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SALLY QUINN, FLOYD ABRAMS AND VARIOUS OTHER MEDIA MUCKETY-MUCKS POW-WOW AT COLUMBIA ABOUT JOURNALISM'S EPIDEMIC OF BACKYARD BLABBING.

BY DEBORAH MITCHELL | One week into Fornigate, who doesn't want to know the answer to the question "When Is Gossip Journalism?" Luckily, Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism had already scheduled a talk on that very topic for Wednesday morning. Rather than simply groveling and apologizing for the past week's epic orgy of gossip, the assembled media poobahs -- many of them well versed in the fine art of disseminating tasty factoids -- actually tried to sort out when dish is edible, and when it should be tossed into the garbage.

"Lest you think we are too prescient," said Dean Tom Goldstein as he introduced the panel, "let me tell you that we'd originally scheduled this breakfast for much earlier in the month." That got a big laugh from an audience that included Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steger, former Court TV honcho Steve Brill and master PR spinner Howard Rubenstein (who represented Donald Trump through his divorce and Jerry Speyer during the revamping of Rockefeller Center).

Renowned First Amendment attorney and Columbia Journalism School visiting Professor Floyd Abrams was the first to speak. He'd said that when he was in a Paris cab last week, the cab driver wanted to know, "What is going on with your president?" Abrams told him President Clinton might have had an affair with a young woman. "Yes?" the cab driver said. Abrams told the driver the president might have lied about the affair. "Yes?" said the driver. Abrams added that the commander in chief might have told the young woman to lie. "Yes?" said the driver. Abrams didn't know what to say next. "I really couldn't explain it much better than that, and he couldn't begin to fathom what I was talking about."

Abrams said he isn't sure he understands what all the fuss is about. "I was away for one week. I came back and Matt Drudge was asking questions on 'Meet the Press.'" That seemed to say it all for Abrams, who turned the floor over to his panelists.

New York Post columnist Neil Travis said, "If you open the New York Post today, you'll notice that Page Six is on Page 12. That's because gossip is journalism today, and we professional gossips are being pushed further back in the paper. That bothers me, because gossip is too important to be left to amateurs." This was Travis' majestic theme all morning: Fornigate would be more credible had it originated in the gossip columns, rather than in "serious" news sections.

Next up was New York Magazine editor Caroline Miller (who happens to be my boss). Addressing what she called the "frontier between gossip and journalism," Miller noted that some people believe "information is a commodity that they own." (An idea much in evidence on the airwaves last week, as various Newsweek staffers blabbered self-importantly about their role in breaking the scandal tale.) Miller talked about the tensions between the "investigative-journalism machine" and the "marketing-packaging machine." She also said that the current presidential scandal "looks a lot more like a cheap TV movie" partly because so many journalists are aggressively promoting themselves on television.

The idea of self-promotion seemed to appeal to Time Inc.'s Richard Stolley, who took the stand to say, "As the founding editor of People, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm the reason we're here." Stolley went on to give a textbook definition: "Gossip is journalism," he said, "when it is true, fair and relevant. Gossip isn't journalism when it is untrue, unverifiable or irrelevant." Stolley added that in a world of publish or perish, this doesn't mean that non-journalistic gossip isn't publishable. He ended with a kindly reminder for writers and editors: Always alert readers when publishing rumor or innuendo or unconfirmed reports.

Novelist and Washington hostess Sally Quinn spoke next. She said people always asked her what a "Style story was" when she was at the Washington Post. "Style is what's interesting," she told them, "and gossip is what's fun." Quinn paraphrased a "famous editor, " apparently her husband, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee: "News," said the famous editor, "is what I say it is." "It's a decision that every writer and editor makes many times a day," Quinn added, going on to explain that so-called reputable papers have less lively gossip columns because of their "two-source" rule.

Dow Jones spokesman and former Wall Street Journal assistant managing editor Dick Tofel posed the most provocative question of the morning: "What exactly are the two sources" on the current presidential scandal? The president isn't talking; Monica Lewinsky isn't talking. So who are the two sources here? "You should be an editor," replied Quinn quickly before flailing the way reporters always do when asked about their sources.

Fittingly enough, Quinn ended the panel by slinging a bit of gossip herself. She announced that "women are coming out of the woodwork," calling reporters with stories of dalliances with Clinton "that sound legitimate," but are still being investigated. Quinn does not think the story is being covered too much. Citing those famous unnamed sources, she said, "The president's advisors are arguing among themselves whether the president has the moral authority to send people to war. I'm not saying I believe this, I'm just reporting that this is what is happening."

"Iran-contra mattered," said Abrams. "This does not matter."
SALON | Jan. 29, 1998

Deborah Mitchell writes the Intelligencer column for New York Magazine.