Last Tuesday, we reported on an item posted on Radar magazine’s Web site alleging that Reader’s Digest cut a sweetheart deal with Tom Cruise, allowing the movie star to dictate the terms of its cover story about him. Radar also claimed that, “[a]ccording to well-placed sources at the magazine, to ensure Cruise’s cooperation, the Digest reporter, Meg Grant, promised to give ‘Scientology issues’ equal play in her profile of the star, and agreed to enroll in a one-day Church ‘immersion course.'” In addition, Radar asserted Cruise was asked only questions pre-screened by both Cruise and his Scientology advisors.
“If these sources are telling the truth,” we wrote, Reader’s Digest had effectively ceded control of its editorial content to “a pretty face.”
Since then, the editors of Reader’s Digest, in emails to Radar and CJR Daily, have emphatically denied every aspect of Radar‘s description of Reader’s Digest‘s negotiations with Cruise. On Wednesday, Reader’s Digest publicist Ellen Morgenstern wrote to Christopher Tennant, editor of Radar online, copy to us:
We like the notion of our exclusive stories getting pick-up in the press. Unfortunately, your recent Radar online item about our June interview with Tom Cruise contained error after error. Reader’s Digest pursued Cruise for the interview as we would any other major celebrity. We were not asked or required to give any special focus on Scientology. There was no discussion of past articles or interviews. Meg Grant, our West Coast editor, toured the Scientology Celebrity Center as part of her research, not as a requirement for access to Cruise. The proof is in the interview. Of 32 questions asked of Cruise, only one dealt directly with Scientology, hardly “equal play” as implied by Radar online. We did not submit questions in advance. During the interview, the only people in the room were Cruise and Grant. So by our count that’s at least five major errors — not exactly stellar on your part, given that the item was only 550 words long. We’d appreciate a correction.
Yesterday, Tennant fired back:
Dear Ms. Morgenstern:
We are in receipt of your letter about our recent story on your magazine’s interview with Tom Cruise. We stand by the story in total, and dispute your claim that there were “at least five major errors” contained within it. …
I would also point out that our story already contains Ms. Grant’s on-the-record denial that she provided questions in advance or that they were relayed to Mr. Cruise through a third party during the interview.
“Reader’s Digest on Cruise Control” is a solid, well-sourced story and we see no reason to correct any part of it.
First things first: While CJR Daily did link to the Radar item containing Meg Grant’s denial, we failed to specifically refer to that denial in our own piece, and we should have.
Yesterday, Reader’s Digest executive editor Jacob Young, a former editor at People magazine, told CJR Daily that Radar‘s sources, an ex-editor and a Reader’s Digest staff member, both unnamed, “may have indeed said what they printed, but they’re still wrong. Ex-editors, as we both know, tend to have axes to grind, and, more to the point, tend not to know what the hell is going on at the shop where they no longer work.”
And Jackie Leo, editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest and former editor of Family Circle, emailed CJR Daily that “[t]he source of your report, Radar magazine’s Web site, actually invites readers to send them gossip and promises anonymity — a red flag for any journalist.” She also echoed Young’s thoughts on Radar‘s sources, writing, “[Y]ou may be naive in thinking Radar‘s so-called anonymous sources are heroic whistle blowers. More often than not, they are disgruntled former or current employees who resent the fact that the magazine is now covering movie stars.”
Some background: In an attempt to capture a younger readership, Reader’s Digest for five years or so has been on a long march toward more celebrity coverage and less opinion- masquerading-as-new, which for decades was the magazine’s trademark. And that has left some disenchanted readers — and employees — in it’s wake. It may well be, as Leo and Young believe, that Grant, a veteran and well-regarded Hollywood reporter, is the victim of gossips and snitches in, or recently departed from, her own shop. Clearly there are current and former employees of Reader’s Digest unhappy with the magazine’s direction; and just as clearly, one or more of them whispered in Radar‘s ear. As Young notes, that’s par for the course in a business notorious for its high rate of staff churn.
For our part, we’re not going to try to referee every round of this particular episode of dueling editors at war — or, perhaps, Reader’s Digest colleagues at war. That’s not what we’re here for. But the editors at Reader’s Digest are dead right when they complain that we should have talked to someone at Reader’s Digest, or several someones, before publishing our earlier incomplete account.
And that is an omission that we regret.
–Steve Lovelady
Steve Lovelady was editor of CJR Daily.