I see that Sharon Waxman, of The New York Times, and Foxnews.com’s Roger Friedman are
feuding over stories they wrote about the influence of
the Nation of Islam on Michael Jackson. The New York Post’s Page Six says Friedman is howling
that Waxman ripped him off. She in turn accuses him of being inaccurate. What I find particularly
interesting is Waxman’s complaint that “Roger Friedman is clearly not the kind of reporter to
check his stories as he never called me.”
As I recall from my days as entertainment editor at MSNBC.com, Waxman wrote a story in
March 2002 that appeared on the front page of the Washington Post Style section, when she was
a Post reporter, alleging there was a “smear campaign” against DreamWorks/Universal’s “A
Beautiful Mind” by rival studios hoping to knock it out of the Oscar race. You remember that,
no? Everybody was writing about it at the time. As evidence of the campaign, Waxman cited a
number of stories about the movie, including one written by MSNBC.com gossip columnist
Jeannette Walls.
Waxman wrote that “the New York Post’s gossip page quoted an Internet report from
MSNBC.com in which nurse Eleanor Stier, who had a child with Nash, is quoted as saying, ‘He’s
really sort of mean.’ “
Walls, in her column The Scoop, had tracked down Stier and asked her
what she thought of the film and its depiction of Nash. She told Walls she didn’t like the movie.
When Walls called Waxman (after Waxman’s story appeared) to make it clear that she, Walls,
wasn’t working at the behest of any studio, Waxman said, and this is not a direct quote but I’m
told it’s pretty close: “Do you expect me to believe that you did all that reporting on your own?”
I’m told that Walls replied, “Well, I can’t help what you do or don’t believe, but the truth is
that, yes, I did it all on my own. And if you had called me, I would have told you that.”
Waxman practically called Walls a liar, my source says. Walls told Waxman if she had at least
called for her comment, Walls’ position could have been represented in Waxman’s article.
Waxman’s reply? She said to Walls, and these, I’m told, were Waxman’s exact words, “I felt it did
not behoove me to call you.”
Full disclosure: I was unbehooved to call Waxman for her side of the story.
