Jeff Gerth

Jeff Gerth is a former investigative reporter for "The New York Times" who has written lengthy, probing stories that drew both praise and criticism. He shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his coverage of how American firms gave the Chinese access to sensitive technology related to satellite launches. He came under fire for stories about the Whitewater controversy and Chinese scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Biography

Gerth attended affluent Shaker Heights High School in Ohio in the 1960s, where he was a member of the Junior Council on World Affairs and captain of the golf team. He was a varsity golfer at Northwestern University where he got a degree in business administration. Gerth began his career not in newspapers but in the marketing department of Standard Oil of Ohio; he was assigned to write down license plates of vehicles pulling in and out of gas stations to find out why drivers were choosing Standard Oil's rivals. [ Columbia Journalism Review, "Eye of the Storm," [http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/01/3/gup.asp] May/June 2001.]

Gerth worked for the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign, investigating some aspects of the Watergate scandal. Then he did some freelance journalism, including an expose of the La Costa resort's ties to organized crime that ran in "Penthouse". Gerth, and his co-author, Lowell Bergman, were sued, along with Penthouse, by the founders of the resort for more than half a billion dollars. Before trial, Gerth and Bergman both settled and apologized. Gerth also collaborated with Seymour Hersh of "The New York Times", who recommended that the "Times" hire him. Gerth joined the "Times" in 1976 and spent most of his career in the newspaper's Washington, D.C. bureau. ["Blood Sport", James Stewart, Simon & Schuster.]

In March 1992, Gerth revealed that beginning in 1978, while Bill Clinton was Arkansas attorney general, he and his wife, Hillary, were partners in an Ozark real estate deal with James B. McDougal. When Clinton was governor, McDougal controlled a bank and Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan. Gerth's stories raised the question of whether it was appropriate for the then governor to be in partnership with those having immediate financial interests in an industry regulated by the state. ["Columbia Journalism Review" [http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/01/3/gup.asp] ] Criticisms of Gerth's article centered on the unclear time line - it was difficult to pick out that Bill Clinton was Attorney General, not Governor, at the time the partnership was created, and that Jim McDougal did not own a business regulated by the state until passage of the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act in 1982, 4 years after creation of the partnership. (See "The Hunting of the President", particularly the book.)

Gerth reported a controversial Sunday meeting between Clinton and his personal secretary, Betty Currie. At the meeting, according to Currie, Clinton asked her a number of sensitive questions, including whether she remembered his ever being alone with Monica Lewinsky. [ "Columbia Journalism Review" [http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/01/3/gup.asp] ]

On March 6, 1999, Gerth reported that an unidentified Chinese American, later identified as Wen Ho Lee, stole secrets for U.S. nuclear bombs. A government official was quoted as saying the case was "going to be just as bad as the Rosenbergs." FBI investigators waved the story in front of Lee as they interrogated him. [ "Columbia Journalism Review" [http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/01/3/gup.asp] ] Judge James Parker eventually dropped all charges against Lee, stating, "I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner you were held in captivity," describing Lee's nine months in solitary confinement as having "embarrassed our nation and all of its citizens."

Although he wrote some of the paper's most visible stories, Gerth himself kept a low profile. Balding and professorial, he shunned interviews, refused to give speeches and declined TV talk show appearances.

In 2004, Gerth was a visiting professor at Princeton University, where he taught an undergraduate seminar on investigative reporting. He left the Times in 2005, and joined the staff of ProPublica in February 2008. [Noted Reporters and Web Technologist Join New Investigative Team, Feb. 19, 2008 [http://www.propublica.org/pr_new_team_feb19_2008.html] ]

With his former colleague at the Times, Don Van Natta, Jr., Gerth wrote an investigative biography about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton entitled, "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton". It was published in June 2007 by Little, Brown and Company. Gerth and Van Natta were reportedly offered a $1 million advance. [The United States of America vs. Bill Keller, New York Magazine, Sept. 11, 2006. [http://nymag.com/news/media/20334/] ]

Personal

Gerth married at thirty-nine and became a father a year later. His wife, Janice O'Connell, worked on the Foreign Relations Committee for Senator Christopher Dodd, who, during the 1996 Presidential campaign, chaired the Democratic National Committee. Gerth recused himself from any campaign coverage. ["Columbia Journalism Review" [http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/01/3/gup.asp] ]

References