Reluare joi, 29 iulie 1982

AIDES PLEASED BY NEWS CONFERENCE LOW ON NEWS

Date: 30 July 1982

Special to the New York Times

Assessing President Reagan's performance at his news conference last night, several White House officials today rated it high on substance but low on news, a mix that obviously pleased them. It has, in fact, become axiomatic among Reagan aides that news conferences are ''minefields to be tiptoed through periodically, but not something you hope to get a lot out of politically,'' as one Presidential assistant put it. Accordingly, the President's aides concentrate on helping him prepare a battery of careful restatements of existing policies for news conferences, leaving the disclosure of new policies to other formats that give the President more control over what he wants to say. ''A virtuoso performance at a press conference may impress the press corps and a few sophisticated people,'' said a White House official. ''But it's not where most Americans are going to get their estimate of his job performance. Press conferences are more to be looked at from a hazard point of view, because blunders can hurt you more than a virtuoso performance can help.''

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News Analysis

Date: 30 July 1982

By Eric Pace

Eric Pace

The fuzziness of the lines of responsibility in forestalling bogus advertising has been underscored by a misleading advertisement that was published July 11 in several major newspapers. The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution carried the fullpage advertisement in a form that seemed to attribute anti-Israeli sentiments to six relief organizations. The organizations later disavowed any connection with it. The advertisement was headlined ''The People of Lebanon Innocent Victims of a Senseless War.'' It was signed ''Concerned Americans for Peace'' and gave a Los Angeles address that postal officials later said was false. The newspapers involved did not learn that the address was false until after the advertisement was published, and the advertising agency that sent them the advertisement later acknowledged that it lacked sufficient knowledge of the group that commissioned it.

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'MAYBE I WASN'T LADY-FIED'

Date: 30 July 1982

By Francis X. Clines, Special To the New York Times

Francis Clines

The unwritten rule among her colleagues in journalism is that only fools patronize Sarah McClendon and her hardedged airily drawled questions. The 72-year-old Mrs. McClendon has specialized in cataloguing two sorts of stories, official evasions and tales of sexism, ever since her husband walked out on her and an infant daughter 38 years ago and she went out to survive through a self-started career in newspapering. Her success has been steady if grudging. She recalls the scoops and the insults, both of which helped develop her special style of begging and hectoring for answers for the papers she represents in Washington, mostly Texas dailies. She says a Presidential news conference comes easy after the years she had to stand outside the doors of the Fourth Estate's former male cloister, the National Press Club, demanding to put questions to news principals.

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RULING CLEARING ABC OF LIBEL REVERSED AND TRIAL IS ORDERED

Date: 30 July 1982

UPI

Upi

A Federal appeals court today reversed a ruling that cleared ABC of libel in a lawsuit brought by a housewife who contended that she had been depicted as a prostitute in a documentary news broadcast. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in a 2-to-1 decision, concluded that a lower Federal court judge had erred by granting ABC a summary judgment without holding a trial in the case. Appellate Judges Damon Keith and Nathaniel Jones said that Ruby Clark of Detroit, was entitled to a jury trial of her lawsuit against ABC because there was a factual question of whether the program was defamatory.

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Norwegian Journalist Killed in Afghanistan

Date: 30 July 1982

Reuters

A Norwegian journalist traveling with guerrilla forces inside Afghanistan has been killed during fighting, the Norwegian Foreign Office said today. Reports from Pakistan indicated that the journalist, Staale Gundhus, 25 years old, was killed in fighting between guerrillas and Soviet forces near Farah in the western province of Herat on June 24, a Foreign Office press spokesman said. He was the first Western journalist to be killed while covering the war since Soviet soldiers arrived in Afghanistan at the end of 1979, press sources said. Mr. Gundhus, a freelance journalist and photographer, was on his third trip with guerrilla groups in Afghanistan, the sources said.

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MISLED ON FALKLANDS, BRITISH PRESS SAYS

Date: 29 July 1982

British reporters who covered the Falkland war told a parliamentary inquiry today that official briefings had ranged from erratic to purposely misleading. In one case, an admiral was said to have sought to have reporters file false information to confuse the enemy. Testifying before a House of Commons committee looking into the Defense Ministry's handling of press coverage, Robert McGowan of The Daily Express said reporters had been told that casualties were ''minimal'' after one Argentine bombing attack when, in fact, 50 British soldiers died.

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Washington Post Suit Goes to Federal Jury

Date: 29 July 1982

UPI

Upi

A jury deliberated for six and a half hours today without reaching a verdict in a $50 million libel suit brought against The Washington Post by the president of the Mobil Oil Corporation and his son. Federal District Judge Oliver Gasch instructed the six-member jury to use stiffer standards in judging whether William P. Tavoulareas was defamed in two 1979 newspaper articles that said he had ''set up his son'' in the oil shipping industry. The judge has declared the senior Mr. Tavoulareas a public figure, meaning he cannot win the suit unless the jury finds the stories were false and were published with reckless disregard or with the knowledge they were untrue.

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PUBLISHING: A DIP INTO THE WORLD CUP

Date: 30 July 1982

By Edwin McDowell

Edwin McDowell

MARIO VARGAS LLOSA played soccer in his youth, and he began writing regularly for newspapers soon after graduation from college, so he felt right at home covering the recent World Cup in Spain for several European dailies. Playing down any suggestion that he is an authority on the subject, however, the Peruvian-born author noted during a recent visit to New York, ''I covered it from the perspective of a novelist who loves the game.'' The Vargas Llosa byline is almost as instantly recognizable in Europe as in South America, for he is a best-selling author on both continents. Indeed, before he returned to Peru in the mid-1970's, most of his 18 years as an expatriate writer were spent in Europe, and his first book - ''The Time of the Hero'' - was published in Spain before it was published in Peru.

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News Analysis

Date: 29 July 1982

By Richard L. Madden, Special To the New York Times

Richard Madden

The surprise withdrawal Tuesday of Prescott Bush Jr. has significantly altered the political dynamics of the race for the United States Senate in Connecticut this year. Mr. Bush, in dropping his challenge to Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr. for the Republican nomination in a primary election Sept. 7, has freed Mr. Weicker to campaign head on against Representative Toby Moffett, the Democratic candidate, in the November general election. Mr. Moffett, in turn, can concentrate his campaign on Mr. Weicker, the two-term incumbent, without being upstaged by what had been expected to be a six-week primary fight between Mr. Weicker and Mr. Bush. Mr. Moffett, a 37-year-old, four-term Representative from Litchfield, began his offensive today with a news conference criticizing Mr. Weicker's performance and voting record. ''I'd like to thank Prescott Bush for helping to clarify what this race is all about,'' Mr. Moffett said.

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News Summary; THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1982

Date: 29 July 1982

International Guarded hope for peace in Lebanon was expressed by President Reagan. At his 12th Presidential news conference, Mr. Reagan carefully avoided placing blame for the conflict on Israel and said that in some instances the Palestine Liberation Organization had been ''the first to break the cease-fire.'' (Page A1, Column 6.) A Palestinian promise is sought in the negotiations on Lebanon. Prime Minister Menachem Begin said the American mediator, Philip C. Habib, promised him Tuesday to try to obtain ''an unequivocal commitment'' from the Palestine Liberation Organization to accept the principle of leaving Beirut. The Israeli leader said Mr. Habib, who returned to Beirut yesterday, believed that such a commitment was necessary for progress in the peace negotiations. (A1:5.)

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