TIMES ROLLS OVER FOR BURKLE
THE New York Times may want to change its self-important slogan to "All the Puff Pieces That Are Fit to Print" after publishing a questionably researched article on Page One yesterday about the friendship and financial ties between babe-loving billionaire supermarket exec Ron Burkle and former horndog-in-chief Bill Clinton, who's an adviser on funds run by Burkle's Yucaipa Companies.
The piece by Times vets John M. Broder and Patrick Healy says the pair first met when Clinton was running for president in 1992 and touring L.A. neighborhoods set afire in the riots after the acquittal of the cops charged in the Rodney King beating. They write: "Mr. Clinton noticed that some supermarkets were still open, and asked why, his aides recalled. He was told that those stores were not burned because the owner, Mr. Burkle, treated his customers and employees fairly. Mr. Clinton asked to meet him."
But Slate.com writer Mickey Kaus says that "PR-perfect paragraph should have set off the BS-meter" because a little fact-checking would have found a much different story. As uncovered by Kaus, the lead of a June 1, 1992, article in the Orange County Business Journal reads "Ron Burkle was in the middle of a meeting in a downtown Los Angeles hotel room when the Rodney King verdict came in last month. . . . As word of the ensuing riots spread, television sets in the room were turned on. . . . Buildings were burning. His buildings."
When the smoke cleared, Burkle's "Food 4 Less" group of stores "had sustained some $25 million to $30 million in riot-related damage. At the height of the riots, 44 of its stores had been shut down. A handful were burned to the ground. Another dozen were so badly damaged that it would take from a month to several months to make them operational once more," the Orange County paper said. Kaus asks in his Slate.com column: "Is [the newspaper clipping service] NEXIS too expensive for the NYT? Let's all chip in and buy them a subscription."
In addition, Kaus, an award-winning writer who's penned pieces for Newsweek and the New Republic, questions the "skeptical, non-Timesian view of Clinton/Burkle's investments - including a claim that they aren't doing so well." He says that helps "one of the more contrarian Burkle conspiracy theories: That he wants to keep his divorce records secret not because they'll reveal how rich he is, but because they'll reveal that (thanks to his investments' poor performance) he's not as rich as everyone thinks. How rich could you get investing in Al Gore's cable channel?"
Times spokesman Toby Usnik told Page Six's Bill Hoffmann yesterday: "We are checking the story, and we will print a correction if we were in error." Burkle and his lawyer Marty Singer could not immediately be reached for comment.