MediaWatch: February 1990
Table of Contents:
Revolving Door: USA Today's Oregon Trail
USA Today's Oregon Trail. The December MediaWatch front page story, "Renouncing the Reagan Decade," analyzed an article by USA Today reporter Debbie Howlett. MediaWatch has since learned that Howlett spent four months in 1983 as Press Secretary to Oregon State Senator Margie Hendricksen, a Democrat who later opposed Republican Senator Mark Hatfield. The Almanac of American Politics blamed Hendricksen's loss on her "consistently liberal views" which, as The New Republic once noted, include favoring unilateral nuclear disarmament.
NBC's Carter Consultant. NBC News Senior Vice President Tom Ross has resigned to become Director of Media Relations for the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton, though he'll remain a consultant to NBC News throughout 1990. Ross was Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times when Carter appointed him Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
Moving to Greener Pastures. Since Senator Terry Sanford's 1986 election, William Green Jr. has served as Senior Assistant to the North Carolina Democrat. In December he decided to retire and returned to Durham where he had worked as a Duke journalism professor when Sanford was President of the university. Green put in a one year stint as The Washington Post's Ombudsman during which he had to explain away the newspaper's 1981 Janet Cooke Pulitzer Prize fiasco.
Pressing for Democrats. Bonnie Piper, a production assistant for National Public Radio's Morning Edition from 1980 to 1984, recently became Press Secretary to U.S. Representative Bob Traxler, a moderately liberal Democrat from Michigan. Piper's spent the last few years working for Time-Life Books....Georgia Democratic Congressman Doug Barnard's new Press Secretary, Lanie Pryles, spent 1983 as a news writer for CNN in Atlanta.
Arkansas Shuffle. The Arkansas Democrat's Washington bureau has been a frequent rest stop for press secretaries between campaigns, judging by a recent National Journal item. Rex Nelson was Washington Bureau Chief from 1986 until last October when he headed west to Little Rock to join Republican Congressman Tommy Robinson's campaign for Governor. Back in 1984, when Robinson was still a Democrat, Nelson worked as Press Secretary to Judy Petty, his unsuccessful Republican opponent. Nelson took over the Washington bureau from Damon Thompson when Thompson became Press Secretary to Senator David Pryor, a Democrat. Before moving to D.C. for The Arkansas Democrat, Thompson served as Press Secretary to Pryor's 1984 Republican opponent, U.S. Representative Ed Bethune.
A Ritzy Switch. William Ritz, a Denver Post reporter from 1978 to 1984, has left his position as Press Secretary to Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) to become Director of Public Affairs for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a group headed by former Democratic Congressman James Roosevelt. Ritz was an AP reporter from 1974 to 1978.
