
magazine. When I came here [in January
1985, as a contributing columnist]. I was
encouraged by Mort to give outside
interviews. It raises the profile of the
magazine. "
Journalist or not, Gergen has a great
many things going for him. He under-
stands news and the rhythm of Washing-
ton politics; he can pick up the phone and
get guidance. inside tips. "He has a
good sense of where policy is headed, of
the way issues and disputes are unfold-
ing," says a new-old editor. "He is
good at identifying where things will be
in a week or two. "
This very strength. however, weakens
him as an editor. Gergen, whose in-
stincts are centrist, edits like a politician
seeking a consensus. Every opinion is
presented, with the result that stories are
often bland and have no point of view.
Late on Friday afternoons, after check-
ing with his sources, Gergen dashes off
"Gergen-Grams," a series of points that
he wants included in stories. "It's a
strength of the magazine to be balanced
and objective." Gergen argues. "It's
also true that in politics you think of
coalition building, of a core base and
getting extra votes. It's very similar
here."
Gergen also has philosophical con-
cerns that are larger than those of daily
journalism and antagonistic to it. He
worries about the state of the presidency.
"Whether it is Democratic or Republi-
can, the office needs to be more effec-
tive," he says. "In the last six years it
has been effective. I worry it has been an
aberration, and I worry about the future.
This is very sensitive. I think about it a
lot; it matters tome a lot. "
The magazine's political stories re-
flect his concern. When the Iran hos-
tages-for-arms story broke, Gergen felt
balance was crucial: "I told people to
say there was a series of blunders-Iran,
disinformation, Reykjavik-but also ap-
preciate that he [Reagan] achieved some
things. I don't want tarring and feather-
ing. The whole presidency could be
unraveled. "
Many staffers feel that Gergen goes
beyond balance, that he is soft on the
administration. (The White House, Ger-
gen says, does not share this view.)
"There were a lot of problems with the
[Donald] Regan profile." says an old-
old staffer. "Gergen was running inter-
ference for Regan. It was substantially
diluted. There is a pattern of this. The
same thine happened with Casey: He
watered the piece down. T -came out
rather mild. "
The CIA cover that ran last June is
regarded by many reporters as the exem-
plar of this kind of editing. The premise
of the, story was the great resurgence of
the CIA under Casey. and it was critical
of him. Gergen had misgivings. "It did
not have a response from high levels,"
he says. "The reporters were not able to
get to Casey. I said, 'It's okay to be
negative, but....' So I called the CIA,
and Casey said to come on out. "
Casey spoke at length on background,
and Gergen rewrote the piece, softening
it. Some staff members were aghast.
"The reporters were unhappy." says
Gergen. "I heard rumors that we fell for
the CIA line, that we were patsies. I
went to the reporters and asked them,
'What's wrong? I don't want to learn
about this from rumors.' "
The reporters changed some of the
story back, toughening it. "I was not
going to be in a position that I played
footsie with the administration," says
Gergen. "At stake was the legitimacy of
the magazine. "
After the story was published. Casey
called and screamed at Gergen that it
was too negative, but it was the judg-
ment of the staff that Casey had done a
snow job on Gergen. "Casey was going
around town telling people that US News
never laid a finger on him," says a new-
old reporter.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302270001-0