Time Is on Her Side

At the trial of Whitewater figure Susan McDougal, Steele was asked about Time by a prosecutor for Starr's office: "And they paid you $5,000 for Story No. 2, didn't they?" Steele answered "Correct." (Note: the prosecutors' "Story No. 2" is the equivalent of my Story No. 3.)

Time Deputy Managing Editor James Kelly says the $5,000 was to purchase a photograph (of Willey and Clinton) from Steele in January 1998, and that $5,000 is "the going rate."

Kelly argues, "We did not pay a source for a photograph," noting the photo was purchased weeks before Willey went on 60 Minutes with her charges. But in late January 1998, the Willey story had been public for six months, and Willey had just given a deposition in the Paula Jones case (a fact Newsweek had reported). Steele, as Willey's main detractor, was an obvious potential source in the Jones/Willey/Lewinsky matter. Indeed, Time gave Steele the $5,000 payment at a crucial period--right about when she was deciding whether to sign the affidavit affirming Story No. 3, the story that fell into line with Clinton's flat denial of making any sort of pass at Willey. Steele's phone records, which came out at trial, reveal at least nine calls between "not-a-source" Steele and Time reporter Viveca Novak in the week after the $5,000 payment. (According to the prosecutors, there were 176 calls in all from Steele to "Time magazine and Viveca Novak.")

A more plausible explanation, offered by Time Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy, is that "the editorial side of this magazine has no knowledge of what the photo people were doing." Novak concurs: "I didn't know we were buying the photo." Even if Novak knew--and I believe her when she says she didn't--paying sources does not necessarily destroy their credibility. (See Emily Yoffe's Slate piece "Pay for Say" about the tabloid habit of paying sources.) But readers might still want to know about the money that's changed hands. As far as I can tell, Time has never disclosed the $5,000 payment in its pages, despite having written several stories on Steele since January 1998.

It's those stories that are the real embarrassment for Time. The magazine--and Novak in particular--have consistently emphasized Steele's version of events (e.g., by failing to mention the possibility that Steele might have told Story No. 2 to anybody) and played up her martyrdom (sample tag line: "But Steele does know one thing: 'I feel I have been strapped to the train track.' "). Unlike most other publications covering this story, Time has yet to inform its readers about Steele's $7,000 cash infusion from the National Enquirer--perhaps because then Time would have to reveal its own similar payment.

Steele was the logical source for Time to cultivate, since she undercut the Willey scoop that rival Newsweek seemed to be promoting. But this natural, Darwinian journalistic instinct and the cozy source-reporter relationship it produced, resulted in Time presenting a warped account that led readers to think (wrongly, I believe) that Steele's Story No. 3 was the truth.