Now, This Is Really News

A curious subject came up last week when it was suggested that ABC-TV’s Diane Sawyer was wrong to ask for a couple of days off work after the plane crash of family friend John F. Kennedy Jr., rather than reporting the story for the people who pay her.

Any criticism of Sawyer on this score is unjustified, for more than one reason.

She was hardly the only ABC newsperson able to do this story. Peter and Babs and others there could handle it.

She was not abandoning the public’s welfare--refusing, say, to stay in her chair and report on an approaching tornado.

She was not abandoning the public’s right to know--refusing, say, to divulge naughty little details about a President Nixon (for whom Sawyer once wrote speeches) or a President Clinton (about whom everybody reported naughty little details).

No, Sawyer was simply being that thing that newspeople are so rarely accused of being.

Human.

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For many years now I have deliberately distanced myself from the men and women I write about, for this very reason.

It isn’t appropriate to be pals with an owner of a business, or a politician, or a public figure of some kind, and then expect to be objective--or expect others to consider you objective.

I do not wish to go over to these people’s homes for dinner, only to have my host ask, “How could you write that about me?”

At which point I would be forced to say something like: “That’s my job. Pass the salt.”

But I’m only human.

I can’t go my whole life keeping everyone at arm’s length. I can’t live in a cave--where most media people come from, by the way--and feel no warmth or closeness from a single individual I cover.

Nor, I expect, could Diane Sawyer. Did she need to pretend JFK Jr.’s death was business as usual? Were she pricked, would she not bleed?

I mean, come on.

The woman didn’t hide under a desk, like those TV guys from L.A. who heard an earthquake’s rumble. (Had they been war correspondents, those guys would have seen a missile in the sky and screamed, “Run for your lives! No film at 11!”)

I am not unaffected by tragedy. I have covered murders, assaults and domestic abuse. (Remember, I used to cover athletes.) I have covered plane crashes, fires, suicides and violent Olympic figure skaters.

I’m not immune.

The closest I ever came to being personally distressed by a story was when Magic Johnson, the basketball star, revealed that he was HIV-positive. I nearly began the next day’s column with: “My friend is sick.”

But I also have avoided, for the 20 years I have known that man, keeping company with him socially, so that I could fairly--in my own conscience, at least-- write about his basketball, his business, his show business, anything that needed to be addressed.

(For example, I love the guy, but that was one bad talk show he had.)

I am proud to have been a small (unpaid) part of a yearlong series on ESPN television, naming--in descending order--the 50 Greatest Athletes of the Century.

This is a comprehensive and often confounding series of TV specials airing throughout 1999 that salutes the best of the best. I am still trying to figure out the criteria used to put Secretariat ahead of Mickey Mantle, but otherwise it’s a great show.

In this cavalcade thus far--it’s around the halfway point--I have been featured in two segments, talking about a couple of the greatest athletes I ever met.

Neither of whom I liked.

The first one was Mark Spitz, the swimmer, who came in No. 33 on the century’s all-time list. (He even beat Secretariat.)

Spitz and I had a falling out in 1983, more than 10 years after he went to the Munich Olympics and wound up with more gold than Goldfinger. I had done a story he disliked. Hey, it happens.

We patched it up later, so I was genuinely sorry when ESPN rehashed it, 16 years after the fact. Because the bottom line is, Mark Spitz remains one of the most magnificent athletes I ever saw.

Later came No. 26, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

To me, the difference between Magic and Kareem was easy. If you asked Magic how he was, he’d say, “Fine. How are you?” If you asked Kareem how he was, he’d say, “Fine.”

But Abdul-Jabbar was also a distinguished, accomplished, eloquent man, and an athlete with few equals.

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Diane Sawyer was fond of a young man who died, and she couldn’t bring herself to talk about him. Good for her.

I cannot personally think of a soul whose death would make me call in heartsick to work. Not counting next of kin.

But perhaps I’ll be fooled someday, find myself frozen- fingered and tongue-tied, just from having lost someone I knew and admired.

Because sometimes it’s easier to discuss someone you don’t care for than someone you do.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. E-mail: mike .downey@latimes.com.