Reed Irvine - Editor
TV "HOT PROPERTY" COOLED IN TEXAS
Poor Michael Moore. As an independent film producer, he won wide leftist acclaim and earned big bucks with his 1989 pseudo-documentary, "Roger & Me," which lampooned the then-president of General Motors, Roger Smith. The film, fiddled with errors and distortions, was widely denounced as factually fraudulent. The esteemed critic Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it "shallow and facetious, a piece of Gonzo demagoguery that made me feel cheap for laughing," but "Roger" set a new record for gross receipts for a documentary.
"Roger & Me" made Moore into a-TV "hot property," and TriStar Television was among the many companies dangling dollars before him. Eric Tannenbaum, an executive vice-president, called Moore a "unique creative voice" and said, "Our business is a personality-driven business." Moore conceived a series, "TV Nation," which TriStar sold first to NBC for the 1994 season, and then to Fox. He was paid "a seven-figure sum" for 26 months work.
"TV Nation" is now off the air, which disturbs Moore no end. He wrote a column in the Nation magazine headlined, "What You Can't Get Away With on TV." He listed five stories that "we produced that did not make it onto the air." One idea was titled "Re-enacting the L.A. Uprising," a simulation of the riots following the first trial of the Los Angeles police officers accused of using excessive force in subduing convicted felon Rodney King. Unnamed "TV execs," Moore complained, "were afraid it would incite future riots."
Those "TV execs" actually exercised too little caution in dealing with Moore. Last spring, in a federal court in Texas, he was forced for the first time to defend the truth of one of his "documentaries." The suit involved a "TV Nation" segment entitled "Sludge Train." This was about New York City sewage sludge being processed into cake-form and shipped in sealed rail cars to a remote site near Sierra Bianca, about 50 miles east of El Paso, Texas, to be used to regenerate arid ranch land.
The jury took only a few hours to return a verdict damning to Moore's production. It hit TriStar with one dollar in actual and $4,500,000 in punitive damages. Hugh Kaufman, a maverick EPA staffer featured in the program was assessed $500,000 in punitive and one dollar in actual damages. Moore had been dropped as a defendant, but a show that he created and supervised was on trial. The verdict confirms what critics of "Roger & Me" said years ago: Moore is more interested in political messages than the truth. Now a TV production company faces the prospect of paying the price for trusting Moore. (An appeal seeking a reduction in the damages will be heard in the spring).
The trial record, from the U.S. District Court of Judge Lucius Bunton, in Pecos, Texas, is a text-book study of the methodology of television journalistic deceit, and why you should view network magazine shows with a good deal of skepticism. "Sludge Train" won an Emmy in the category of "outstanding informational series," a telling commentary on the value of the prizes which journalists give to one another.
Joseph D. Tydings, a former Democratic U.S. Senator from Maryland, who with David Elkind represented the plaintiff, made a pre-emptive strike against claims that the project owner, Merco Joint Venture, was attempting censorship. "This litigation is not about freedom of press or freedom of speech," Tydings said. "The evidence we will submit will show you that these types of television broadcasts, made for fame and fortune and profit actually abuse our basic freedom in our society." The core of the Merco case was that before any work was done on the program, "they had their game plan." Here are rules for journalistic malpractice, as revealed in the trial record.
TV producers often decide the outcome of the story before they do any basic research; what is contained in the initial "segment outline" becomes the format of the piece, regardless of what is found during the reporting phase.
The idea for "Sludge Train" came from a sometime comedy writer named Randy Cohen, who had heard that New York sludge was being shipped to remote West Texas. Before doing any research whatsoever, he wrote a memo outlining his idea for a program: "This poor Texas town contracted to receive regular train loads of New York sewage. Smells like...victory. No. Smells like...you don' t want to know. It's a piece about the socio-economic of waste, about who gets--literally--S*** upon. Begin at the sewage plant. Make it clear what we're loading up, where it comes from, where it's going. Style it like a nostalgic Charles Kuralt bit of sentimental America--hell, man, it's a train ride. Ride the sludge train out of New York heading for the Texas prairies or plains or buttes or mesas or whatever perverse geologic features they have out there. Visit the dump site. Sing a few cowboy songs. Drink yourself into a stupor. Cry yourself to sleep."
The final lines of the memo read: "The good news just keeps getting better; Sierra Bianca will open a low level nuclear waste dump in 1995." In the broadcast segment, this sentence became, "Unfortunately, the stink is about to get even worse, because the Lone Star State has chosen the town as the new home of a nuclear waste dump." (Merco has no connection with the nuclear waste plan.)
TV work often requires fibbing to sources who are interviewed. The field work for "Sludge Train" was done by producer Frances Alswang, whose last job before linking up with Michael Moore was research director of the cable show "Comedy Central." According to her testimony, she had no experience in "hard news." For "Sludge Train" she dealt with Kelly Sarber, Merco's public relations staffer. Sarber had handled publicity for a Papal visit, the Olympic Village of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1990 Earth Day celebration. Sarber said she took Alswang at face value when she said she was working on "an NBC News program" patterned after "60 Minutes," "48 Hours," or the "Charles Kurait Show." (Alswang denied claiming any NBC affiliation.) Sarber said that Alswang promised to do an objective segment on sludge disposal.
Sarber persuaded residents to be interviewed. She quoted Alswang as saying after seeing Sierra Bianca, "It's beautiful. I was really impressed with the project." "I believe Ms. Alswang lied," Sarber testified. Alswang also did interviews with farmers in Colorado and Arizona who spoke positively about using bio-solids on their farms. The EPA told Alswang that it was "positive about what was going on with sludge."
Finding that the facts didn't fit her story line, Alswang abandoned this line of research. She did not talk to operators of any of the more than 300 registered bio-solid projects in Texas, other than Merco. Nor did she interview two scientists from Texas Tech University who live on the site, doing research on the use of sludge to upgrade exhausted land. Sarber pointed out the scientists' office as she drove Alswang around the ranch. Alswang said she wasn't interested.
Sarber also made sure that Alswang saw the decision of a federal judge who dismissed a suit charging that the Merco project endangered the residents of Sierra Bianca. He said, "[T]here is no significant possibility that public health or the environment will suffer adverse effects from toxic pollutants which may be present in sludge as a result of Merco's six-year land application project if Merco complies with the requirements imposed by the Texas Water Commission." The opinion quoted EPA's "conservative conclusions" that Merco could apply sludge at Sierra Bianca for 496 years before lead would pose a "potential threat" to the environment or public health; 90.5 years for zinc; or 37.9 years for copper. Since this didn't fit the predetermined story line it was ignored. The script had at first said, "Merco got the permission of the State of Texas," but that was dropped.
Talking-head narrators for magazine shows, sadly, often have no knowledge of a story other than what is put before them by the producer. Alswang selected Roy Sekoff as the on-air correspondent for "Sludge Train." Like Alswang, Sekoff had no background in hard news. As he put it, "My basic interest is comedy. I'm a comedy writer, and I saw my job more as a comedy performance." Alswang gave Sekoff marching orders parallel to the one-sided story outlined in the original Randy Cohen memo. She wrote, "We all seem to agree the story begins as a light hearted and humorous look at sludge, where it comes from and where it winds up, and ends up in a literal world of s***, with a one-two punch of nuclear waste."
Sekoff interviewed Edward Wagner, the deputy commissioner for clean water for New York City. Wagner spent several hours explaining the process whereby waste is converted into bio-solids and the monitoring for quality and safety. Not a word of this was aired. Instead, there was a film shot of bottles, pieces of plastic and even syringes mixed in with the sludge, Sekoff stating that the sludge cake "isn't made of just toilet refuse. In fact anything that goes down the drain or sewer ends up here." Wagner had explained that such debris is removed from the sludge before it is pressed into cakes and shipped. The "rough cut," or first version of the segment, had the narrator's comment, "Plastics are separated out." This line was also dropped.
But the most egregious distortions in "Sludge Train" were to come in Texas. George Fore, the ranch manager, showed Alswang the sharp contrast between land that had been treated and that which was not. He pointed with pride to a herd of mule deer that had returned to the ranch. His interview was not used, Alswang claimed, "because of the way he speaks." Fore, she lamented in court, "went on too long."
Instead, the interviews that aired were chiefly of persons who opposed the project. One was with a woman who lived 30 miles from Sierra Bianca. Another was with three youngsters, none of them Texans, encountered at a service station as they were driving between Grateful Dead concerts. These "deadheads," knew nothing about Merco other than what the "TV Nation" crew told them; predictably, they didn't like it.
The segment contained five sound bites from Sam Dodge, who runs a ranch next to the Merco site. "Boy, you can sure smell it. It smells," he said, among other things. As Merco lawyers brought out, Dodge was not a disinterested witness. Their site had been in bankruptcy before its conversion into a sludge site, with fences in disrepair. Dodge let his cattle graze on the property, something he could no longer do once the fences went back up.
The major "local" witness against the Merco site was an activist named Billy Addington, whose complaint had resulted in the Texas attorney general's failed suit against the project. Addington claimed that the smell was "almost like you could cut it with a knife." But what really smelled was the insinuation that Merco had set fire to his lumber yard, as shown below.
Sekoff: Bill Addington's family has lived in Sierra Bianca for three generations. He owns a general store, a ranch and a lumber yard. But his chief occupation these days is rallying opposition to the Merco dump. He believes this has made him some powerful enemies. Recently, his lumber yard burned to the ground. Addington: And many of the people...in town know why the arson happened, it was because of our speaking out against the sludge.
What Addington actually said was, "because of our speaking out against the sludge and Merco." Those last two words apparently caught the attention of the "TV Nation" lawyers, and they were edited out. But as a TriStar brief concedes, the segment "reported Addington's honest and reasonable belief that his lumberyard was burned intentionally because of his opposition to sludge." Given that Merco is cast as the designated villain of the segment the implication is clear to even a casual viewer that he was blaming the company for the arson. When questioned about this, Alswang gave an interesting perspective as her perceived role as a journalist. She testified, "It was not my job to judge the veracity, the truthfulness of anything that anybody said, just to conduct the interview."
One of the more outrageous claims made by the producers was that they had a right to edit interviews to change the meaning of what was said. Julie Porter, a rancher's wife who supported the project had jested in her interview about odors from her husband's cows being "the smell of money." To her astonishment, "TV Nation" edited the interview to have her saying it was the sludge project that had "the smell of money." She said no such thing. Alswang's excuse? "That was 'TV Nation' using humor to move the narration along." Editors also juggled the sound track to have Mrs. Porter laughing as she made the remark. Mrs. Porter complained that the fakery "made me look like an airhead."
Alswang defended this, testifying, "We took the essence of her interview, of what she was saying, and put it together. That's what we do in editing." Alswang, when cross- examined, said that such juggling of statements obtained in interviews is common in television. Tydings: The way you did this, is this common standard practice in the television industry? Alswang: Yes, it's done. Tydings: And it's regularly done that way? Alswang: Regularly done, as much as I know.
In any event, Alswang said, Mrs. Porter had no legal grounds to demand redress because "on the release they sign, it gives us the right to do that." That should be a warning to those who automatically sign the releases that TV producers thrust in front of them. The "TV Nation" release stated, "I acknowledge that any editing of my statement or comments and/or juxtaposition of film clips and/or other material shall be at your sole discretion." As Mrs. Porter and other interviewees learned, giving a TV crew such a license is risky.
According to internal documents obtained by Merco lawyers, after executives at TriStar saw a rough cut of the segment, attorney Mitch Singer insisted that an expert on sludge be added. Alswang already had the long interview with Edward Wagner, the New York City sludge official; officials in the EPA's Region 6 office in Dallas had first-hand knowledge of the Sierra Bianca project. But Alswang claimed that she could not reach them. "I could not get through," she said. "It was difficult."
So Alswang chose to interview an EPA employee named Hugh Kaufman, who has been described by The New York Times as "an outspoken critic of federal environmental policies." Kaufman has been a thorn in the side of EPA officials for two decades. As a self-styled "whistleblower" he became a favorite of radical environmentalists, accusing the EPA of not doing enough to punish polluters. That brought him some media attention, which he exploited by hitting the talk show and lecture circuit.
Don Clay, former head of the EPA Superfund Office, on Dec. 3, 1991, responded to a complaint about a Kaufman appearance on CNN, saying that he is "not a designated spokesperson for the agency," although as a private citizen he does "express his personal views on hazardous waste issues." Clay continued, "Please be assured that Mr. Kaufman is routinely advised to make it clear in his speaking and lecturing activities that he in no way represents agency policy or scientific positions." (News accounts sometimes give Kaufman titles such as "assistant to the director" which he does not have.)
His booking agent testified, "Appearances in so-called news organs pass for a kind of credential in the culture of the lecture business." Kaufman earned more than $80,000 for talks between 1983 and 1991. But a regulation imposed in 1991 barred Federal employees from accepting fees for speaking engagements. Kaufman sued unsuccessfully to have the regulation overturned.
His reputation as a loose cannon has not endeared him to his superiors in the Clinton administration anymore than it did during previous administrations. He has continued to draw his salary (GS-14, $81,217 tops) but has been given no official responsibilities. The Wall Street Journal reported on Dee. 13, 1993 that he had a tiny office and no official duties. It quoted him as saying that he never sees his boss. It said, "He spends his days chewing tobacco, ringing up local activists and typing memos to the EPA administrator..." In the Journal interview, Kaufman used the Yiddish word for "thief" in referring to President Clinton, called Vice President Gore a scatological term, and accused Texas Gov. Ann Richards of criminal activity, Alswang admitted having read this article before she sought out Kaufman.
Nonetheless, "TV Nation" identified Kaufman as being from the EPA, implying he was speaking for the agency. And he was a well-coached interviewee, Alswang's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Tydings asked whether she did not make sure "to say what you wanted him to say for the benefit of the program." She answered, "Absolutely not."
Tydings then read from a memorandum which Alswang sent to Kaufman. She wrote, "I realize I keep asking you to say the same thing over and over, but, hey, that's television." She continued: "Why is New York State not using the sludge that is going down to Texas? Obviously, this is where you can mention that the sludge is too toxic to pass New York State requirements. And if you could elaborate as to why it's a toxic, that would be great....What kind of company is Merco? Please say what you told me earlier, 'Merco is an illegal haul and dump operation masquerading as an environmentally correct business or something to that effecL' That is a great statement, and it really sums it up." That this "great statement" does grave damage to the truth seemed to be of no concern to Alswang.
Here is what Kaufman said about Merco on the air, "This hazardous material is not allowed to be disposed of, uh, or used, for beneficial use in the state of New York, and it's not allowed to be disposed of or used for beneficial use in Texas, either. So what you have is an illegal haul and dump operation masquerading as an environmentally beneficial project, and it's only a masquerade." Kaufman claimed that Merco tried to get permission for a dump site in Oklahoma and, after a year, failed, then went to Texas and "within 23 days they were able to...purchase the land and get all the approvals that they needed...at the expense of the people of that county."
Kaufman wound up the program with this indictment: "The fishes off of New York are being protected, the citizens and the land in New York are being protected, and the people in Texas are being poisoned. Something is rotten in Texas." But when questioned under oath, he admitted that he had no evidence to support this statement. Q: Mr. Kaufman, isn't it true that at the time you made your statements on TV Nation that Merco was poisoning the people of Texas, you had no medical evidence that anyone had been poisoned by Mereo? A: That's correct, sir. There is no medical evidence at this time of chronic health effects which could be expected from this amount of hazardous substances.
Kaufman admitted he had never visited the Sierra Blanca site. He had spoken to Robert Bastian, of the EPA's Office of Water, prior to the interview, and he was told that the engineering and technical aspects of the project were "good." But he refused to budge from his opinion that the Sierra Bianca deal was both illegal and harmful. He blamed his problems on superiors whom he accused of being lax enforcers of environmental laws. So why did "TV Nation" put on the air someone totally ignorant of the Merco deal? Alswang admitted that she deliberately sought out "an expert with a different opinion than Merco's regarding this issue."
Let us give Michael Moore credit for candor in one respect: he makes no pretense of objectivity. In his testimony he denied any direct role in producing the challenged segment, but defended its lack of fairness. He said, "I think one of the things the media tries to convince us of is that journalists don't have opinions, don't have feelings, don't have positions on things. I just think that's dishonest...Journalists in the media really should be more honest, I think, about the fact that they do have opinions and feelings..."
Michael Moore has a point there, but making no pretense of objectivity does not give Michael Moore the right to use his access to television to promote his opinions by recklessly disregarding the truth, injuring other people or organizations. A Texas jury, having found that Michael Moore's "TV Nation" did that, awarding damages of $5,000,002 to the plaintiff, may cool the interest of television moguls in this "hot property."
Send the enclosed cards or your own cards or letters to P. Anthony Ridder, Cong. Dan Burton and a publication of your choice. These choices are explained in the Notes.
AIM REPORT is published twice monthly by Accuracy In Media., 4455 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington DC 20008, and is free to AIM members. Membership dues are $25 a year. Dues and contributions to AIM are tax deductible. Corporate membership is $50.
AIM Report NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF
THIS REPORT, RESEARCHED AND WRITTEN BY JOE GOULDEN, IS KIND OF A HOLIDAY GIFT to all good media bashers, telling about one of the bad guys getting his comeuppance. Michael Moore made his reputation with a mendacious documentary, "Roger and Me," about a General Motors CEO. Recently a Texas jury decided that TriStar Television, the company responsible for the production and distribution of one of Moore' s more recent documentaries, should pay $5,000,002 in damages for libel. The $2 was for actual damages, and the $5 million was punitive. The plaintiff was Merco Joint Venture, the owner of a project to rehabilitate grazing land in southwest Texas by fertilizing it with sludge from New York City.
ABC NEWS IS THE TARGET OF A BIG SUIT FILED BY THE FOOD LION GROCERY CHAIN IN North Carolina. We wrote about this a year ago when Food Lion was gearing up to sue ABC. We told then how ABC News allowed itself to be used by the food workers union to air a smear that seriously damaged the reputation of this non-union chain. ABC charged that Food Lion was selling spoiled food that should have been discarded. Food Lion sued, charging that ABC had planted its own employees in a Food Lion store, where, according to the complaint, they secretly videotaped unsanitary practices that they themselves staged. With assistance from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, two ABC employees got jobs at a Food Lion store, using false resumes. Food Lion lawyers tell us that North Carolina law and court decisions take a dim view of persons who "serve two masters" under false pretenses. They decided to sue for fraud, deceptive trade practices, civil conspiracy and "breach of duty of loyalty," claiming damages of $1.7 billion.
FOOD LION IS NOT SUING FOR LIBEL, BUT IT MAINTAINS THAT THE ABC CHARGES WERE false. That escaped the attention of Sue Ann Pressley of The Washington Post, who wrote a story the day the trial opened in Greensboro, N.C., in which she said that the segment showed "workers doctoring spoiled meat and bleaching fish to remove unpleasant odors." The Post didn't report that the ABC fake workers violated Food Lion rules and orders to create evidence for their story. "Prime Time Live" aired footage shot with a tiny camera hidden in a bow in the hair of one of the ABC News employees. Food Lion claims that footage not shown by ABC shows the ABC fake workers violating the rules and videotaping the violations. Food Lion's charges against ABC have not received as much media attention as the original ABC charges against Food Lion. But on Dec. 15, The Washington Times ran an editorial giving the facts and concluding, "If Food Lion does succeed with its lawsuit, ABC News may just get a billion-dollar lesson in journalistic ethics." We will keep you posted on developments. The decision is not expected until late January.
THE CARDS AND LETTERS YOU SENT TO P. ANTHONY RIDDER ASKING HIM TO REPUDIATE the San Jose Mercury News series on the alleged role played by the CIA in introducing crack cocaine into the black community in Los Angeles have produced replies from Clark Hoyt, Knight-Ridder's vice president-news. Hoyt's personalized letters say, "The Mercury News reported that Nicaraguans with ties to the contras sold crack cocaine to a major drug dealer in South Central Los Angeles. Profits from the drug operation helped fund the contras, with whom the CIA was deeply involved. The stories did not conclude that the CIA introduced crack cocaine to the inner city of Los Angeles. Jerry Ceppos, the executive editor of the Mercury News, has said he regrets not inserting a paragraph high in the stories declaring that the newspaper did not establish direct CIA involvement or knowledge of the Nicaraguan drug operation. I think there can be a fair debate over whether the Mercury News implied, through language and presentation of the articles, more than they actually said." (my emphasis)
IT WAS NICE OF KNIGHT-RIDDER TO RESPOND INDIVIDUALLY TO ALL THOSE WHO WROTE. Some of you tell me you doubt that these cards and letters do any good, questioning whether they are even seen by the addressee. Several weeks ago Don Hewitt, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," wrote to chide me for having him inundated with all those cards you sent him. He even took the trouble to copy several of them to show me what he was talking about. Of course he didn't read them all, but from the CBS mailroom on up, a lot of people saw them and learned something about Don that he didn't like. That got under his skin. He's probably still getting cards, since we sent the report about him with the cards to thousands who have responded to our ads exposing the "60 Minutes" smear of Chris Ruddy. We have run these full-page ads in over 20 papers. The cards to be sent as letters to the editor can also be very effective. Mark Muylaert suggests that they are more likely to be printed if you copy them and add a few words of your own. He sent a clipping of just such a letter that he had printed in the Macomb (Mich.) Daily. That's a good idea. Rewriting the card as a letter, or even adding your personal comments at the bottom margin will increase its impact.
NOW TO GET BACK TO THE KNIGHT-RIDDER REPLY. CLARK HOYT AND ANTHONY RIDDER know that the only thing that gave Gary Webb's story legs was the strong implication that the CIA was behind Danilo Blandon's drug operation. Without that, this was a nothing story. Why would a story about a Nicaraguan drug dealer donating several thousand dollars of his profits to the Contras, the Sandinistas or the Democratic National Committee attract so much attention? The fact that a convicted drug dealer gave $20,000 to the DNC in 1995 would not have become national news if, Clinton's opponents in the campaign had not made a stink about this felon attending a White House Christmas party. The mistake made by Jerry Ceppos, the executive editor of the Mercury News, was not in failing to insert "a paragraph high in the stories declaring that the newspaper did not establish direct CIA involvement or knowledge of the Nicaraguan drug operation." His mistake was in running a series that gave the clear impression that there was such a connection when there was no credible evidence to support it.
THE THREE ARTICLES WERE TITLED "DARK ALLIANCE," AND THEY CARRIED A LOGO OF A sketch of a crack smoker imposed over the CIA seal. The paper published an editorial based on the series titled, "Another CIA Disgrace: Helping the Crack Flow." Where did the editors get that idea if not from Gary Webb's series? Why did AIM, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and The New York Times think it necessary to analyze Webb's voluminous but dubious "documentation" and other evidence to prove that there was no CIA involvement, if it was so obvious that no CIA involvement had been alleged? Why did so many black Congressmen, columnists and radio talk show hosts fly into a tizzy about the "wicked CIA?" Why have Congressional investigations been demanded and launched? Why did the Director of Central Intelligence allow himself to be subjected to questioning and hectoring by a hostile crowd in South Central Los Angeles if the Mercury News had never created the impression that the CIA was up to its ears in pushing drugs? Hoyt says there can be a "fair debate" over whether the articles conveyed the wrong impression. It would be pretty one-sided. Even the Nation magazine published an article by CIA-basher David Corn, saying that "the paper went too far, claiming without solid proof that 'millions' flowed from these mid-level dealers--it may have been $50,000--and in tying these traffickers to the rise of crack, a phenomenon bigger than a mere two pushers." And on Dec. 11, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department released a 3600-page report on its investigation. It found zero evidence of any U.S. government or CIA involvement in drug dealing in L. A. and nothing to support charges that there had been any cover-up. It concluded, "This case is closed."
GARY WEBB HAS CLAIMED THAT OTHER JOURNALISTS AND TALK SHOW HOSTS TOOK THE story further than he intended, that he "never pretended" that the CIA introduced crack into the inner cities. But after saying that to The Washington Post, he went on the Montel Williams Show where he was allied with those who blamed the CIA against Joe Goulden, the only one of the five guests who disputed the allegation. Knight-Ridder must now take responsibility for quenching the fire that the articles in the Mercury News ignited. Those who started it should be required to make a full retraction and submit their resignations.
WHAT YOU CAN DO -- Enclosed is a second card to P. Anthony Ridder and a card you may send to the editor of your choice. We are also enclosing a card to Dan Burton, the new chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, who has assured me that he will investigate Foster's death. Bob Novak reports that he "has no intention of revisiting the case." I'm checking on this.
PATTI LASKY'S NAME IS NOT ON THE LIST OF STAFFERS SENDING YOU HOLIDAY GREETINGS because Patti, the widow of Victor Lasky and my secretary for the past decade, retired in October and is now basking in the Florida sun. That, together with trying out some new printers, accounts for the rash of goofs, typos and some of the delay in getting out the November reports. We do miss her.