home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=91TT2304>
- <title>
- Oct. 14, 1991: From The Publisher
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Oct. 14, 1991 Jodie Foster:A Director Is Born
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 15
- </hdr><body>
- <p> It was during a recent flight over Arkansas that Margaret
- Carlson realized one of the ironies of being deputy chief of our
- Washington bureau, a job she assumed in July. Margaret was
- aboard a small plane to interview Arkansas Governor Bill
- Clinton, now a Democratic presidential hopeful, when a
- thunderstorm hit. "Clinton loved it," she says. "But I'm a
- white-knuckle flyer even in clear skies." As the plane bucked
- and lurched, she recalled that it is one of her duties to assign
- stories to the bureau's correspondents--but she had assigned
- this one to herself.
- </p>
- <p> Then again, placing herself on demanding stories is also
- one of Margaret's pleasures. The job of deputy chief requires
- her to help keep watch over one of TIME's most crucial bureaus.
- But her feel for day-to-day journalism ensures that she spends
- much of her time reporting and writing as well. And what
- writing. Carlson's flavorful prose, lucid, tart and funny, is
- the hallmark of a journalist who sees even the biggest stories
- in distinctly human terms. "Being a reporter in Washington is
- like talking across one big backyard fence," she says.
- "Congress, the White House, the people at the agencies--they're always trading stories with each other and with the
- press."
- </p>
- <p> Carlson made a detour into journalism in 1980, after
- getting her law degree from George Washington University. By
- 1987 she was acting managing editor of the New Republic and
- joined TIME in 1988. As deputy bureau chief, she helps decide
- which events we should cover. This week's NATION story on the
- abuse of congressional privileges is one example. Some members
- of Congress have been grumbling that the episode is being
- overblown. Not so, insists Carlson. "It says something important
- about the cocoon of privilege that members of Congress live in."
- </p>
- <p> You can sample Carlson's interview technique in this
- week's issue by reading her Q. and A. with veteran Manhattan
- prosecutor Linda Fairstein. With her new duties, Carlson has to
- apportion her reporting time more carefully than ever--even
- when keeping to her schedule means taking a bumpy flight. "I
- can't say, `I'll catch up with you later,'" she laughs. "I have
- to get on the plane and fly through thunder and lightning."
- </p>
- <p>-- Elizabeth P. Valk
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-