Op-Ed Editors Weather the Worst Of Scandal Effects
You may be one of the many in PR who has had enough of the Starr Report and the Clinton/Lewinsky matter, but trust us when we tell you that, in this case, the grass definitely isn't greener on the other side.
"We're all a little weary of this. We see it all - the good, the bad and the ugly," says Inell Willis, an editorial secretary at the New York Times who works with op-ed editor Katherine Roberts. Roberts was too swamped to respond to our repeated calls.
PR NEWS, last week, conducted a straw poll to find out how many letters to the editor and op-ed pieces were being fed to newspapers about the Clinton scandal. "We're getting hundreds, more than with [Princess] Diana," adds Willis.
A check with other papers found editors equally overwhelmed.
USA Today Op-Ed Editor Glen Nishimura said it would be impossible for him "to put a number" on how many submissions he has received. The Seattle Times' James Vesely said that he has to sift through a massive volume of opinions created by e-mail.
The Times, in addition to receiving twice the number of op-ed pieces it usually garners (about 30), now receives about 50 e-mail letters every day, a majority of them about presidential affairs (pun intended).
And our biggest surprise came out of our conversation with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette op-ed editor, Meredith Oakley.
"I'm getting about 30 to 40 pieces a day and more than 95 percent deal with the Clinton thing," she says. "I've been here since 1981 and nothing has compared to this."
But despite native ties to Clinton, Oakley says most of the submissions are not in the president's favor.
By the way, if you'd like to debate the political ramifications of that revelation, don't call us. You can also skip calling Oakley too, who probably can't find her phone under the growing stack of op-eds heaped on her desk. (N.Y. Times, 212/556-1234; USA Today, 703/276-3400; Seattle Times, 206/464-2111; Democrat-Gazette, 501/378-3400)