The Danger of Doubling

Can a working newsman double in brass as a working public personality without fear of embarrassment? To some who busily try, the answer came last week. It was no.

Testifying before the House Committee on Legislative Oversight in Washington, Max Hess, owner of a department store in Allentown, Pa., said that at least four leading newspaper columnists had been paid $1,000 each by his store for making "good will" visits. The newsmen: Hearst Headline Service's Columnist Bob Considine, New York Journal-American's TV Critic Jack O'Brian, the San Francisco Chronicle's Stanton Delaplane, and Associated Press Columnist Hal Boyle.

All four denied that the money was in any way considered an inducement to plug the Hess store in their columns. Nevertheless, that was what Hess got from three of the columnists. Said Considine, who wrote about the store's stock of exotic foods: "Made a nice little feature." Said Delaplane, who also wrote a complimentary piece after his Allentown visit: "His [i.e., Hess's] office did pay my expenses of $1,000 to travel to Allentown for the story." Said Boyle: "I have mentioned Hess four times on subjects of feature-news interest." Only the Journal-American's O'Brian spurned his benefactor: he mentioned neither Hess nor the store in his column until Nov. 3, when he broke the story of Hess's having paid $10,000 to get a contestant on a TV quiz show for publicity purposes.

Most newsmen who knew them were willing to accept the statements of Bob Considine, Hal Boyle and Stan Delaplane that there had been no news-space quid pro quo with Hess. But by the very fact of becoming paid public personalities and hired performers, they had asked for embarrassment that could have been avoided had they stuck to their real jobs, at which all do exceedingly well.

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