Opinions
DEWAYNE WICKHAM
USA Today
Sloppy ‘Reporting’
Book on Winfrey by Kelley
WASHINGTON--The last time there was such a seismic clash between a media giant and a roguish storyteller, the world was at war and television was commercial-free.
Back then, the antagonists were William Randolph Hearst, the ruler of a massive media empire, and Orson Welles, a young filmmaker whose first movie, “Citizen Kane,” was a not-so-veiled trashing of Hearst.
The film premiered on May 1, 1941, but it had a short run.
The media mogul used his considerable clout to keep “Citizen Kane” (which has been called the best movie ever made) out of most theaters.
The current conflict is centered on a book about Oprah Winfrey, the reigning queen of daytime television, by best-selling author Kitty Kelley.
There’s no indication Miss Winfrey is trying to silence Miss Kelley, but after reading this book, I wouldn’t blame her if she did.
“Oprah: a Biography” is, even for the gossip journalism genre, a bad read that has catapulted the muckraking author back into the spotlight.
That’s due more to the prurient interests of those who buy this book than to Miss Kelley’s “reportorial sights,” which are touted on the book’s jacket.
My critique of Miss Kelley’s work is not done at arm’s length.
Oprah Winfrey and I were once close friends.
We first met in 1976 when, as a young reporter, I covered the Caucus of Black Democrats in Charlotte, N.C.
Miss Winfrey, then a student at Tennessee State University and a reporter at WTVF-TV in Nashville, had a thirst for hard news and had finagled her way into the event.
Later that year, when she moved to my hometown of Baltimore to co-anchor that city’s top-rated newscast, our platonic friendship blossomed.
We spent much time together and often talked about the things that brought joy and pain into our lives.
I was backstage in Murphy Auditorium of Morgan State University with Miss Winfrey before her “one-woman” show that Miss Kelley mentions in the book.
Also, I headed the local journalism group Miss Kelley says Oprah Winfrey joined.
That’s why I know the two chapters Miss Kelley devotes to Oprah Winfrey’s time in Baltimore are more the product of exaggeration, insinuation and error than a search for truth.
For example, Miss Kelley relays a story about Miss Winfrey devouring a huge platter of salmon, which her unnamed source described as “an amazing display of gluttony.”
Miss Kelley says this happened at the home of Pat Wheeler, whom she described as the community affairs director of the station where Oprah Winfrey worked.
When I called Miss Wheeler to mention this incident, her reaction was predictable.
“You’re making this up, aren’t you?,” she yelled into the phone.
Miss Wheeler, actually, had worked for a competing station where she produced a public affairs show I hosted.
“That never happened,” Miss Wheeler commented. “Why didn’t she ask me about this?”
Why, indeed.
Why did Miss Kelley quote Al Sanders, one of Oprah Winfrey’s newsroom rivals who died in 1995, as if she had spoken to him herself? (In the foreword, Miss Kelley said she had worked on the book just four years.)
She also wrote that there were “only two Black women on television in Baltimore” when Oprah Winfrey arrived in 1976.
At the time, I headed the city’s Black journalists group.
Those women, she said, were Sue Simmons and Maria Broom. She overlooked at least two others: Jaki Hall and Edith House.
So, why should we trust anything else Miss Kelley writes in a book she wants us to believe is the product of her drive to “penetrate the manufactured” image of Oprah Winfrey?
