COLUMNS

From Teen Beat to Media Beat?

  • Capital Connections ®
  • |
  • April 05, 2000

by Karen Feld

The Hollywood-DC connection has now merged with the fourth estate – the press. Teen heart-throb, Leonardo DiCaprio, has “interviewed” President Clinton during a walking-tour of The White House under the auspices of the Earth Day celebration in Washington that Leo chairs. The pressies in D.C. are up in arms – pols may be actors but are we? For Clinton, this brings his “hip savvy” full circle. From playing the sax on “The Arsenio Hall Show” and declaring his preference for “boxers or briefs” on MTV during the 1992 campaign, to giving an “exclusive” to the crown prince of Hollywood’s new royalty during the waning days of his last term. For the TV and cable news operations, it heightens the debate of entertainment as news, as well as the race for ratings and ad dollars. For Leo, it’s a publicist dream as any ink is good ink. What may be lost in this hullabaloo is the Earth Day message.

Speaking of mixing media and politics, a Couric is thinking about running for political office – and it’s not “Today” show host Katie. Her older sister, Emily, 52, is eyeing the Virginia lieutenant governor’s office in 2001. She’s taken one big step and opened a bank account for an exploratory campaign. No stranger to Virginia politics, she currently serves in the state senate.

Virginia is also home for a museum dedicated to journalism and media, The Newseum, which celebrated the 20th anniversary of Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” in style the other evening. Koppel agreed: “The only appropriate thing to do with a 20-year old TV show is put it in a museum.”

Any of you in the dot.com generation may have a thing or two to learn from USA Today and Newseum founder Al Neuharth. At airport security recently, Neuharth, who still pens a weekly column, put his portable typewriter through the x-ray machine. The bewildered agent, diligently doing her job, asked: “Would you turn that on?” Neuharth in his uniquely amusing way explained the pre-computer world to the young lady.

Reform party candidate apparent, Pat Buchanan, is working to move their national convention to Nashville this summer. “That’s middle America,” explains Buchanan, who feels certain he’ll be the nominee. But his real goal is to win the right to debate, an uphill battle as the presidential commission on debates has ruled that one must be showing 15 percent support in the polls to be eligible, and the “Run, Pat, Run” team is currently hovering at five-to-six percent.

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