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"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
Leonardo DiCaprio, cub reporter
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April 5, 2000 | WASHINGTON -- The how is both fantastic and illuminating. Late last fall, DiCaprio and friend Chris Cuomo (brother of HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo) were kicking around ideas about the environment. DiCaprio is slated to chair the national Earth Day celebration later this month, and Chris Cuomo is a correspondent on ABC's "20/20." DiCaprio thought ABC needed a special on Earth Day and the environment and so, according to his spokesman, Ken Sunshine, he approached ABC News about putting together a project.
Or maybe not. "I don't think that's exactly the way it happened," says ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy. "We've done environmental specials before ... Several of the producers that work in [senior vice president] Phyllis McGrady's unit were thinking about doing another one." Regardless, DiCaprio told ABC News that he would be happy to lend the network his celebrity for an Earth Day special if it devoted "a serious hour to it," according to Sunshine. By December the project was a go -- a serious hour-long special scheduled to air on or near Earth Day, April 22. The show landed in the lap of McGrady, one of Westin's most trusted lieutenants. In February, an associate producer for the show contacted the Council on Environmental Quality, one of the White House's executive agencies. Murphy claims this contact was "only for research purposes." The council told ABC that it had recently worked with CBS to do a walking tour of the White House where it showed off the various environmental improvements implemented by the president: weather-stripping, eco-safe light bulbs, new insulation. ABC loved the idea, and told the White House that it would like to do a tour just like the one CBS received, but with the president as the tour guide and DiCaprio as the curious guest. "It always, from our perspective, was intended to be an informal walking tour around the White House," Murphy says. Around noon on March 31, DiCaprio and an ABC News crew arrived at the White House. "At that point," Murphy continues, "we were told that they were unable to do the tour and what they wanted to do instead was a sit-down interview." Which is just what happened. For 15 minutes, the young man who coined the term "pussy posse" interviewed the president of the United States on behalf of one of the most respected news organizations in the free world. By Friday afternoon there was panic at the ABC News bureau in Washington. During the morning press briefing at the White House, the DiCaprio interview was mentioned, and the ABC senior staff was unhappy. The next morning, Westin sent an e-mail to the troops trying to reassure them. "In case you were calling about the Leonardo DiCaprio issue," he wrote, "here's the truth. We did not send him to interview the president. No one is that stupid." "I had a call from Phyllis [McGrady] yesterday morning that DiCaprio was visiting the White House (at the request of the White House) at the last minute and would have a crew," Westin wrote. He goes on to say that he had known DiCaprio would walk through the White House and thought "the president might make an appearance." "We'll take a look at whatever they've done and decide whether we can use any of it; it's quite possible we'll use none," he suggested. And on the mixing of news and entertainment, Westin was clear: "All roles of journalist must be played by journalists (duh!)."
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