Down the middle anonymously

JOSEPH N. BELL

I stopped by the Newport Beach Central Library on Saturday afternoon

to hear Joe Klein -- otherwise known as “anonymous” -- tell us how he

came to write the best-selling “Primary Colors” a few years ago.

Klein is this year’s leadoff speaker in the 2005 Public Library

Foundation’s Distinguished Speaker Lecture Series that has been

putting a broad variety of high-level, provocative fare before us for

the past seven years.

Klein turned out to be a provocateur of the center, which probably

shouldn’t have surprised me since I was aware, from reading his

pieces in Newsweek and the New Yorker, of his palsy relationship with

Bill Clinton. But Klein made the center sound pretty fuzzy. He’s the

only political wonk I’ve ever heard pair the philosophical leanings

of Clinton and Newt Gingrich in the same sentence. He says his

experience with “Primary Colors” finally put him down in that place

-- tossing political bones both right and left. It seemed to add up

to a bit of something for everyone in the audience last Saturday.

But that came late in his talk. As long as he was telling us about

the evolution of “Primary Colors,” he was both funny and thoroughly

engaging. He said that an early experience with Ted Turner had first

set him to looking away from journalism to fiction. Turner once fired

Klein as a ghostwriter because his early chapters of an autobiography

made Turner look like a buffoon when he wanted to be a statesman.

Klein, who said he liked Turner, thought his portrait was right on

target.

“But he was larger than life,” Klein said, “just like Clinton.

This magnifies both weakness and strength. The best politicians to

cover are always the rogues, whose strongest feature is emotional

intelligence. I’d rather have someone running the country who

understands human frailty -- who has done something stupid -- than

former student council presidents.”

When Klein decided there was a book in the 1996 presidential

campaign he was covering for Newsweek, he knew from his Turner

experience that the best way to capture the real flavor of the

“velocity, intensity and insanity of politics” was through fiction.

He said anonymity appealed to him because of cowardice and whimsy --

cowardice at the possibility of being identified with a book that

tanked, whimsy because creating speculation about who wrote this

might help the book find an audience.

So his agent sold an outline of the idea to Random House without

identifying the author, and the publisher made the choice of using

“anonymous” rather than a pseudonym. When it was published, only

three people -- Klein’s wife, his agent and the editor of Newsweek,

his employer at the time, knew he was the author of “Primary Colors”.

The book was an immediate best seller, but once the first glow of

success and counting money had passed, Klein found himself a victim

of that success. He said that within a few months he was spending

much more of his time trying to protect his secret than turning to

new work. So even though many of his journalistic associates turned

on him for his deceit, he was relieved when his cover was finally

blown by computers and handwriting experts.

Klein said he did a lot of thinking during this frenetic period

that has changed his whole approach to journalism.

“I was always very tough on people in my writing,” he said.

“Skepticism and negativity had become cardinal in reporting and

commenting on the news, and I was right out front. The toughest thing

to write was a positive story about politicians. Then I found myself

on the other side of the podium with people screaming at me and

realized this was just an average day in the life of a president.

“So I decided to give public officials some slack. They can say to

me, ‘Don’t write that’, and I don’t -- unless they are skimming the

truth. So now I’m accused of being in the tank -- but I feel it is

time for more balance in the press.”

Such soul searching has brought Klein down in the political dead

center, where he remained stoutly in the question session Saturday,

balancing every position with an alternate position. This made at

least one member of his audience yearn for the rogue Klein so admired

early in his talk -- and to strongly question the virtue of

withdrawing skepticism at a time when a lot of us would like to see

more of it.

This kind of talk doesn’t make life any easier for journalists in

dealing with public officials who neither understand the purpose nor

place of journalism in a free society. Which brings us close to home,

where the mayor of Newport Beach has decided he will no longer talk

to reporters from his own community newspaper.

Both the editor and publisher of the Daily Pilot have responded

admirably. I’d like to add a thought or two because I can make some

points plainly that might be difficult for them. They don’t know I’m

writing this and have confided nothing to me that they haven’t said

publicly.

But at least one aggravation is clear. The same lengthy treatise

from the mayor appeared in two separate issues of the Pilot last

week. The explanation -- partly printed, partly rumored -- was that a

cut was made in the first version that so infuriated the mayor that

he demanded his piece be reprinted in full. I don’t question that

decision because I’m not privy to the issues that prompted it.

But I do think it is time that the current mayor and the other

public officials in Newport Beach understand that the Pilot -- or any

other respectable newspaper -- is not an extension of the public

relations department of the city, nor a cheerleader for the Chamber

of Commerce. Its responsibility is to cover the community accurately,

fairly and thoroughly for its readers. Softening this resolve for the

self-aggrandizement of the mayor or any other public official would

be irresponsible

It is part of the mayor’s job to communicate as fully and

effectively as possible with the people who elected him. The best

means of achieving this by far is through his community newspaper.

When he begins to understand that it is not there to please him but

rather to serve the same community he serves, this nonsense will

stop.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.