By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 4, 1998; Page D01

When federal officials approved the anti-impotence pill Viagra, the magnitude of the story was immediately apparent to news executives everywhere, right?

Not quite. The networks ran stories or briefs in the middle of their newscasts. The Washington Post ran a wire service story on Page A2. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, which didn't publish until the Monday after the Friday announcement, played Viagra on Pages B2 and B6, respectively. Even the New York Post's snappy headline -- " 'Love drug' gets nod from FDA" -- ran inside the paper.

At the same time, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun immediately saw the potency of the story, giving it big front-page display.

What explains these sharply different reactions? After all, the news outlets that gave Viagra short shrift in late March are now filled with stories about the fastest-selling debut in drug history.

"We should have hit that story harder and faster," said USA Today Editor David Mazzarella. "There's no question it was a major development -- how much of a major development you really don't know on the first day."

"We probably should have done more, but we did do a lot," said Jeff Fager, executive producer of the "CBS Evening News." "We're a hard-news broadcast, and we have a lot of stories to cover in a relatively short amount of time."

Rob Stein, The Washington Post's science editor, said his FDA reporter was off that day, but added: "I don't think I quite gauged the sociological response to it. . . . It touched a nerve.

"I remember thinking, 'Am I going to get a story about impotence on the front page of The Washington Post?' Maybe I wrongly thought people were uncomfortable talking and thinking about it."

Shortly before Viagra was approved, medical commentator Timothy Johnson of ABC's "World News Tonight" called it "the biggest development in human sexuality since the birth control pill" -- but his brief report largely served to tout his upcoming segment on "20/20." By the week of April 20, however, Viagra was the most-covered story on the network newscasts, and last week it made the cover of Time.

The handling of Viagra underscores the subjective nature of news judgment. New drug therapies and health studies are announced every week, and editors must decide whether they are bogus or breakthroughs. Viagra caught fire, journalistically speaking, because it raised a host of interesting questions about sexual function, the nature of impotence and who will pay for this new wonder drug.

In a broader sense, any piece of news must compete with all the other chunks and fragments floating around on a given day. When the Food and Drug Administration okayed Viagra on March 27, for example, the networks were still swept up in the aftermath of the Jonesboro, Ark., shootings.

Other recent stories have also divided news organizations. When James Earl Ray died April 23, the news led the three major networks and made the front pages of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. But some outlets gave considerably less play to the long-expected demise of Martin Luther King Jr.'s killer.

When Linda McCartney died, some newspapers (USA Today, the Los Angeles Times) treated it as a Beatles-related cultural event worthy of Page 1; others, including The Washington Post, ran obituaries way inside the paper. Newsweek mentioned McCartney's death on the cover last week and gave it a four-page spread; People ran a cover story; Time kissed it off in a paragraph.

Just another celebrity death? "I thought readers everywhere could connect with that story," USA Today's Mazzarella said. Sometimes, he said, "we've got to give people a lift."

People can debate the "importance" of such stories, but sometimes news is nothing more complicated than what everyone is talking about.

Hersh's Dilemma

Seymour Hersh insists he had the story nailed down but decided against writing it.

The investigative reporter says that in 1983 he developed evidence that Richard Nixon hit his wife, Pat, on three occasions -- twice while he was president -- and that she was hospitalized a number of times. But Hersh says he passed on the story because he could find no connection to public policy.

In a talk at Harvard reprinted in Nieman Reports magazine, Hersh was asked why he wrote about John Kennedy's sex life in his latest book but considered alleged presidential wife-beating off-limits. He noted that JFK's Secret Service agents spoke to him on the record, but not the sources involving Nixon.

"That story would have been denied by Nixon, his wife. The sources would have gone [haywire] if I'd named them. I talked to a doctor involved. He was in direct violation of the Hippocratic oath. . . . I would have had to walk over the rights of a lot of people who talked to me. Did I know it was true? Yes."

But that, he noted, was 15 years ago. "It would be so much easier to write today," Hersh said.

Mexican Standoff

The Mexican immigrant who is facing deportation after his life story was recounted by the Raleigh News & Observer now says he never gave the paper permission to reveal his undocumented status.

Julio Granados told the paper that its reporter, Gigi Anders, had assured him she would not disclose that he was in the country illegally. "My name, yes. But not the fact that I'm here without papers," he said. The arrest triggered strong protests from Hispanic leaders.

Anders says she repeatedly told Granados that his immigration status would appear in the paper. Editor Anders Gyllenhaal maintains that "we were very careful in going over and over with him what we were doing."

Going Global

Is Slate going the paper route? Microsoft's online magazine has struck a deal with the New York Times Syndicate to distribute its material to more than 2,000 news outlets worldwide. "A tremendous honor," says Editor Michael Kinsley. Slate is celebrating another milestone in the mostly free Internet world: In the six weeks since it began charging $19.95 a year, Slate says, it has signed up 20,000 paying customers.

Fox Poll Watch

"Do you think the story of President Clinton's life is more like a PBS documentary or more like an episode of 'Jerry Springer'?" -- Fox News poll.