Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994 TAG: 9404200007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN CARMODY WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A report on the study, published in Thursday's edition of the weekly journal, had been embargoed until 6 p.m. Wednesday, but ABC News led its Tuesday 6:30 and 7 p.m. feeds with the study, reported by Tim Johnson, the news programs' medical editor-correspondent.
The study was conducted by the National Cancer Institute and the National Public Health Institute of Finland on 29,133 male cigarette smokers in Finland. The findings contradicted the widely held belief that the nutrient beta carotene and other so-called antioxidants are uniformly good for people's health.
Wednesday, Johnson took the blame for ABC's breaking the embargo but strongly defended his reasons for doing so. He said a decision by the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., to hold its own press briefing on the report Tuesday afternoon had, in effect, ``already broken the embargo.''
``Given the fact the NCI moved its press conference up a day, we had an obligation to deal with the story for the public.'' With a business trip to Bermuda pending, Johnson had prepared his report, short of editing, so it was ready to go late Tuesday when the decision was made to air it.
``I feel badly. We weren't trying to beat anybody - this is a big story because people are interested in and concerned with vitamins,'' he said.
Johnson, who has been with ABC since 1984, said, ``These embargo policies are tricky but I've always supported them. In essence I think [NCI] broke it this time.''
Jerome Kassirer, editor in chief of the journal, said Wednesday he had called the director of the NCI, Sam Broder, to warn him that the scheduled briefing threatened the embargo.
He said Johnson, his longtime friend, had also called to warn of the NCI briefing. ``What they said at ABC,'' Kassirer said Wednesday, ``was that if NCI is having an open meeting in advance of the embargo, they didn't think it would hold and they felt they had to break it.''
``Obviously,'' the journal editor said, ``we are very displeased they [ABC] decided to break it.''
But, he added, ``Tim Johnson is a very good guy. He feels terrible and he also feels very bad about his producer - thought they'd made a mistake.''
Kassirer said he and executive editor Marcia Angell will write an editorial about the matter for an upcoming edition of the journal and he plans to write a letter to ABC News president Roone Arledge protesting the violation of the embargo and ``to register our discontent with ABC News.''
Beyond that, he said Wednesday, ``we haven't made a decision on what to do.''
The most severe penalty the journal can impose is to revoke the network's first-class mail subscription, which would prevent ABC from developing important medical stories in advance of publication dates, giving up a huge competitive edge to rival news organizations in the vital field of health care.
Kassirer said ABC had never previously broken an embargo. ``They realize they've made a mistake,'' the editor said Wednesday. ``Johnson's an honorable man; there's no doubt they're not going to do it again.''
Johnson said if ``NCI was that concerned about the embargo they should have held off until yesterday. ... Our major concern at ABC News was not to beat anybody but once it went to a public press conference we wanted to make sure the public didn't get any incorrect information and that's basically why we went with it.''
But Cara Smigel, spokeswoman for NCI, Wednesday defended the decision to hold the briefing. ``Reporters were told that the story was embargoed and the printed material all contained the strict embargo information.''
Johnson said ``World News'' executive producer Rick Kaplan was ``out of the loop on the story - he has a daughter who isn't well - so I called the desk in New York and said I think it will become public information.''
Late Wednesday, ABC News issued the following statement:
``We had intended to honor the news embargo as we always have in the past but when the NCI advanced it by a day it put the findings of the Journal study into a public arena and we felt it made it impossible for the Journal to hold its embargo.''
by CNB