All the News Stories That Are Fit to Print

When Mike Wallace sought out Marlin Fitzwater in New York last month to berate the former White House press secretary for criticizing him and “60 Minutes” in a new book, reports of the stormy encounter were more of the same for Times Books.

The division of Random House that published Fitzwater’s “Call the Briefing!”--a juicy memoir of his work for former Presidents Bush and Reagan--continued to distinguish itself this past year by producing news-making books about media, politics and current events.

The publisher’s output included the bestseller “In Retrospect,” former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara’s debate-provoking account of his role in conducting the Vietnam War, and “In Confidence,” a Cold War memoir by longtime Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

“We have a kind of journalistic background--to approach books like good stories,” says Times Books Publisher Peter Osnos. “We take advantage of what’s in the news and try to give it a more lasting quality in book form.”

Osnos, 52, a former editor and foreign correspondent with the Washington Post, joined Random House in 1984, when the company acquired Times Books from the New York Times. He has published two presidents--Boris Yeltsin, whose “The Struggle for Russia” came out last year, and Jimmy Carter, who had a bestseller this year with “Always a Reckoning,” a volume of poetry. Carter was responsible this year for another departure from Times Books’ nonfiction policy. He and his daughter, Amy, an illustrator, collaborated on a new children’s book, “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer,” and there are plans for a collection of homilies Carter has given at his Baptist church.

“For presidents, we make exceptions,” Osnos says.

On the schedule in the next few months are “Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time,” by Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, and “Nightline: History in the Making and the Making of Television,” by Ted Koppel and Kyle Gibson. Osnos also has plans to bring out two books sure to command media interest--a memoir by human-rights activist Harry Wu about his clandestine trips to China and another by Markus Wolf, the mysterious figure who long ran the East German spy service.

Says Osnos: “I’m basically still in the news business.”

Promotions: In other publishing developments this year, the two leading news weeklies announced major changes that take effect in January.

Mark Whitaker, an 18-year veteran at Newsweek who had been one of four assistant managing editors, was named managing editor. The 38-year-old newsman now would appear to be the first in line to succeed editor Maynard Parker, 55.

At Time, where managing editor is the top news position, Walter Isaacson, 43, will succeed James R. Gaines in the post.

Also in 1995: Exit D. Claeys Bahrenburg and enter Cathleen P. Black as the new president of Hearst Magazines . . . Exit John Mack Carter and enter Ellen Levine as the new editor in chief of Good Housekeeping . . . Exit Mark Mulvoy (who assumes the titular role of editor) and enter Bill Colson as the new managing editor of Sports Illustrated. . . .

Among the magazines launched this year were Virtual City (cyberspace), Fast Company (business), This Old House (build-it-yourself), Lotto World (lotteries), the Weekly Standard (politics, conservative) and George (politics, glossy). Mirabella, discontinued by Rupert Murdoch’s News America Publishing Co., was resurrected by Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. . . .

Within weeks of the O.J. Simpson verdict, most of the major legal eagles in the case had lucrative book contracts--Marcia Clark (Viking Penguin), Johnnie Cochran (Ballantine), Christopher Darden (ReganBooks), Robert Shapiro (Warner) and Alan Dershowitz (Simon & Schuster). The question: Will trial watchers care as much in 1996 as they did in 1995?