The Press: Critique

> With supervisors filling in for striking staffers, United Press International last week was tricked into a textbook journalistic boner. Finding a press release on Senator Edward Kennedy's letterhead in the U.P.I. Senate press-gallery box, Marty Houseman, normally U.P.I.'s bureau manager in Puerto Rico, rapped out a story based on the release's startling contents: Kennedy had told a visiting group of high school students that he was reconsidering his noncommittal stance on the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1976. As word of the U.P.I, "exclusive" spread, Kennedy and his office staff were...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!