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 Neela Sakaria: Thank you for joining us, Ms. Sternig. Please tell our about your background, and how this book came about.
Barbara Sternig: The book has actually been on my mind for a long time. I worked at the NATIONAL ENQUIRER for 20 years and after I left the paper, I had a couple of years during which I reflected on some of the crazy things that I did -- that I sort of took for granted during my career. I had never really considered how unusual some of my experiences had been - especially the adventures in pursuit of celebrities all over the world. The crazy antics, escapades, scrapes and mischief that you get into, trying to get at the information. As an ENQUIRER reporter it's not always possible to get information through the normal news channels, so you have to be resourceful and use your imagination to get to the truth of the matter. The point is, I sat back and would sometimes burst out laughing, thinking about the funny stuff that I did. So I sat down and made a list of all of the unusual things I had done, and before I knew it I had 25 stories. I just picked the first one and started writing. That's how the book came about. I wasn't exactly sure how it would all turn out but it just took shape. The more I went along, the more I had fun writing it, and the more it just turned into a book.
Neela: Some of your adventures are absolutely fascinating, especially considering your conservative upbringing.
BS: Absolutely. I went to a strict, Catholic, girls' boarding school. I was a rules follower. I was trained to be that. In my family, I was one of the older siblings and I had to be a role model to my younger brothers and sisters. I was a perfect little soldier. So, that's why it was fun to go outside the lines a little bit too because I had never done that.
Neela: You were going outside the lines but with a purpose.
BS: Always with a purpose. I sometimes had to do thinks that were not what you might think a journalist would do -- but those are the things journalists do. You might not hear about it, but that's what they do - even if they're not covering Hollywood.
Neela: Was it difficult for you as a journalist, to come to terms with the credibility issues surrounding the NATIONAL ENQUIRER?
BS: I think I went for at least 8 or 9 months resisting the whole idea. The ENQUIRER had come to town, recruiting new reporters right around the time when I left my first Hollywood job. I was Rona Barrett's writer and producer. That was how I had my Hollywood background - it was my grounding in celebrity reporting. So, they had tried to recruit me but I had really resisted it because I did have an issue with it. I didn't want to work for them, I thought - everyone hates them, how can they do that work - I'll be hated if I work there. As it happened, I came into a situation where I had gone away on a cruise for a while and when I came back I had to get a job right away to get back on dry land. So I wondered if the ENQUIRER had any more openings. So I rang the Bureau chief and he said they had one more opening and if I wanted it, I had to speak up then. I went in and thought I'd do it for just six months until I got myself organized and could find a "real" job. And of course 20 years later, I was sitting back and reflecting upon all of it.
Neela: You explain that once you got there, the ENQUIRER was much more legitimate than you had expected. Can you tell us about that?
BS: I was quite impressed with my colleagues. Our boss, who was a pioneer in tabloid journalism, had a concept that the British tabloids were the best at getting the job done. So he hired some very fine journalists from Fleet Street who really did know how to get the job done. I was quite impressed with the whole operation. Our boss loved reporters, he loved editors, he did not skimp on any expense to help his reporters, editors get the story. Just an example, when Elvis Presley died, our boss immediately sent to editors and reporters to be on the grounds at Memphis immediately. We were there before anyone else. This is kind of how the operation went. It was a lot of fun because we were sent everywhere. We were in the middle of everything. That's what I suppose draws any reporter to the profession. I'm so jealous of Peter Jennings -- the guy gets to be in the middle of everything. It's very exciting to be a part of your own history so immediately. Hollywood is part of our history too - so it was always a lot of fun to be in that realm.
Neela: Do you think that the image of the ENQUIRER has changed over the years?
BS: I do think it has changed. The O.J. Simpson trial brought a lot of credibility to the paper. The NATIONAL ENQUIRER broke so many facets of that story before anybody else had them. I think the paper gained more legitimacy when that story was being covered and we were in the middle of it. The other news outlets were hanging on what we did - waiting for the paper to come out. There will always be a "poo-poo" attitude towards the paper, and celebrities will often do that to the paper because they don't like the fact that we get the stories. These are all reasons why I thought it would be fun to write the book. I think the job of the ENQUIRER reporter is misunderstood, and I wanted to share what it is like. It hasn't been done before and I thought I'd be the one to do it.
There's ugliness in any big company and the ENQUIRER does have a dark side but I didn't want to focus on that. I wanted to focus on the positive. There will be a little bit of that in my sequel to the book, which hopefully will be coming out at the end of 2003. It will be further adventures on the Hollywood lines. I will touch a little bit more, possibly, on the darker, inner workings of the paper -- just to present a balanced view, so that it's not all sweet and light.
Neela: Tell us about Alan Markfield, the Bureau Chief, and his influence on you.
BS: Alan really was the reason that I decided the ENQUIRER was for me. The guy was so devoted to the paper, he hardly ever went home. He would sit in the office after hours almost every night. He was such a positive guy - a fun person. He made everyone in that office feel that we had total backing and total support, and that with that we could do anything. This was the sense he gave me, even after he sent me into the lion's den on my first assignment. I had to interview Angie Dickinson, and I went into it thinking everything had been all set up. I went there with my little pen and paper and tape recorder, and I get out to the location and approached her. I went up to her and said that I was there for the interview and the reaction I received was horrifying. I was humiliated in front of her crew. I had never been treated that way at my previous job. We used to get gifts! She ordered me off the set and I got in my car and was just beside myself. I stormed into Alan's office, so upset, and Alan just was delighted that I had survived. He grabbed me by the hand and said he was taking me to this posh club at which the ENQUIRER had a membership -- and that night Alan really showed me what it meant to be part of a powerful team that has the tools to get the job done. He was filled with positive enthusiasm and he was a great boss. He was really one of us. He influenced all of us to embrace this lifestyle.
Neela: In the book, you talk about getting intimately involved with someone you were reporting on and had sort of idolized for a while. Throughout your career, was it difficult to separate your personal emotions and experiences from your job?
BS: That's a very good question. There is a definite brief to not mix business with pleasure, and I did have an exception to that. Especially coming from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER you wanted to maintain your professionalism and not mix business and pleasure. I'm not saying that sometimes male stars or whoever, wouldn't come on strong to you. You know, each interview in some ways, is a very intimate experience - you're sharing a lot of information. Sometimes the people tell you extremely personal information and they sort of have a feeling for you, otherwise they wouldn't do that. So, I always felt it was very important for me to keep that distance. You certainly use all of your own personality during the interview, to draw the other person out. But it certainly was the motto to not mix business and pleasure. It's not good idea in real life, and certainly not in journalism.
You can play it close to the line. There's a chapter in my book about Frank Sinatra and I infiltrated his entourage using my feminine wiles. I sort of teased these henchmen along, right up to the very end. I escaped -- well you'll have to read the book. But I played it very close to the edge. Overall, nothing bad ever happened though - there were some situations that not as comfortable as they could be, but nothing really bad ever happened.
Neela: Tell us about a situation in which you felt particularly worried or uncomfortable.
BS: Here's one that I can't help but think of. This is not a chapter in the book but I will go into some things about Michael Landon in my second book. He was really one of the great personages of Hollywood. He was famous ever since he was a kid until he died. He had a lot of evolution in his life as a star. I interviewed him 17 times during my career. We had many front pages together, I knew many of his co-stars, we had built a very good rapport. I was given many sit-down interviews with him. There was one interview after he and his second wife broke up - I was told I could ask him anything I wanted except about the divorce. So I honored that. Then in the middle of the interview he said, "Don't you want to know about what happened?" I shot the press agent a look, Michael proceeded to tell me the whole intimate story of how he left home. I'm saying all this to show that I really had a good relationship with him, and knew his family members as well.
When he fell ill with pancreatic cancer in 1991, of all people that were assigned to stake out his house, it was me. They made me sit in my car in front of his house and stake out who came and went. So of course, this was just horrible for me. I tried to decline but I was the only would who could do it at the time. His daughter so me out there, it was just horrible. That was really a very unpleasant and uncomfortable experience.
Neela: How did you decide which experiences to include in the book, and which to save for later?
BS: I basically just started writing chapters. Some of them naturally threaded together through chronology or the history of the people. Some of them didn't. I started to write each chapter and it flowed from there. I ended up with quite a fat manuscript and when I went to produce the book, I was advised that the book was too long. I went back home and excised half of the chapters. Then I worked on it again to thread the stories together in a way that made sense, and included the background information that would be needed in a book like this. I just kind of wrote each chapter as an independent story and at the end, put everything together. The next book will contain the rest of the chapters, which are written already. They just need to be strung together in the right way. That's how the book came to be. I really had fun writing it too.
Neela: Is this the first book you've published through Front Row Publishing?
BS: Yes, it is. Hopefully there will be others - not just mine but other people's. I really hope to use everything I've learned and help other people as well. Self-publishing isn't right for everyone, but for me it is the right fit.
Neela: Thank you for your time, and good luck!
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