Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.bonus From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: bonus Tue, Apr 14 1992 Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 05:42:44 EDT Message-ID: 04-14 0000 BONUS: Inquiring reporters in spotlight USA TODAY Update April 14, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network After two years in a cramped room with thousands of documents, Don Barlett and Jim Steele had no idea what people might think of their newspaper articles. Two days after The Philadelphia Inquirer began running their searing indictment of Washington and Wall Street, the reporters found out. And they were shocked. WILL BARLETT AND STEELE'S WRITINGS REACH THE MASSES? Tonight on most PBS stations, as part of his "Listening to America" series, Bill Moyers brings the unsettling work of Barlett and Steele to a national TV audience, in the first of two episodes based on their nine-part Inquirer series. In print and on TV, the series - called "America: What Went Wrong?" - pours fuel on the smoldering, election-year rage of the middle class. It depicts a government answerable to corporate America, corporations answerable to a few wealthy investors and greedy executives and a middle class suffering mightily at the hands of those who make the laws and the deals. ARE THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES AWARE OF THE SERIES? Bill Clinton and Edmund "Jerry" Brown have used the series to stoke voter outrage as they campaign for president. Sen. Harris Wofford, D-Pa., brandished it last fall as he defended his seat against former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. The Inquirer filled requests for more than 400,000 reprints before deciding it could do no more. Last month, "America: What Went Wrong?" became a 235-page paperback. WHO ELSE HAVE BARLETT AND STEELE TACKLED? In 22 years together, Barlett and Steele have taken on the IRS, big oil companies, Hughes Aircraft, crooked developers, Philadelphia's court system and nuclear regulators. Along the way, they have captured two Pulitzer Prizes. But they have never tackled anything as large in scope as they did in "America: What Went Wrong?" which "hit a nerve that transcends anything we've done," says Steele. Response was so great last fall that Barlett began using the back door of The Inquirer to avoid crowds that swarmed the lobby for reprints. WHO ARE THESE GUYS? "Almost certainly the best team in the history of investigative reporting - Woodward and Bernstein included," according to the Washington Journalism Review. Woodward himself says, "They're an institution. They have kind of perfected a method of doing their work, and I have the highest regard for it. Systematic, comprehensive - they take a long time, and they don't mind saying what their conclusions are." HOW BIG OF A RESPONSE DID THE DUO GET FROM THE SERIES? The 50 newspapers that ran all or part of the series got 20,000 letters from their readers. Typical was one from Charles Spencer of Philadelphia, who wrote, "I am now convinced more than ever that we no longer have `a government of the people by the people for the people,' but we have `a government of the rich by the rich for the rich.' " Social-studies teacher Kristie Duyckinck of Hillsboro, Ore., ordered copies of the series for her students but did so with regret. "I think it will make them feel depressed and powerless," she wrote. DOES THE DUO HAVE ANY CRITICS? Amid grumbling about the series, the Pulitzer Prize board last week overlooked it, giving its national reporting prize to The Kansas City (Mo.) Star. Detractors say Barlett and Steele have misread data or used the wrong statistics, oversimplified their findings, showed little objectivity and demonstrated a lack of understanding of free-market economics. The series "says little about what went wrong with America, and everything about what went wrong with Barlett and Steele," sneers this month's Philadelphia magazine. ARE BARLETT AND STEELE LESS THAN OBJECTIVE? Barlett and Steele say they have no gripe against Republicans, supply-siders or the free market. "It's not the free market that did all this. It's the special-interest (tax) provisions that have kept the free market from operating," says Steele. Barlett says tax data prove that - contrary to their claims - Ronald Reagan and President Bush did not create 20 million jobs between 1980 and 1988. "Look at tax returns," he says. "The jobs ain't there." WILL THE TWO MAKE IT TO THE SILVER SCREEN? Barlett, 55, is short and bald and has a scratchy voice. He peers through glasses so thick, they almost make his eyes disappear. Steele, 49, is thin and slightly hunched. He extends his left hand when he meets strangers because his right hand was badly injured in a 1987 Amtrak train wreck. HOW LONG HAVE THEY WORKED AT THE INQUIRER? Barlett and Steele joined The Inquirer the same day in 1970 and came to be paired after an editor asked Barlett to give Steele a hand on a story. Although there is no formal agreement between them - or with their editors - that calls for them to work together, they have ever since. DO THEY HAVE THE SAME PERSONALITY? Both men are quiet - Steele so much so that as he finishes his thoughts, his lips are moving but he's emitting no sound. The two do little socializing, even with each other, and much has been made of the fact that Barlett's wife, Nancy, has never met Jim and Shirley Steele. Barlett keeps his Pulitzers in a file cabinet. Steele's are in a closet at home. WHAT MAKES THEM TICK? The two share bottomless patience and boundless curiosity. They can spend months amassing, reading and looking for patterns in records. They relish the memory of difficulties they had while investigating foreign-aid programs in the 1970s. State Department bureaucrats, seeking to kill the investigation by burying the reporters in paperwork, ushered them into a room with boxes of folders piled several feet high. "We didn't leave for a week. We found wonderful stuff," says Steele. WHAT KIND OF SUBJECTS DO THEY COVER? Most newspaper reporters tend to thrive on deadlines. Barlett readily admits he probably couldn't cover a fire or murder for the next day's newspaper. "The editors would rebel at getting a 60-inch story on a fire," he says. Managing Editor Steve Lovelady has edited the team for two decades, yet he still can't tell which reporter has written a given piece. "You can't emphasize enough how dogged they are, how thorough, how meticulous they are. WHAT'S NEXT FOR BARLETT AND STEELE? Their next project - an in-depth look at foreign trade - came about partly in response to an inquiry from a reader. "This woman called, and she said, `I have a bra that says, "Assembled in Dominican Republic from components made in the United States." What does that mean?' " says Steele. "I said, `I don't know, ma'am, but I'll find out.' " He pauses. "And we will, too." Bonus Editor: Michele Coleman. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM