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James Ledbetter and Katharine Mieszkowski

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Post Scoops; Times Droops

By James Ledbetter
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 11, 1999, at 10:06 AM ET

Dear Katharine,

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One of the uglier things I've learned over years of close newspaper reading is how deeply competitive jealousy affects news judgment, even on stories where the importance is overwhelming. It's happening this week with the revelations about the workers in the federally owned bomb factory in Paducah, Kentucky, who were unknowingly exposed to plutonium for decades. The Washington Post (which I know you don't read) broke this story in a front-page story on Sunday, forcing the secretary of energy to launch an investigation, and all but admit that the government lied about this contamination for years. As you might expect, the plant's work force has been struck with all kinds of cancer. There's a follow-up Page One story in today's Post, profiling a worker who died after a futile decade of trying to get the plant to acknowledge his illness. Belatedly--and to my mind revoltingly--the United States now calls him a "hero of the Cold War."

If I were a national news editor, I would use this horror story as a chance to do a round-up of everything we now know about the federal government's involvement in nuclear contamination. Remind readers of the experiments done on children, get a reading on the other bomb plants, etc. Instead, most of the big national papers are giving this story a big ho-hum. As best I can tell, the Wall Street Journal hasn't run an article at all; the Los Angeles Times couldn't spare more than 200 words, and the New York Times did one story yesterday with virtually no reporting in it.

I guarantee you that the Post will put its series, by Joby Warrick, up for a Pulitzer, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wins. The judges, of course, will be executives from the very papers who are now ignoring the story.

On an arguably brighter note, there is a milestone obituary in today's New York Times for Jennifer Paterson, one of the "Two Fat Ladies" of cooking show fame. If you've ever seen the program, which debuted on the BBC in 1996, you know how bizarre it is: two enormous, motorcycle-riding eccentrics offering some of the unhealthiest meals imaginable. (I'm sort of a conceptual fan: The show itself I find unwatchable.) Anyway, the Times obit is written by Enid Nemy, who does not normally grace the death announcement page, and she notes that no less a fan than Prince Charles "sent a gift of homemade organic tomato soup and vanilla ice cream to Ms. Paterson after she disclosed her illness last month." The story also discloses that "the Food Network is planning a two-hour tribute to Ms. Paterson, who is survived by an uncle and two brothers, on Sunday night at 9." This may be the first time a specific television broadcast has been plugged in a Times obituary.

Sorry to be so grim this morning. I lost a sizable sum of money in a poker game last night, and it may be affecting my mood.