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April15, 2000 Time Magazine

WHITE HOUSE MAY RELEASE FULL LEO Q&A
Thursday, 13-Apr-2000
NY Post

WHITE HOUSE MAY
RELEASE FULL LEO Q&A
By DON KAPLAN

The White House intends to release a full transcript of Leonardo DiCaprio's 30-minute interview with President Clinton - after an edited version of the controversial chat airs on TV next week. Making public the entire interview will allow rival news organizations to see what ABC cuts out - a potentially embarrassing move the network could try to block.

"We typically release these transcripts after the interview has aired," White House deputy press secretary Jake Siewart told The Post.

"But we usually do it after consulting with the network."

The interview, taped for inclusion on the network's upcoming news special "Planet Earth 2000," caused a furor among ABC news staffers who found it unprofessional to send a movie star to interview the president.

ABC stirred up even more trouble by claiming the interview was taking place only at the president's insistence - a statement angrily denied by the White House.

If ABC asks that the text be kept under wraps, it would be up to White House staffers to decide whether to honor the request.

"There have been some instances were the White House did release these kinds of transcripts even though a network didn't want them to," a White House source said.

"By releasing them, it helped to clarify or put into context something that the network had failed to put in context in the first place - this might be one of those instances."

ABC News officials declined to comment.

Tuesday, while appearing on a national cable show called "The First Producers Club," Siewart said that until last week's controversy, it had always appeared that ABC understood the interview would be in-depth.

"There wasn't a lot of confusion," Siewart said.

"We had a pretty voluminous e-mail file on this. I made sure we hadn't miscommunicated."