PIP casualty

An Open Letter to Steve Adler:

I am not going to repeat the expressions of utter disgust voiced by others at the PIPs awarded Jim Vicini and Glenn Somerville, which I share a thousandfold [Supreme Court reporter, 'PIP casualty', calls it a day].

I just want to ask you, Mr Adler: are you aware that on the night of December 12, 2000, Jim Vicini, alone among the myriad journalists milling around on the steps of the Supreme Court, immediately called the Bush v. Gore decision, his laser intelligence seeing right through the opaque legal murkiness to a shining “gold”?

Are you aware that at 2230 on that night Jim filed this newsbreak: A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday for Republican George W. Bush, halting recounts of ballots in Florida and dealing a crushing setback to Democrat Al Gore’s hopes of winning the presidency.

Are you aware that at this same time everybody else was floundering and at 2234 AP was still waffling: The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday night that the Florida Supreme Court erred in its order for a manual recount of thousands of ballots in the state contested presidential election?

Are you aware that Jim was quoted on three US TV networks (CBS, CNN, MSNBC), and that Dan “watch me climb the Berlin Wall” Rather, after lamenting the confusion - “it may take an army of lawyers to translate this thing” - said “the most understandable I’ve seen so far comes from Reuters” and then read out verbatim Jim’s newsbreak?

You see, Mr Adler, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, Jim Vicini, after decades of absolutely sterling, unstinting work for Reuters “could keep his head when all about him were losing theirs and [now are] blaming it on him.” In my book, that Supreme Court performance alone makes Jim sacrosanct.

Mr Adler, I think you owe all who valued working with Jim Vicini, and Glenn Somerville, an explanation in The Baron, where so many have expressed their shock.

Yes, Mr Adler, j’accuse. ■