HOT AIR ALL TALK ALL THE TIME: AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE PERFORMERS AND THE PUNDITS

James Kilpatrick has described the practice of lawmakers ac cepting lucrative speaking fees as nothing less than a "scandal." "Members of the House and Senate ... accept invitations to speak to a trade association or other special-interest group, the conservative columnist writes. "The member, often accompanied by his wife, goes to such agreeable spots as Boca Raton or Honolulu, makes a little talk, and picks up a check for $2,000 plus travel expenses ... The practice smells to high heaven."

Soon after that column was published, Kilpatrick, a regular on Agronsky &Company, was asked about his own practice of giving twenty to twenty-five paid speeches a year. "I think that's my own personal business," he declared, apparently failing to detect any unsavory odor from Journalists taking corporate cash.

Kilpatrick is hardly alone in hiding behind such an embarrassing double standard. While Congress has since banned honoraria for its members, the market for reporters and pundits who speak to business audiences has never been hotter. Some big-name media people routinely receive $15,000, $30,000, even $50,000 for a single speech. And the bulk of that money comes from corporations and lobbying organizations with more than a passing interest in the issues the Journalists write about and yak about for a living.

The talk show culture is built upon a mountain of cash. The programs themselves, which cost little to produce, are quite profitable for their owners, bringing in plenty of advertising dollars from the likes of Ford and General Electric and Archer-Daniels-Midland. And they are extraordinarily profitable for the superstars of talk: Rush Limbaugh earns an estimated $25 million a year, Howard Stern a cool $7 million, Ted Koppel $6 million, Larry King $4 million, Don Imus $3 million, Sam Donaldson $2 million. Oprah Winfrey, who owns her syndicated show, could buy and sell her competitors several times over. Her net worth is roughly $340 million.

Yet even below these stratospheric levels, the talk show world bestows all sorts of financial rewards. While the journalists appear either for free or for a few hundred dollars per program, the television exposure is a gateway to the good life. Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman, a regular on WashIngton Week, is hired to speak to a group of lawyers on a twelve-day cruise from the Netherlands to Russia. Other WashIngton Week regulars-Paul Duke, Charlie McDowell, Jack Nelson-take all-expenses-paid luxury cruises to such places as Hong Kong and Singapore, organized by a Florida travel agency. "It's an easy way to visit a lot of places," Duke says.

Margaret Carlson, the Time columnist, says her speaking fee doubled (to about $10,000) after she became a weekly member of The Capital Gang. "I just got on the gravy train, so I don't want it to end," she says. But her Time colleague, Hugh Sidey, who once made up to fifty speeches a year, says his lecture income all but vanished when he stopped appearing regularly on Agronsky &Company.

"If you're on one of these shows and then you're off, in six months your lecture money is gone," Jack Germond says. At the very least, the issue of journalists taking money from interest groups would seem a legitimate subject for public debate. Yet here is how these champions of the First Amendment, who have relentlessly poked and pried their way into other people's business, have responded to questions about their paid speaking engagements:
"We are private citizens," says David Brinkley.
"I'm not an elected official," says Fred Barnes.
"I'm a totally private person," says Robert Novak.
"I'm a private citizen," says Chris Wallace.
"I'm not an elected official," says Gloria Borger.
"I'm not going to disclose it," says Al Hunt.
"I don't exercise the power of the state," says George Will.
"A private matter," says Robert MacNeil.
"That's private," says Hugh Sidey.
"I didn't do it for years, but it became more socially acceptable," says Michael Kinsley.
Indeed it has, at least within the insular and self-serving world of talk show journalism. But many readers and viewers would no doubt be appalled at the web of potential conflicts of interest. And some members of Congress are downright angry that those who piously demand full disclosure from politicians insist that they get to play by a different set of rules.

"Their audience deserves to know if they pick up a fat check from a group they report on," says Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson. "It applies to Congress, and it sure as hell ought to apply to this elite press corps in Washington."

"What I find most offensive lately," says Representative David Obey of Wisconsin, "is that we get the Sanctimonious Sam defense: 'We're different because we don't write the laws.' Well, they have a hell of a lot more power than I do to affect the laws written."

By the summer of 1995, the resentment of journalistic buckrakers had reached new heights. West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who had denounced reporters as "vultures" and buzzards" after being ambushed outside his Virginia home by a PrimeTime Live crew, decided to get even. He introduced a resolution that reporters who receive credentials to cover the Senate should be required to reveal their outside income in financial disclosure forms. After stubbornly resisting voluntary disclosure for years, reporters had left themselves vulnerable to a maneuver that amounted to government licensing of journalists. Not a single senator spoke up on behalf of the press. The nonbinding resolution passed, 60 to 39.

In an age of instant communications, it is disingenuous at best for the nation's most prominent talking heads to claim they have little impact on public policy. Who are they kidding? They eagerly reap the benefits of fame, sell themselves on the lecture circuit, and then claim that they are merely working reporters with no public obligations.

The spectacle of pundits pocketing large sums for little work raises another, equally insidious problem: They lose touch with the vast majority of their audience. Many are now in income brackets that would have been unthinkable a generation ago, before the unholy union of journalism and televised entertainment. Although the pontificators vehemently deny it, this privileged status invariably skews their view of the world. They are part of the moneyed class, just like the people they report on.

When President Clinton raised income taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers in 1993, most of the talking heads took a hit. They were personally affected by a policy that had no affect on most Americans. This may have contributed to the widespread misimpression, confirmed in poll after poll, that Clinton had raised taxes on the middle class. If taxes have gone up for you and all your friends, it's easy to get the idea that just about everyone is paying more.

When health care reform was at the top of the national agenda, many commentators argued that there was no health care crisis--and indeed, for them and their well-heeled colleagues, there was not. They did not worry about rising premiums, or preexisting conditions, or losing health benefits after losing a job. The problems of the thirty-seven million Americans without insurance were simply alien to their experience.

When the NAFTA trade pact was languishing in Congress, pundits across the political spectrum, from George Will to Michael Kinsley, rallied behind it, secure in the knowledge that they would not be among the factory employees or textile workers who might lose their jobs. It is easy to be for an abstraction--free trade--when the pain is inflicted on faraway individuals outside your professional and social circles. No television network was going to pull up stakes and move to Mexico for the cheap labor.

Public education is another issue much debated by TV commentators whose kids are safely ensconced in pricey private schools. When Clinton put his daughter Chelsea in Sidwell Friends, a $10,000-a-year private school in northwest Washington, rather than one of the capital's public schools, the punditocracy rushed to his defense. Mark Shields praised Sidwell on MacNeil / Lehrer, but had to admit that his children went there, as did Jim Lehrer's. Al Hunt supported Clinton's move on Capital Gang, but had to make the same disclosure. Carl Rowan, whose grandchildren attended the school, did the same on Inside Washingto . So much for the voice of the little guy.

It's not that these journalists have a pressing need to moonlight; they are already raking in big piles of dough. Those who are ferried bv limousine to five-figure speaking engagements are making themselves even more remote from the working stiffs of America.

"It's hard to imagine being paid $20,000 for a speech," says Paul Emerson, managing editor of the Lewiston, Idaho, Tribune. "That's more than some of our reporters make in a year.

He has invited me to lunch at Charley's Crab, a fancy eatery on Washington's Connecticut Avenue, to explain that despite his millionaire's salary and 27,000-acre New Mexico ranch, his daily life is pretty much like anyone else's. Unfortunately for Donaldson, the maitre d' walks over at that moment with a complimentary seafood hors d'oeuvre.

Whatever his tax bracket, Donaldson remains one of the hardest-working reporters around. But fairly or unfairly, he has become a symbol of the wealth of the talk show aristocracy. Through his television fame, first as a White House correspondent for ABC and later as coanchor of Prime Time Live and a Brinkley panelist, Donaldson is much in demand on the speaking circuit.

In the spring of 1993, PrimeTime Live aired a report on a congressional junket to Florida sponsored by the Electronic Industries Association. ABC executives were rather embarrassed when it turned out that Donaldson had accepted a speaking fee from the same group.

In early 1994, the spotlight fell on Donaldson again just as PrimeTime was gearing up for another of its patented junket stories. This one involved a trip to Key West, Florida, for thirty congressional staff members, courtesy of the American Insurance Association and other insurance groups. Two days before the report was to air, insurance officials decided to launch a preemptive strike. They leaked me a contract showing that Donaldson had accepted an honorarium the previous year from an insurance coalition that included,

yes, the American Insurance Association. He received first-class air fare for the speech at New York's Waldorf-Astoria, along with hotel accommodations and limousine service. His fee: $30,000.

Donaldson found himself in the awkward position of explaining why it was news when the insurance group paid for a trip for some Capitol Hill staffers, but perfectly kosher for him to accept a large check from the same folks.

"I was not beholden to them, and they were not beholden to me," Donaldson told me. "I of course do not make the laws under which the insurance industry operates. I have not spoken about the laws affecting the insurance industry on the Brinkley show or in any of my pieces."

Paul Equale, senior vice president of the Independent Insurance Agents of America, pounced on the issue in his taped interview with PrimeTime correspondent Chris Wallace. Equale even had his own camera crew tape the interview for protection. "The total cost for the conference, the two-and-a-half-day conference including air fare and hotel, was about the same amount of money for the one-hour speech from Sam Donaldson to the same group last year," he told Wallace.

"It was about $30,000," Equale said. Those remarks, for some strange reason, were left on the cutting-room floor. Wallace briefly mentioned Donaldson's speaking engagement in his piece, but not the $30,000 figure.

Donaldson, who was giving a half dozen speeches a year, dismissed such arguments as "a smoke screen. We're going to continue to investigate people and groups whether I've spoken to them or not. Raising my name is not going to deter PrimeTime from doing this type of investigation."

The hand-wringing over the issue has gone too far, he says. "Suddenly there's a view that all of us making these high-money speeches are discrediting ourselves, and there's a great wave to reform," Donaldson says. But he concedes that "appearances can be reality. I've covered politics long enough to understand that."

The breathtaking level of Donaldson's compensation took on larger-than-life dimensions as critics began to wonder which other talkers were talking their way into big money. My stories in The Washington Post triggered similar reports in The New Yorker, American Journalism Review, and The Wall Street Journal. Donaldson, it turns out, has plenty of company. Pat Buchanan earns $10,000 a speech. William Safire, the New York Times columnist and frequent Meet the Press panelist, takes in $20,000 a speech. Cokie Roberts's fee is at least $20,000; she is said to have earned $300,000 a year from speechifying. Mike Wallace fetches $25,000 a speech. Rush Limbaugh commands a $30,000 fee. Larry King receives $50,000 for each appearance, pulling in at least a million bucks a year.

"Norman Schwarzkopf says it's white-collar crime," King says, referring to the retired general who made it big on the lecture circuit.

Booking agencies, which take a commission of 10 to 15 percent, have taken notice. "Once you get one of those regular guest slots, your rates go up dramatically," says Susan Stautberg, whose New York firm, Master Media, has a speaker's bureau. "People want you. You can say 'as seen on David Brinkley or Washington Week.' It just makes them more credible." Fees can shoot up from $5,000 to $20,000 overnight, she says.

But Stautberg is frustrated by groups that insist on seeing a videdeotape of the speaker's last TV appearance. "We have some remarkable authors who are brilliant, but because they don't have the same kind of tape as someone on Oprah, they're harder to book," she says.

For the kings and queens of talk, television success seemed to confer the stature of world leaders. A glossy brochure touting the Kennedy Center lecture series for the 1995-96 season invited patrons to pony up $195 to hear George and Barbara Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Queen Noor of Jordan, and ... Oprah Winfrey.

For journalists, the financial logic is irresistible. That's why Chris Matthews of the San Francisco Examiner, who hosts a nightly show, Politics with Chris Matthews on America's Talking, made more than forty speeches in 1993. He does less speaking now but takes in $5,000 to $6,000 per appearance. "My salary at my newspaper is $71,000," Matthews explains. "I have fifty-three papers carrying my column; that's about $13,000, $15,000. It's prestigious as hell, but that's it. Three speeches matches your syndicated column income.

For some pundits, the lecture circuit can become a constant preoccupation. When David Gergen was a MacNeil / Lehrer commentator and U.S. News columnist, he was paid $466,625 for 121 speeches in 1992. He pulled in another $239,460 for 50 speeches in the first half of 1993.

The list of Gergen's benefactors reads like a who's who of cor- porate America: the American Stock Exchange ($12,000), American Trucking Association ($10,000), Cosmetics and Toiletries Associa- tion ($7,000), Grocery Manufacturers Association ($6,500), Snack Food Association ($6,500), Edison Electric Institute ($6,500), American Bankers Association ($6,000), Chase Manhattan Bank ($6,000), and Salomon Brothers ($6,000), to name just a few. "It was an important part of my income," Gergen says.

What's more, IBM paid Gergen more than $55,000 over two years for ten separate appearances in places ranging from New York to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Palm Springs, California. "The attraction in having David Gergen speak is his background in Washington and his expertise in public policy," says IBM spokesman Tom Beermann.

Needless to say, most of these groups have important interests in the political issues that Gergen was regularly discussing on MacNeil / Lehrer, on other shows such as Face the Nation, and on Mutual radio and Washington's WMAL radio. And yet he must ask the public to believe that taking $55,000 from IBM had absolutely no effect on his public views--an assertion that would be laughable if made by a politician.

The ambitious nature of Gergen's moneymaking travels underscores the paradox of the talk show culture. The journalists who rise to prominence through their writing and reporting gradually find they have less time for the unglamorous work on which they built their reputations. The pursuit of journalism begins to take a backseat to the pursuit of lucrative opportunities.

Gergen sounds a bit guilt-ridden on this point. "Doing too many speeches can have a negative impact on your journalism," he concedes. "You're on a plane a lot. Particularly on television, it's possible to fake it. You can skim right over the surface without doing the legwork. You become an actor, an entertainer. If you get too heavily into the dog show business and the lecture business, you can call yourself a journalist, but in fact you're not. You don't feel good about yourself. I've done it. I know you can fake it.

"There is a corrupting influence. Just the physical demands on your body, to go from here to L.A. or Vegas or Florida on a Tuesday and give a speech Wednesday and then do a show on Friday. You stay at a ritzy hotel. You shut people out. You just talk to these well-groomed, well-heeled business folks. You're traveling in a bubble. It tends to encourage a pro-establishment viewpoint. You're talking to the establishment, you're with them a lot."

During the first two years of the Clinton administration, no issue was higher on the national agenda than health care reform. And the largest health care organizations, which had a huge stake in the outcome, were funneling large amounts of cash to some of the very journalists who were covering and commenting on the debate.

One recipient was Fred Barnes, who gives six to eight speeches a month, most of them for a $5,000 fee. Barnes is a regular on CBS This Morning as well as McLaughlin, fills in on Crossfire, hosts a syndicated radio show and a Voice of America program. "If you do a lot of TV and speeches, you have less time to commit real journalism, " he admits.

Here's how the process works. In the spring of 1993, when Washington was abuzz about the need for health reform, Barnes declared on McLaughlin that the notion of a health care crisis was overblown. After seeing the McLaughlin segment, Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, managing editor of The American Spectator, called to ask Barnes to write a piece on the subject for the conservative magazine. As the idea gained currency in Republican circles, Barnes expanded his indictment, saying in a piece for Forbes MediaCritic that the calls for sweeping health reform were based on "media-generated myths." Republican analysts like Bill Kristol and Republican members of Congress began to embrace the argument that there was no crisis. In the fall of 1994, the American Managed Care and Review Association, which represents health maintenance organizations, flew Barnes to Atlanta to deliver a keynote speech to its members. The talk show spiel eventually produced the lecture circuit invitation.

"Maybe they want me to come because I'm on television." Barnes sees no problem with undue influence because, he says, "I work for an opinion magazine."

Officials at the managed care association say they don't agree with everything Barnes says on health care but liked his outspoken commentary on McLaughlin. "We were also trying to get his perspective on working with the media and how to get the managed-care message out," says Steven Gardner, the group's director of education. "That was part of our discussion. Knowing of his savvy, we wanted to get some pointers."

During the height of the health care battle, George Will went to Washington's Grand Hyatt Hotel to speak to the Health Insurance Association of America, maker of the famed "Harry and Louise" ads attacking the Clinton health plan. Will, too, has argued that complaints about a health care crisis are vastly exaggerated. "No one can seem to think of a better system than ours, and it's hard to define what this crisis is when, I guess, 80 percent of the American people say they're satisfied with their health care," he said on Brinkley.

Will says his receipt of industry cash "doesn't make a particle of difference in what I'm saying" and that his speeches are not "tailored" to any group. "Virtually everything I say in my talks has appeared in what I've written."

During the same period, Mike Kinsley and Margaret Carlson flew to San Francisco to address a gathering of the American Medical Association. Kinsley says he donated the fee to charity--not because he thought there was a problem, but because I might "pester" him about it in The Washington Post. Kinsley also split $25,000 with Bob Novak and Mona Charen for speaking to the Independent Insurance Agents of America at Disney World's Dolphin Hotel. And, in a Crossfire roadshow, Kinsley, John Sununu, and Juan Williams appeared before the Group Health Association of America, arguing about health care.

"It's potentially corrupting, but so is everything," Kinsley savs. He abides by "a series of perverse rules," such as refusing to speak to college audiences. "If the corporations want to shell out this kind of money, that's the stockholders' problem," he says. "But I resent the money coming from student fees."

Cokie Roberts joined the long line of journalists appearing before the health care industry when she addressed the Group Health Association. But the health care issue was growing so hot that she decided to donate her fee to a Princeton medical center named for her late sister. "I realized it could be construed as a problem and said, 'Don't even bother sending me the money' I didn't want anybody to question it," Roberts says.

Health care lobbyists have no monopoly on writing checks to moonlighting journalists. Cokie Roberts has spoken to the Amerlcan Automobile Association, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, National Restaurant Association, and Snack Food Association. She and her husband, Steve Roberts of U.S. News, were paid a reported $45,000 by Chicago's Northern Trust Bank for appearing at a cocktail party, breakfast, and luncheon.

Roberts says all the publicity about honoraria has clearly created "a perception problem. But I do not know of a living soul who has slanted a story, done a story, or not done a story because of speaking fees.

"It's like when I would sing for a living," she says, recalling her college days in an all-female a cappella group. "You are hired to entertain. You show up, you entertain, you go away. They're looking for celebrity value."

Roberts, whose parents both served in Congress, sees no analogy to congressional honoraria because she reports to ABC executives, not the taxpayers. Still, she says, "If it's going to cause everyone a lot of trouble, it's better not to do it. I don't like being the center of controversy. I didn't run for office. I'm the only one in my family who didn't."

Steve Roberts, for his part, says U.S. News has an in-house speech agent who makes such bookings because they are good publicity for the magazine. He says he occasionally gives his fee to charity when he believes he has a conflict of interest, as he did in donating about $2,000 for speaking at an upstate New York forum sponsored by Representative Sherwood Boehlert. And, Roberts says, it puts him in contact with real people outside the Beltway.

"It's a classic free market," says Roberts, whose speaking gigs have included American Express and the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives. "I've often compared giving speeches to having a little stall in a souk in Damascus. Why do Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer and Cokie Roberts make fees five to ten times what someone like me commands? Because they're on TV. It's not that they're ten times smarter than me. They're ten times more famous than I am. And there is the bragging rights factor: 'Gosh, we had Cokie Roberts for dinner.' "

This celebrity factor has clearly boosted Larry King, who gives thirty-five speeches each year. He has spoken to the restaurant association and the chain drug store group, moderated a panel for IBM and another for a doctors' group. In one two-week stretch, King traveled to San Francisco, Baltimore, and Milwaukee for speaking engagements. A speech in Paris before an international pharmaceutical group brought in $60,000. And King keeps the cash register ringing without a prepared text. "I 'ust do shriek, tell stories," he says.

The schedule can be taxing. During the 1992 campaign, King did his CNN program with President Bush on a Sunday and had an interview scheduled with Bill Clinton the following night in Ocala, Florida. In between he picked up some extra cash, stopping in Michigan for a speech to a women's garden club. He had to rent a private plane to get to the Clinton interview on time.

One of the most popular forms of entertainment for business groups is mock debates that mimic those on television. The McLaughlin Group, Crossfire, and Capital Gang have all taken their shows on the road. Margaret Carlson, who has joined Bob Novak and Mark Shields before paying audiences, says the result is more outlandish than what people see on the air. "These fake wrestling matches are really phony," she says. "You tend to speak in absolutes and end up further to one side than you really are." In an unforgettable metaphor, she declared: "We are like monkeys who get up on stage." Carlson's act was curtailed in 1995 when Time banned its reporters from accepting corporate speaking fees.

John McLaughlin heatedly rejects any criticism of his moonlighting as "laughable." He has made as many as eighty speeches a year, although by 1994 he had cut back to a mere seventeen engage-

ments. These include the McLaughlin Group road shows and mock programs, such as one with members of the American Bankers Association, where he quizzed the bankers on financial issues as if they were panelists on his show. McLaughlin's rationale is rather inventive: He takes so much special-interest cash that it means nothing because he can hardly remember who gave it to him.

"I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of different groups," he says. "I can't remember one from the other. I've got an appearance coming up next week, and I don't know who it is. It becomes a blur. The blurring sets in within six hours of leaving the site. Then it goes into a black hole.

"The underlying reason for the criticism is that we are going to slant, to distort, to trim, or otherwise modify our journalistic reporting by reason of having been paid a fee from an organization whose name, purpose, structure, and membership we can't remember. It's farcical."

The road shows even extend to network shows. Tim Russert has staged a mock session of Meet the Press before the American Bankers Association, with Senator Bob Dole and Robert Rubin, then the White House economic adviser, as his guests. Russert, whose reported fee was $20,000, says he turns down one hundred speaking invitations a year from groups because of conflicts of interest and accepts only half a dozen. He doesn't see the banking ap-

pearance as a conflict because he didn't ask Dole and Rubin about banking. "Whatever I share is something I've said on the air," he said. "It's an honest reflection of what I do. If they had said, 'Here are the questions we want you to ask,' I wouldn't have done it."

Russert savs he cannot avoid all entanglement with corporations because Meet the Press sells commercial time. "We have Archer-Daniels-Midland, United Airlines, and General Electric as sponsors," he says. Nevertheless, he says, "We did a story on Archer-Daniels and their political contributions on NBC Nightly News."

Mark Shields, who writes a syndicated column in addition to his television work, makes well over thirty speeches a year. "I don't have an institutional base," he says. "I have to pay for rent at the National Press Building, a secretary, a phone. The economics are such that that can't sustain me. The television leads to speaking, and that enables you to report. I have a speech in San Diego soon, and I'm doing a California piece. I've got a Boston speech, and I'll tie that into two days in New Hampshire."

Shields says he won't take money from political parties and won't accept an engagement "if someone says we want to talk about how this Congress is going to deal with roofing and asphalt contractors. I don't feel I'm singing for my supper. What they're getting for their money is someone who makes them think and maybe even makes them laugh."

While Shields draws the line at political organizations, such groups have found other places to rent journalistic talent. In 1990, Bob Novak and Mort Kondracke made a joint appearance before the Republican Governors Association in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Kondracke was paid $4,000 plus expenses; Novak declined to reveal his fee. After addressing the governors, Novak wrote a column about the conference. He later acknowledged that perhaps he should have told his readers he had been a paid speaker.

(In my own case, I have made a handful of speeches over the years, usually for $500 or $1,000. My current rule, and the rule of my employer, is not to accept invitations from corporations or lobbying groups, which means I speak once or twice a year at universities and turn down many more.)

ances. Walter Cronkite, who took money for speeches when he was anchoring the CBS Evening News, says he never thought much about it. Now, he says, "I would have to agree with the critics that it probably is better avoided." It is, says Cronkite, "a perception issue."

The Big Three network anchors-Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw-either accept no honoraria or donate the money to charity. They can, of course, well afford to take the high road. A few other top television journalists, such as Ted Koppel and Jim Lehrer, have abandoned the lecture circuit.

Koppel says his speaking invitations soared after he started doing Nightline. To get the biggest bang for the buck, he recalls telling his agent: "Instead of doing speeches for $10,000, let's see what happens when we ask for fifteen. Make it twenty. Make it twenty-five. Make it thirty." Each time, the requests kept pouring in.

Koppel stopped making paid speeches a half dozen years ago after one group offered him a $50,000 fee. "I began to feel uncomfortable about it," he says. "No one who makes $18,000 a year is ever going to believe that someone can get $30,000 for a couple of hours' work and not be influenced in some fashion by the people giving him that much money. It would be superhuman. In truth, it is different. If you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, then your $30,000 fee is more or less equivalent to someone making $18,000 getting a gift of twenty bucks. It's not as big a thing as it seems to be. In all the years that I did speeches for money, I can honestly say that no one ever called up before, or tried during or afterward, to say, 'How about doing a story on the Lumberman's Association of America?' Or, 'I was sort of disappointed, Ted, I thought you and I had become friends down there in Gainesville and I was a little disappointed at your take on the lobbying we're doing.' Not even close. But with the level of public mistrust in us where it is ... Lord knows I'm well enough paid that I don't need anything from anyone else."

Still, some news executives don't see a problem. Says Ed Turner, the CNN vice president who must approve his employees' speaking engagements: "I don't like to say no. I'm proud when our guys can pick up a few extra bucks, and it's good exposure for CNN."

But that exposure can lead to embarrassment when a journalist lends his professional prestige to the companies he covers. Lou Dobbs, CNN's senior vice president and the host of Moneyline and Moneyweek, has accepted more than $15,000 for making promotional videos for Paine Webber, Shearson Lehman Brothers, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. In the Paine Webber video, he praised the brokerage for its "twin traditions of integrity and client service." Dobbs failed to grasp what was wrong with the arrange-

ment. After The Wall Street Journal disclosed the deals, he told me: "It is nonsensical to talk about this as a conflict of interest any more than giving a speech to a corporation, and journalists all over the country do that." (Dobbs had a point: The same Journal article had to disclose that the paper's page-one editor at the time, James Stewart, had been paid $6,000 for a speech to Dean Witter Reynolds.) CNN quickly reprimanded Dobbs, who returned the money and apologized for his "arrogance."

In radio, where many hosts court advertisers and read commercials on the air, there is often less sensitivity to questions of financial impropriety. In 1991 ten top radio talkme'sters Jetted to Alaska on an all-expenses-paid trip, courtesy of the American Petroleum Institute. The cost of the junket was $20,000. Yet the hosts breezily dismissed suggestions that they might be compromised in any way by two days of industry propaganda on the virtues of Alaskan oil drilling.

"The only problem in mv mind would be appearance," said Mike Siegel of KING in Seattle, whose station decided to reimburse the lobbying group. "I've been in this business twenty years. Nobody can buy my opinion."

"I don't see myself as a journalist in the purest sense," said Mary Beal of KNSS in Wichita.

"I don't understand what the big goddamn fuss is ... I'm a talk show host. I give opinions," said Patrick Murphy of WNIS in Norfolk.

The only network that has belatedly adopted a hard line on the issue of journalists speaking for pay is ABC. In 1995 the network imposed a restrictive policy drawn up by Richard Wald, its senior vice president and ethics czar. In a memo to the staff, Wald said that a few correspondents, "either because of the frequency or the size of their fees, in fact have a second, high-income job ...

"We don't tilt what we say to please any special interest, we don't sell special access in the guise of fees--and we don't want to risk looking as though we do ... It isn't just how big a fee is, it is also who gives it and what it might imply. Therefore, rather than get into the details of what reasonable men and women might do, we have decided on a general prohibition against the core of the problem. You may not accept a fee from a trade association or from a for-profit business. Their special interest is obvious and we have to guard against it."

The memo was about as popular as a communicable disease at ABC's Washington bureau, where most of the big-name correspondents work. Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, David Brinkley, Brit Hume, and Jeff Greenfield were among those who signed a letter objecting to the ban.

Greenfield says, with some justification, that drawing a clear ethical line is difficult. "The whole idea of avoiding conflicts of interest is exactly right," he says. "When you start trying to figure out what is and what isn't, it gets really tricky. You can speak to nonprofit groups-they don't have a legislative agenda? They lobby all the time."

At an annual all-star talkathon in Bakersfield, California, the speakers one year included Sam Donaldson, George Will, Larry King, Mike Wallace, and Peter Jennings, along with Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Ross Perot, Colin Powell, Rich Little, and Paul Anka. This is perfectly permissible under ABC rules because the town, which charges guests $125 a ticket, is the sponsor. Yet Bakersfield probably has as much interest in what happens in Congress as the American Banking Association.

And there were ways around the ban. In 1995 Cokie Roberts made a $30,000 speech to the junior League of Greater Fort Lauderdale, which Wald approved because it is a civic group. But the money was actually put up by JM Family Enterprises, a $4 billion firm that includes the largest independent American distributor of Toyotas. Roberts says she was never told where the money came from and that most nonprofit organizations, including her other employer, National Public Radio, have corporate underwriters.

And there were always exceptions. When Good Morning America became part of ABC's news division, cohost Joan Lunden was allowed to continue her lucrative endorsement deal with Vaseline and to peddle her line of exercise videos.

The Wald policy doesn't address other forms of income, such as stock holdings by network executives that could easily run into millions of dollars. "Should I be allowed to own fifty thousand shares of General Motors stock?" Donaldson asks. "The rules say I can. You extend the logic and you'd proscribe everything but Treasury bills. And maybe even those, since I report on government activities."

In fact, as ABC had to report in 1995, Donaldson does more than report on government; he receives help from the government. He has pocketed $97,000 in federal wool and mohair subsidies for the sheep on his New Mexico ranch. While perfectly legal, these payments have taken a bit of the punch out of his reports on government waste. The master of the ambush interview was later ambushed himself by Steve Wilson of Inside Edition, who sheared Donaldson over the sheep money. And on Brinkley one morning, when Donaldson was sparring with Newt Gingrich about perks for congressmen, Gingrich shot back that the House doesn't have "very many magnates of mohair."

At bottom, the defense of journalists who speak for money goes something like this: I am just a private person who wields no official power. What I do on my own time is my own business. I have no obligation to disclose my outside earnings to anyone. These payments do not influence what I write or say in any way. No one from these interest groups has ever asked me for a favor. I cannot be bought for the price of a speech.

There is little doubt that these renowned journalists really believe this line of argument. And there is no hard evidence that any of them has pulled a punch or slanted a story in exchange for a financial one-night stand. But corruption can be a subtle thing. The more time you spend with lobbyists and corporate officials, the more you come to identify with their worldview. It may be easier not to pursue a complicated story about an industry after you have taken the industry's money, if only to avoid potential criticism. At $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 a pop, your lecture schedule becomes as vital as your journalistic duties. And the hypocrisy question is unavoidable, for when it comes to politicians and businessmen, most journalists believe that the appearance of a conflict of interest is as troublesome as an actual one. They ought to hold themselves to precisely the same appearance standard. And the appearance of what many pundits are doing, to borrow a pungent phrase from Jack Kilpatrick, "smells to high heaven."

In a larger sense, the lure of fat lecture fees is quietly altering the fabric of journalism. The dozens of talking heads trying to get more airtime must conform to the demands of the medium for short, snappy, provocative opinions. They must market themselves as colorful personalities. They must strike a pose of negativity and cynicism toward the political system that, as it happens, is shared by many of the business groups looking for speakers. It's little wonder that the airwaves are filled with the sound of bombastic arguments and predictions and outrages of the week. Most of the players are also auditioning for a better-paying audience.

porters from appearing on television. An occasional stint on Meet the Press or Washington Week was permissible, but anything more was viewed with disdain.

Executive Editor Joseph Lelyveld told the staff in a 1993 memo that the Times had hired a public relations firm "to try to place some of our writers on TV and radio interview shows as a means of promoting the paper." The Times also launched its own nightly interview program on the New York 1 cable network. Publishing a high-quality newspaper was no longer enough. The triumph of the talk show culture was complete.

Steve Roberts, who left the Times in part because he wanted to appear more regularly on television, says the paper "always had a very retrograde view that television was stealing something the Times owned ... It came from an institutional snobbism. The Times thought they were better than TV."

No one believes that anymore. The Chicago Tribune has hired a TV coach to work with its reporters. Time and Newsweek pay their writers cash bonuses of $50 to $100 for each television or radio interview. Newsweek even boasts in a promotional ad-featuring Eleanor Clift, Howard Fineman, Evan Thomas, Jonathan Alter, and Joe Klein on various shows-that "TV news organizations turn to Newsweek for expertise." When Tina Brown moved from Vanity Fair to The New Yorker, she brought along her publicist, Maurie Perl, to help generate the buzz that Brown considers crucial to the magazine's success. And the way to create buzz is to get New Yorker writers on Good Morning America or Larry King Live or Charlie Rose.

"I try to push the writers out there because I want attention for the articles," says Brown, who has herself been profiled on 60 Minutes. "We can't deny this helps sell magazines."

That is now the accepted wisdom. "This is not just about stuffed-shirt pundits and their own self-aggrandizement," a Time official says. "This is becoming a large way in which news organizations market themselves. It's purely about image building. Before we had a PR department, Margaret Carlson sat in a dusty office and did no TV."

Once they get a taste of television fame, some reporters abandon print journalism altogether. Julie Johnson, after occasionally filling in on Brinkley, jumped from Time to ABC. Margaret Warner, who was a regular on Capital Gang, switched from Newsweek to MacNeil / Lehrer. Michel McQueen, a frequent panelist on Washington Week, moved from The Wall Street Journal to Day One. Gwen Ifill, another Washington Week regular, quit The New York Times for NBC. "You make stars out of these people and they leave you," the Time official sniffs.

Fledgling pundits start out on C-SPAN, where they can practice their delivery in a low-pressure environment and the only compensation is a coffee mug emblazoned with the network logo. The talented ones work their way up to midlevel pontification on CNN, CNBC, or PBS. The glibbest of the glib might get a coveted invitation to appear on Nightline, Meet the Press, or Face the Nation.

Sue Ducat, the Washington Week producer, says reporters determined to get on the prestigious program regularly call her or fax her clips. The Chicago Tribune's publicist was constantly calling, at least until Ducat made her displeasure known after booking a reporter who turned out to have a serious speech impediment. "Being on Washington Week enhances their credibility within their own bureaus," Ducat says. "Bureau chiefs call me all the time to hawk people, including themselves. If they're on TV, boom! Suddenly their sources will call them back faster. And it's money. The lecture agents monitor shows like ours. Our show is often a recruiting ground for shows like Meet the Press."

Journalistic calculations are affected by the need to keep the publicity machine humming. Clarence Page, the Chicago Tribune columnist, says he left Chicago for Washington several years ago to enhance his visibility. "One of the reasons I moved, quite frankly, was to get more exposure on the talk shows," he says. "It's pundit heaven here. It helps me to sell my column. In modern society you only exist if you're on television." As for speeches, for which Page charges $5,000 to $6,000, he says: "Before I started getting a lot of McLaughlin exposure, my invitations were primarily from universities and nonprofit organizations. Now I've been getting more corporate invitations-Grumman Aircraft, Met Life, Allstate. I've gotten a new audience."

Bob Beckel, a political analyst on CBS This Morning and substitute host on Larry King, describes television as "this mystical gateway in Washington that sort of separates you out ... Since I started to do television on a regular basis, my speaking engagements have gone up dramatically. No question there's a direct relationship. I can write a good solid column about a presidential campaign in the L.A. Times and nobody will pay a hell of a lot of attention. I get on Crossfire and people seem to think that's more important." Alongside the crush of Journalists trying to elbow their way on television are hordes of academics, consultants, publicists, think-tank types, lawyers, authors, strategists, unemployed politicians, and other talking head wannabes. They collectively comprise what might be termed the guest industry, people trying to promote their organizations, their clients, and, naturally, themselves by sucking up the precious oxygen of airtime.

And it works. The camera performs like a bubbling elixir that with a single gulp can transform the imbiber from policy wonk to Wunderkind. A voluble professor or attorney can ride this sort of self-promotion to national prominence.

"Universities pitch us with their earthquake experts, with their plane crash experts," says Tammy Haddad. During the Persian Gulf War, she and the Larry King staff were inundated with "all these faxes from the universities, the PR firms, the book publishers: 'My person spent a week in Iraq.' 'My person flew over Iraq.' "

Neophytes are generally pre-interviewed to screen out what Haddad calls "digit heads" and "numbers crunchers." Those who don't make the cut don't get called back. "You can never forget it is television," Haddad says. "They have to be able to explain it in such a way that my mother in Pittsburgh understands what they're talking about ... If we don't get people interested, they will spin the dial."

It will come as no surprise to regular viewers that most of the talk show experts are white, male, and moderate to conservative. In August 1990, according to the liberal advocacy group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 98 percent of the guests on Nightline, and 87 percent of those on MacNeil / Lehrer, were white. About nine out of ten were men. Half the American guests were current or former government officials. Such an approach gives a decidedly establishment coloration to these programs, with the likes of Henry Kissinger, Pat Moynihan, and Bob Dole appearing again and again. Producers acknowledge that they lean too heavily on the usual suspects but say that most newsmakers tend to be white men. This is an obvious cop-out, for there is no law requiring that talk show guests be heavyweight officials and ex-officials. It also helps explain why so many of these programs are a snooze and the range of televised debate so frustratingly narrow.

Peter Dykstra, a former spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace, sees another, more circular reason why some activists have trouble getting on talk shows. "I've been told by several different bookers, by way of suggesting why the person isn't qualified, that they've never seen them on television before," he says.

Stephen Hess exemplifies the modern breed of sound-bite superstar. A political analyst and scholar at the Brookings Institution, an old-line Washington think tank, Hess fields more than a thousand media inquiries a year. I have quoted him many times in The Washington Post. He is savvy, concise, centrist, and, best of all for reporters on deadline, returns calls quickly.

A former White House aide in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations, Hess has come to understand that he is a bit player in the talk show nation. When he first started doing television, "I thought they were really interested in my opinion. I would be very worried-did they use something I had said that was stupid, or controversial, or profound? Then I realized: I was a spear carrier. To have used any of those things would have thrown the story out of kilter. They didn't bring me in to have some profound thought."

Still, the affable Hess makes himself available day after day. "Mostly it's an ego trip ... it's celebrity," he says. "It's people thinking that somehow you're more worthwhile or significant because you've been on television."

After hundreds of interviews, Hess began to lose patience with producers "who need someone to say 'The sky is blue,' someone else to say 'The sky is green'-and they're sounding you out to see if you think blue or green." He wrote a stinging opinion piece for The Washington Post declaring that television news "is increasingly dishonest" because "reporters tend to interview only those who fit a preconceived notion of what the story will be." A few days later, the bookers began calling Hess for interviews again. He had publicly denounced the whole process, and no one cared. Television was still willing to use him, and he was still willing to be used.

istic counterparts, try to catch the wave. After 0. J. Simpson was arrested, lawyers of every persuasion filled the airwaves with analysis and speculation, some on Court TV, some on the networks, many as paid consultants. Former L.A. prosecutor Ira Reiner on NBC. Leslie Abramson (who would later get her own Fox talk show) on ABC. Laurie Levenson on CBS. Greta Van Susteren on CNN. Larry King corraled Gerry Spence (who later got his own CNBC show) and former attorney general Dick Thornburgh. "When I go through the airport, people don't come up to me and say, 'You're the former governor or former attorney general,' but 'I saw you on Larry King,' " Thornburgh says. Johnnie Cochran and Alan Dershowitz also worked the TV circuit--before joining Simp-

son's defense team. (Dershowitz later launched his own radio talk show.) While it's hard to put a price tag on this kind of exposure, some attorneys are convinced that the increased visibility helps them attract high-profile clients.

Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official brought in to analyze the Simpson trial on Rivera Live and America's Talking, says she enjoys "the adrenaline flow" that comes when "you have to get it up for that half hour." As for the impact on her law practice, she says: "People say they've seen you on TV, but they're never the clients you want. They're the ones who want to talk to you for two hours and then say 'I don't have any money.' "

Greta Van Susteren is the fourth legal commentator--after Gerry Spence, Leslie Abramson, and Alan Dershowitz--to parlay O.J. exposure into her own talk show. She insists her CNN exposure hasn't helped her law firm (although the firm has been accused of improper solicitation for sending brochures with her newly prominent picture to accident victims). And televised fame clearly has its downside: Van Susteren received several threatening phone calls during the Simpson trial. Still, there have been compensations. "I was invited to speak at my Catholic high school," she says with a note of triumph, "where they suspended me in 1971 for buying cigarettes."

Each major news story produces its own talk show stars. After the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, terrorism experts, former FBI officials, disaster consultants, and health specialists flooded the airwaves. Another invasion of high-priced talent occurred during the Persian Gulf War, when a small division of retired military officers stormed the television battlefield. The retirees included General George Crist and General Michael Dugan on CBS, Lieutenant General William Odom on NBC, Admiral WiIliam Crowe on ABC, and Major James Blackwell on CNN . Many such experts were wildly off-target with dire predictions that tens of thousands of Americans would be killed or wounded in a ground war against Iraq. But with their ramrod-stiff posture, military jargon, and color-coded war maps, they made for good television.

One of the most aggressive military analysts was retired army colonel William Taylor, vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a blue-chip, conservative think tank whose advisers include Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Saddam Hussein's tanks rolled into Kuwait, Taylor's phone started ringing. Today had him on four mornings in a row, NBC Nightly News for three straight nights. He signed consulting contracts with Good Morning America and the NBC station in Washington. CNN also tried to enlist Taylor, but he was too busy.

Taylor says he makes the television rounds for the greater glory of CSIS. "There's nothing as important as coming back from Good Morning America and, on the elevator, to have a secretary or a vice president say, 'Bill, vou were right on. It was terrific.'

But there is another payoff as well. Taylor gives 175 speeches a year, and while half are for CSIS backers at no cost, he charges up to $10,000 apiece for the rest. Being a television personality doesn't hurt. Steve Hess makes about thirty speeches a year. Many are to academic groups, but he charges trade associations $5,000 a pop.

There is another, lesser-known way to turn routine punditry into positive cash flow. Many American experts charge foreign journalists for TV and radio interviews. "You're talking about private citizens who are selling their time," Hess says. "I don't see any reason why you should do it as a public service."

Walter Laqueur, a foreign policy expert at CSIS, charges fees ranging from $50 for a brief session to $2,000 for a long program. "If I went to the dentist, he wouldn't treat me free of charge," Laqueur says.

For an audience with Norman Ornstein, the oft-quoted analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, the enterprising foreign reporter must pay $300 a session. "If you do an interview with domestic television, there is some mutual value in it," Ornstein says. "You're getting a point of view across, you're getting your name or face out there. It's harder to make that case if you're going on Swiss TV."

Clearly, for journalists and self-appointed experts alike, television is the key to big-bucks success. James Reston was the preeminent reporter and columnist of his generation, but few Americans knew what he looked like. By contrast, the tube has turned John McLaughlin, Larry King, David Brinkley, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson into bona fide celebrities who can put paying customers in the seats.

But the essence of journalism, even for the fiercest opinion-mongers, is professional detachment. The public has a right to expect that those who pontificate for a living are not in financial cahoots with the industries and lobbies they analyze on the air. Too many reporters and pundits simply have a blind spot on this issue. They have been seduced by the affluence and adulation that comes with television success. They are engaging in drive-by journalism, rushing from television studio to lecture hall with their palms out-stretched. Perhaps when they mouth off on television, a caption should appear under their names: PAID $20,000 BY GROUP HEALTH ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. TOOK $15,000 CHECK FROM AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. The talk show culture has made them rich but, in a very real sense, left them bankrupt.

I stopped reading this rant when he got to the line about Clinton raising taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent in '93. I'm nowhere near the "wealthiest 1 percent", but I remember MY taxes being raised rather steeply that year when Clinton not only imposed his tax increase, but grandfathered it to cover the 6 - 8 months prior to it actually passing.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the article. It is an apples to cauliflower comparison of speaking fees earned by private citizens working in a public media and elected government officials. There was a time when elected representatives would not bother to give speeches in their Senate or Congressional districts to their constituents without an "honorarium" and travel exprenses attached. Since these people are elected and paid by tax revenues, they are obligated to report on the doings in government for no cost (although I MIGHT be pursuaded that their travel expenses should be covered). The "ban on honoraria" quoted in the article did stop them from collecting speaking fees, but the replacement deal was a "campaign contribution" to get them to talk to their constituents. This is still wrong at its most fundamental level.

"Journalists", while working in a public media are NOT paid from tax revenues and ARE private citizens and, as such such should NOT have to limit or report their speaking fees in the same way as an elected official. This is not hypocrisy nor is it a case of the pot calling the kettle black as the writer suggests.

he declared, apparently failing to detect any unsavory odor from Journalists taking corporate cash.

And they are extraordinarily profitable for the superstars of talk: Rush Limbaugh earns an estimated

This is precious!
Capitalizing on the ignorance and the short attention span of the "we are a democracy" crowd. The "we won Florida!" crowd. The "we have been disenfranchised!" crowd.

Anybody else notice how he clumsilly changed the subject and hoped nobody noticed?

I haven't listened to Rush for a long time (not into cigars, golf or sports), but at least once each broadcast he would remind everyone, for the benefit of those in "Rio Linda", that he is not a newsman, he is an entertainer, sharing his opinion about the news with whomever felt like listening.
And millions choose to listen.

So what's the object of this bloated exercise in "Ted-Kennedy-ism"? I smelled the DNC talking points of the last coupla weeks, (indeed, last week's faxes too) permeating this verbose attempt at indignation.
Pathetic.

Are charlie schumer and the other little yapping attack yorkie all pouting because their BS is exposed, dissected and thrown in the garbage disposer regularly?

Poor babies!

I especially liked "magnate of mohair," though it conjured up visions of Donaldson's hairpiece more than anything. :)

I haven't seen any of the talking heads on regular television for a at least 10 years now, but I spent a lot of time regularly in Washington between 1990 and 1996, and was walking around downtown DC one day.

Lo and behold, this tiny (I'm only 5-6 myself) mis-shapen gnome of a man shuffles by bent over like a gnome, seriously looking straight ahead, and making me do that "where have I seen that face before" thing.

I missed the hairpiece.

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