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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1997)
News Digest J .rv,l|Mn| <|| -|ttn,Tn i -||ir[,1— r-|--T|-TT Senate confirms Albright, Cohen WASHINGTON (AP) — In one day die Senate voted unanimously to confirm Madeline Albright as the first woman secretary of state and William Cohen as the first Republican mem ber of President Clinton’s Cabinet. After a one-sided debate Wednes day with no negative comments about Albright, senators voted 99-0. Albright’s swearing-in is expected as early as today. She was the first of President Clinton’s second-term Cabi net to pass Senate muster. Immediately afterward, former Maine Sen. William Cohen passed the same muster by the same vote. He also faced a friendly group of senators. The only member not voting on both nominations was Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Sen. Jesse Helms, a frequent critic of President Clinton’s foreign policy, lavishly praised Clinton’s choice for secretary of state. “She’s a strong lady. She’s a cou rageous lady,” Helms said. But Helms repeated his blanket disagreement with Clinton’s foreign policy, saying he hoped Albright would turn it around. Helms said he expects Albright to work with the Republican-controlled Congress to limit sending U.S. troops abroad, to reform the U.N. and to modernize the State Department. In his confirmation hearing Wednesday, moderate Republican Cohen said he will carry on many of Clinton’s policies. But he departed sharply from present policy on Bosnia, promising U.S. troops will leave the area in 18 months. Cohen also said the United States must modernize its weapons, consider cutting the armed forces’ troop levels and turn its attention to Asia. GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP)—A jury Wednesday ordered ABC to pay Food lion more than $5.5 million for sending two reporters undercover with cameras in their wigs for an expose accusing the supermarket chain of selling spoiled meat. While Food Lion disputed the al legations in the 1992 “PrimeTlme Live” report, it was ABC’s ; newsgathering methods that were at i issue in the federal trial. The jury eat-' i Her found the network committed fraud, tfespassfttg and breach of loy alty. Butin the closely watched case that opened a new line of legal attack against the media — and put under cover reporting itself on trial—Food Lion got far less than the $52.5 mil lion to $1.9 billion .in punitive dam ages* sought, , “We weren’t in there trying to handcuff the media,” explained Gre gory Mack, foreman of the jury that deliberated the damages for six days. “We would not have gotten the story if the media had not gone in.” Bruce Sanford, a First Amendment lawyer in Washington, called the Food Lion verdict emotional, irrational and unconstitutional and said it will force i journalists to think twice before do ing investigative pieces. “It’s punishing the messenger,, plain and simple,” Sanford said. The jury, in die second multimil lion-dollar verdict against ABC in as many months, ordered the network to pay $5.5 million and its employees an additional $45,750. ABC said it will appeal. ABC News president Roone pledge catted die punitive damages "troubling, noting they were about 4,000 dmes the amount of compensa tory damages: “If large corporations were allowed to stop hard-hitting investigative jour nalism, the American people would be the losers,” Arledge said in a state ment. The “PrimeTime Live” report — narrated by Diane Sawyer—accused Food Lion of selling rat-gnawed cheese, expired meat and old ham and fish that had been washed in bleach to kill its smell. Food Lion denied die allegations and said it lost more than $1 trillion in sales and stock value because of the report. The judge ultimately barred the supermarket chain from seeking com pensation for its sales and stock losses, and Food Lion was awarded only the cost of hiring and paying the ABC .workers, $1,402, in compensatory damages. The ‘Cosmo girl’ steps down Readers will still feel Helen Gurley Brown’s influence. NEW YORK (AP) — It’s a classic piece of advice from Cos mopolitan, No. 4 on a list of 10 things to do when you wake up on a “bad beauty morning”: “Stick face into a bowl of ice cubes and water—breathe through a snorkel; try to stay under for 10 minutes, though you can pop up and down. (Helen Gurley Brown invented this trick.)” The pointer — aimed at tight ening pores — is vintage Helen Gurley Brown, the 74-year-old primped-and-preened, oh-so-thin figure who for 32 years has personi fied the “Cosmo girl” for whom her magazine is written. Now she’s stepping down, say ing farewell with a special issue that hit newsstands Tuesday. Brown, who has said only that her departure was by “mutual agreement with management” at the Hearst Corp., sounded reluctant to be leaving. “Now I don’t have something,” she said. “I don’t have the prod uct, and I don’t have the power. Don’t kid yourself about that.” Brown, who will still oversee Cosmo’s 29 international editions, is succeeded by Bonnie Fuller, a 40 year-old Canadian who'success fully launched the American edi tion of the fashion and‘beauty magazine Marie Claire. Keep the plunging bustlines? The new editor’s task will be to freshen a magazine whose rel evance has waned in the two de cades since the end of the Sexual Revolution. But, declaring deep => respect for the franchise built by Brown, Fuller promises no radical changes. (iI think that the typical Cosmo reader is going to be opening that magazine and finding everything she’s always been familiar with,” she said. She promises to maintain the magazine’s emphasis on practical ad vice on relationships, work,lash- • ion, health, beauty and sex. The graphics are being fresh ened. More photos are being added. And the clearest break is Fuller’s apparent determination to bring a new edge to Cosmo’s articles. Brown has been criticized for keeping issues like AIDS and sexual harassment off the pages of Cosmo, but the Fuller era opens Cosmopolitan, February 1997 with a March feature on tour het erosexual couples living with HIV and new drugs developed to com bat the virus. April will bring a story on sexual harassment. One Brown tradition already is out the window: “No centerfolds,” Fuller said firmly when asked the fate of Brown’s male pinups. Brown’s final issue features two, (“continuing our family tradition,” the cover says) for a total of six since Burt Reynolds posed in 1972. Asked whether the cover would continue to show a model with a plunging neckline and lots of cleav age, Fuller said wily that the cov ers will continue to project an im age of'“confidence and empowered sexuality.” Under Brown, Cosmopolitan became the best-selling women’s magazine in the world. Circulation reached 3 million in 1985 and re mains about 2.5 million today, de spite a flood of new women’s maga zines in the market. Critics have argued that Cosmo’s take on what its cover headlines call “the man-woman thing” is dated. “Stock the fridge with his favorite things. ... Don’t touch anything on his desk.... Iky not to nag.... Don’t ever criticize him in public,” a feature in the Feb ruary issue advises. Brown argues that today’s femi nists spend too much time blam ing men for women’s problems. “I’ve said, ‘You’re the problem —get out there and do something.’ They have accused me rightly of having women be sex objects. That’s right—you’re a sex object, if somebody wants to go to bed with you,” she said. “I think a true femi nist is someone who wants equal ity for both genders.” Sex, sex and more sex Thirty-five years ago, Brown was in the vanguard of the women s movement with her 1962 best seller, “Sex and the Single Girl.” The book, written when she was a copywriter for a Los Angeles ad agency, instructed the unattached woman on how to conduct her ro mantic affairs. She was hired in 1965 to re make Cosmopolitan, then a 79 year-old general-interest magazine with languishing circulation. Brown turned the magazine into a monthly instruction book for - the modem, have-it-all Cosmo girl. A primary ingredient from the start has been sex, sex and more sex, with titillating cover lines writ ten by Brown’s husband, former editor David Brown: “The startling truth about sex addicts”; “How to be very good in bed”; “The terrible danger of a perfect sex partner.” “I’ve never known for sure why sex always worked for me,” Brown said. “I grew up in a very repressed era. But I, Helen Brown, feel, think, know that it’s me of life’s great pleasures, so you should be having it.” The formula was perfect for an era when large numbers of young women were entering the work force and when being single was no longer considered just a brief interlude between adolescence and marriage. Brown is a self-described “mouseburger” from Arkansas who never went to college and held 17 secretarial jobs between the ages of 18 and 38. “A mouseburger is somebody who’s got it inside and needs to get it out. She’s a tigress inside and a little unprepossessing outside,” Brown said. “I still look at myself (hat way now—I never quit being that 19-year-old with her nose pressed up against the glass.” S| s= i Editor DougKouma . 472-2588 Managing Editor Paula Lavigne Aaaoc. Newa Editors: Joshua Gillin Chad Lorenz Night Edttor: Anne Hjersman Opinion Editor: Anthony Nguyen AP Wire Editor: John Fuhvider Copy Desk Chief: Julie Sobczyk Sports Editor: Trevor Parks - ~~—'■ Ail Sjttnr Jell Randall POwnNSMIlBKlo..^. Art Director: Aaron Steckelberg Web Editors: Michelle Collins Amy Hopfensperger Night News Editors: Bryce Glenn Learwie Sorensen Rebecca Stone < Amy Taylor General Manager: Dan Shattil Advertising Manager: Amy Stmthers Asst Advertising Manager: Cheryl Renner Classified Ad Manager: Tlffiny Clifton Publications Board Chairman: Travis Brandt Professional Adviser: Don Walton - 473-7301
