Objectivity Lesson: ABC News Chief Apologizes

By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 1, 2001; Page C01

ABC News President David Westin apologized yesterday for saying that journalists should offer no opinion about the terrorist attack that killed 189 people at the Pentagon.

"I was wrong. . . . Under any interpretation, the attack on the Pentagon was criminal and entirely without justification," he said in a statement. "I apologize for any harm that my misstatement may have caused."

Westin's rapid backpedaling came shortly after his remarks to a Columbia University journalism school forum were trumpeted on the Web by columnist Matt Drudge. A New York Post editorial yesterday also chided Westin, saying, "He's not about to make a judgment that the murder of scores of Americans without provocation or warning is necessarily wrong. . . . Is he for real?"

At last week's Columbia forum, later broadcast by C-SPAN, the attorney-turned-journalist was asked whether "the Pentagon was a legitimate military target."

"I actually don't have an opinion on that," Westin replied, "and it's important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now. The way I conceive my job running a news organization, and the way I would like all the journalists at ABC News to perceive it, is there is a big difference between a normative position and a positive position.

"Our job is to determine what is, not what ought to be, and when we get into the job of what ought to be, I think we're not doing a service to the American people. I can say the Pentagon got hit. I can say this is what their position is, this is what our position is, but for me to take a position this was right or wrong, I mean that's perhaps for me in my private life. . . . But as a journalist I feel strongly that's something that I should not be taking a position on."

The problem is that Westin sounded as if he was taking a moral pass on mass murder.

"Like all Americans, I was horrified at the loss of life at the Pentagon, as well as in New York and Pennsylvania on September 11," he said in yesterday's statement. He said he was trying to draw a distinction between journalistic duties and personal opinion but that "upon reflection, I realized that my answer did not address the specifics of September 11."

Drudge said he enjoyed skewering Westin, who tried to block the network from hiring the Internet gossip for a syndicated radio show, which was later dropped by ABC last year.

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2001