Paul Krugman To Be Skewered in New Book

Investigative Reporter Jason Leopold Exposes Dirty Politics, Corporate Scandal and His Own Double Life in Engaging New Book

In Off the Record, Jason Leopold reveals in startling detail how his desire to land the scoop at any cost ended up costing him his career and how that made him come to terms with his past he had kept hidden for nearly a decade.

(PRWEB) December 9, 2004 -- In "Off the Record", Jason Leopold reveals in startling detail how his desire to land the scoop at any cost ended up getting him tossed into the "buzzsaw."

Leopold spent two years reporting on California’s energy crisis and the collapse of Enron Corporation. For Leopold, there weren’t any rules to follow when a big story was at stake. Lying, cheating, and backstabbing were just some of the tactics he used to get the scoop. Like an addiction, he couldn’t stop. After writing a scathing investigative news story about Secretary of the Army Thomas White's role in the collapse of Enron Corporation, Leopold became the subject of an intense investigation by The Washington Post, The New York Times and more than two dozen online publications that ignored the evidence Leopold presented against White and instead turned him into the story.

But Leopold’s real fear was that the dozens of journalists who wrote about him would expose criminal secrets about his past that he had long concealed from employers and friends. When the smoke cleared, Leopold’s reputation was in tatters but luckily, no one had revealed his dark side.

In a time when reporters are being attacked by the public for failing to dig deep enough for the truth and ask tough questions of politicians, Leopold reveals how reporters routinely turn on their colleagues and eliminate the competition when a reporter gets too close to the truth. He examines how the fear of being discredited keeps reporters from exposing major scandals in the White House and on Wall Street.

Off the Record is the true story of what goes on behind the scenes in the world of hardball journalism and how one reporter broke every rule to get the story and, in doing so, came to terms with a past that made it all happen.

Jason Leopold spent two years covering California’s electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. He has written more than 2,000 news stories on the issue and was the first journalist to report that energy companies were engaged in manipulative practices in California’s newly deregulated electricity market. Mr. Leopold has also reported extensively on Enron. He was the first journalist to interview former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling following Enron’s bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Mr. Leopold has broken numerous stories on the financial machinations Enron engaged in and his investigative pieces on the company have been published in The Nation, Salon, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, CBS Marketwatch, Entrepreneur, Utne Reader and numerous other national and international publications. Mr. Leopold was also a regular contributor to CNBC and National Public Radio and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two-dozen energy industry conferences around the country.

GOT THIS FROM THE PUBLISHER'S PRESS RELEASE!!!!

When the press secretary to California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis reveals to Jason Leopold—off the record—that he invested in Enron and another energy company while the state was secretly negotiating electricity deals with the firms in violation of a California law, Leopold figures out a way to break the story. He leaks the news to the governor’s Republican critics, who in turn, at Leopold’s behest, leak the news to the Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee. What transpires is a race to be the first one to be credited with uncovering the story and a cover up so the press secretary won’t find out Leopold turned him in.

In a strange twist, a few months later, the press secretary convinces Leopold to believe that a big story he wrote on an adviser to Gov. Davis is wrong and has a colleague send out a memo to the Sacramento press corps saying Leopold said he intends to retract his story. But it turns out Leopold was right all along and never agreed to retract his article However, by that point, the damage to Leopold’s reputation was already done.

When Leopold’s scathing investigative story on former Army Secretary Thomas White was removed from Salon.com by the publication’s editors, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman promised to come to his defense in his column. Over the course of two days, Leopold got his Enron sources to speak to Krugman and vouch for the story. His sources went so far as to fax Krugman their W2 forms to confirm their employment status at Enron. But even after Krugman verified the all of the facts in Leopold’s report the Times still refused to allow its star columnist to vindicate Leopold, whose reputation, at this point is in tatters, due in part, to an earlier column Krugman wrote about Leopold and his story on White. Instead, the Times assigned a reporter to write a negative story about Leopold. Krugman tells Leopold that Howell Raines, then executive editor, that Krugman has to “take a bullet for the company.” What takes place behind the scenes at one of the country’s most respected newspapers that leads up to this moment is nothing short of shocking.

Leopold is competing with more than two dozen national newspaper and television reporters to win the first on-the-record interview with Jeff Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, following his company’s spectacular collapse. This is the story how a little known reporter became the first journalist in the country to land the most sought after interview in the country.

Leopold gets a federal energy official to confirm the facts of an investigation into claims that California’s power market was manipulated by energy companies. He does so by leading the federal official to think that Gray Davis is expecting the outcome of the investigation will result in billions of dollars in refunds for the state. The federal official becomes so infuriated with what he believes Davis said he unknowingly leaks Leopold the news.

A little bit of luck and being at the right place at the right time is how Leopold landed one of the biggest stories of the Enron bankruptcy and lead to what has been called the fraud within the fraud at the company: Enron’s phony trading floor.

Leopold is being prosecuted by a district attorney in New York for grand theft and forgery and at the same time lands a job covering crime for the Whittier Daily New.

Leopold is sued for libel by one of Aaron Spelling’s attorney after the attorney lost a case in which the stunning actress Hunter Tylo sued Spelling claiming she was wrongfully fired from the hit show “Melrose Place” because she got pregnant.

SYNOPSIS--Krugman was right when he said he wasn’t a journalist. Soon after the story was removed from Salon’s web site, Krugman called me from Tokyo to tell me that he will be forced to print a correction in his column unless he can independently verify the White story and speak to every one of my sources. I agree. I spend the next two days begging my sources to phone Krugman and help me clear my name. My sources agree and confirm the veracity of my story. To prove that they worked at Enron, my sources send Krugman income tax forms. Krugman calls to tell me that he is going to vindicate me in his next column. But a reporter for the New York Times calls and interviews me about my story being removed from Salon. I was waiting for him to ask me about my criminal background and the felony conviction but it never came up. Shortly after the Times interview, Krugman called me to say that Howell Raines, executive editor of the New York Times, will not allow him to write a column that would help clear my name. Krugman says Raines told him that, “we should not be questioning the Army Secretary while the nation is preparing for war.” He tells Krugman to “take a bullet” for the company. Krugman also told me that he couldn’t mention in his column that he independently verified the story. He is forced to print a correction.

The following day, the Times runs an extensive story in the paper’s A section under the headline “Web Article Removed, Flaw Cited.” The article virtually puts an end to my career. In violation of journalistic ethics, the story identifies my source by name without my permission or my source’s permission. I send an email to Krugman and ask him why he revealed the identity of my source. Krugman says he “fucked up” and promises to try and clear my name. But I never hear from him again. All of the people I helped in Congress and the Senate won’t take my calls. But David Carr, the Times reporter, and Howard Kurtz, the Post reporter, never bothered to check out my past. The stories they wrote about me were certainly damning. Confirming what I believed early on in my career, reporters are lazy. I always checked people’s backgrounds. My own past taught me that.

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