NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8294

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: CENSORED: BOHEMIAN GROVE
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BOHEMIAN GROVE:  THE STORY PEOPLE MAGAZINE CENSORED

The Bohemian Grove encampment, which draws the cream of America's male
power elite, including media moguls, to northern California each
year, is one of the media' s best known, best kept secrets.  Dirk
Mathison, San Francisco bureau chief for People magazine, managed to
surreptitiously infiltrate the encampment in search of a story few
reporters have access to.  And he got it.  He recorded a variety of
newsworthy items, including a speech, "Smart Weapons," by former Navy
Secretary John Lehman, who said that the Pentagon estimated that
200,000 Iraqis were killed by the U.S. and its allies during the Gulf
War.  Other speakers included Defense Secretary Richard Cheney on "Major
Defense Problems of the 21st Century," former HEW secretary Joseph Cali-
fano on "America's Health Revolution -- Who Lives, Who Dies, Who
Pays,' ' and former Attorney General Elliot Richardson on "Defining the
New World Order.  "

Mathison's entree into the secret world of the Grove ended July 20 when
he was recognized by a participant in the activities -- an executive
from Time Warner -- People's corporate boss.  More loyal to the Grove
than to the public's right to know, the Time executive escorted Mathison
to the gate.  However, Mathison already had plenty of material for the
article which was scheduled for Aug. 5, 1991.  But suddenly the story
was killed.  Landon Jones, People's managing editor, said the decision
to kill the story had nothing to do with Time Warner.  He said it was
killed because Mathison hadn't been in the Grove long enough to get a
complete story and because the story had been obtained through
questionable means, trespassing.

Like Mathison, there have been few journalists who have infiltrated the
Grove and been allowed to report the story.  One exception is Philip
Weiss, whose story appeared in the Nov.1989 issue of Spy.  More typical
are "censored" experiences, such as in 1982 when NPR got a recording of
Henry Kissinger's speech at the Grove but declined to air it and, also
in 1982, when a Time reporter went undercover as a waiter in the Grove
but whose story, also was killed.

Time Warner's executives are not the only media moguls who patronize the
Grove.  Others include Franklin Murphy, former CEO of the Times Mirror
corporation; William Randolph Hearst, Jr.; Jack Howard and Charles
Scripps of the ScrippsHoward newspaper chain; Tom Johnson, president
of CNN and former publisher of the L.A.  Times.  When Associated Press
president Louis Boccardi once spoke at the Grove about kidnapped
reporter Terry Anderson, he referred to his audience as men of "power
and rank" and "gave them more details than he said he was willing to
give his readers."

Media apologists who reject the concept of news media self-censorship
often cry "Where's the smoking gun?"  Here's a smoking gun.

(SSU CENSORED RESEARCHER:  DUSTIN HARP)

SOURCE:  EXTRA! 130 West 25th St.  New York NY 10001

DATE:  November/December; 1991

Title:"Inside Bohemian Grove:  The Story People Magazine Won't Let You
Read"

AUTHORS:Jim Naureckas with Jeff Cohen and Steve Rendall

COMMENTS:On July 30,1991, I received a call from Mary Moore, a northern
California activist and member of the Bohemian Grove Action Network.
She told me how the Action Network had "facilitated" Dirk Mathison's
entry to the exclusive Bohemian Grove encampment; they had no problem
getting the People Magazine reporter in and out the first two times,
Moore said, but the third time it was a coincidence that an executive
from Time saw him.  As noted in the synopsis, Mathison was thrown out of
the Grove and People Magazine subsequently spiked his expose.

I called Mathison at the San Francisco bureau of People Magazine but
while he confirmed what Moore had told me he was not willing to go be-
yond what was already known.  He finally said he would have "no comment"
until he heard from his bosses in New York as to what he could say.  As
noted earlier, I also talked to Mathison's boss, Lanny Jones, managing
editor of People Magazine.  Jones denied any censorship, saying they
couldn't use the story because it had been obtained through illegal
means -- trespassing.

Since Moore already had contacted the local media about the story, I
told her I'd try to get some national coverage.  "Expose," the
short-lived NBC news magazine program, was hot at the time and Tom
Brokaw had previously expressed interest in Project Censored's efforts,
so I called him.  Brokaw was out of the country at the time and the
person I talked with said she'd get back to me but didn't.  However,
Marty Lee, at EXTRA!, was very interested in the story and it became the
cover story for EXTRA!  's November/December issue.

Jeff Cohen, executive director of FAIR, said this was a "clear cut
example of how an aggressive reporter was not allowed to tell what he
learned through his aggressive reporting because his corporate
managers were more concerned with the sanctity of corporate and
government elites than in journalism."

" In years of exposing incidents of censorship, " Cohen concluded, "
this one was one of the most compelling we've come across.  When a
journalist trying to cover how governing elites operate is prevented from
reporting his story because his corporate managers identify with those
elites, it speaks volumes."