A Wonderful Life
This is one of those days where what the papers are telling us is most
newsworthy via their use of the traditional tools of placement and headline
size is mostly spinach--important sure, but...yecch. Yes, the top right-hand
column of the New York Times tells
us that France will give in to President Clinton and agree to limit the
expansion of NATO to just three former East Bloc countries for now (that's the
national edition--the Metro edition uses that prime print estate for a story
about New York Governor Pataki's decision to abandon a major welfare cutback).
Sure, the Times , the Wall Street Journal, and USA TODAY give
prominent play to an oil tanker called the Diamond Grace making a big mess in
Tokyo Bay. And yes, the Washington Post uses its top right to report "President, Congress
Close in on Tax Deal." The majors also dutifully tell us that today's New
England Journal of Medicine concludes that power lines probably don't give
you leukemia. But, c'mon, today's real news leader is a little further down on
the front page--Jimmy Stewart (except at the Los Angeles Times
that is, where naturally, it leads). The editors front the story as high as
they can because they know there really was a loss here, of a combination of
talent and a larger sense of purpose that is utterly absent from entertainment
today.
And the obit staffs do some good reporting. (Although there is a discrepancy
about the cause of death. Most of the papers say it was cardiac arrest. The
NYT and Associated Press go with a blood clot in the lung.) USAT
relates that in 1940, when Stewart won his first Oscar, for "The Philadelphia
Story," he had voted for his friend Henry Fonda (in "The Grapes of Wrath"), and
reveals that for Stewart's famous filibuster scene in "Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington," the actor had a doctor apply a mercury solution to his vocal
chords to give him a raspy throat. The NYT reports that Stewart left
Hollywood stardom to join the Air Force nine months before Pearl Harbor,
and that one of his stepsons was killed in Vietnam.
Down below the fold on the front page, the NYT breaks the story of an
Air Force officer, William Kite, who faces a court martial for fraternizing
with an enlisted person and lying about it to superiors. Who did he fraternize
with? His wife. The Times story illustrates the sense in which the
military has lost perspective on personal relations (if it ever had it). It
reports that the investigation that led to the charges against Kite was
initiated by the base chaplain, and that Mrs. Kite's mental health records and
even the date of her last menstrual cycle have been entered into evidence. Keep
an eye on this one: after all, it's by the same reporter, Elaine Sciolino, who
uncovered the Kelly Flinn case in the Times last May.
In a related story, the Washington Post 's Richard Cohen asks a really
good question in his op-ed today about the Pentagon's search for a new Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs with no sexual baggage: "Would you choose your doctor on
this basis?"
