Glossary: Double Super Secret Background

One well-guarded secret in the press is that nobody necessarily agrees on the terms governing the guarding of secrets. “Deep background,” “not for attribution,” “off the record”–the specific interpretation varies from reporter to reporter and source to source.

Now Newsweek‘s Michael Isikoff has made things even more impenetrable with this week’s revelation that Time‘s Matthew Read More

Book Review

Michael Isikoff was the guileless Candide of the Clinton scandal. Things kept happening to him. Even when he tried to get away from the Jones-Lewinsky-Willey-Broaddrick beat, he was dragged back (as were we all) by the sheer exorbitance and squalor of the President’s behavior. At one point, his Newsweek editor told him to do what Read More

The Bitter Fallout Between Two Monicagate Stars

Now that President Bill Clinton has confessed to an affair with Monica Lewinsky, one might expect some camaraderie between two of the scandal’s prime movers: Clinton-hating literary agent Lucianne Goldberg and the journalist she affectionately nicknamed “Spikey,” Newsweek ‘s muckraking Washington correspondent, Michael Isikoff. But a recent outgoing message on Ms. Goldberg’s answering machine suggested Read More