November 18, 2008 4:16 PM
Newsday's Spincycle blog has posted an excerpt of a transcript of the press conference yesterday when Steve Levy walked out over a question about Marcelo Lucero (if you go to Spincycle, you have to scroll down for the piece). Reid Epstein of Newsday asked about whether Levy had, as promised, gone to worship services with Latinos over the weekend. Epstein is clearly just trying to do his job as a reporter and never seems to even stray close to giving offense. Here is the relevent piece:
Reporter Reid Epstein: You said, uhh, late last week that you’d be going to some services over the weekend for Mr. Lucero. I was curious which services you went to over the weekend.
Levy: We’ll deal with that after this press conference.
Epstein: Can you…
Levy: Tomorrow.
Mark Smith, deputy press secretary: This is for budget only.
Levy: Yes, this is for budget only and…
Epstein: Why?
Levy: Tomorrow we’ll be having a major speech.
Reporter Rick Brand: Why?
Levy: We're trying to stay focused on the budget here today. I'll be happy to talk with you one on one after this, Reid, but for this purpose we wanna stay focused on the budget and I appreciate everyone coming down here today.
Epstein: Can you tell us whats going to be in your speech tomorrow?
(Levy walks out of the room)
Later, with Mark Smith:
Epstein: What was the point of him saying I’m going to talk to you one-on-one if he’s not going to do that?
Smith: He meant he would talk to you one-on-one about budget questions.
Epstein: No, I asked him a question about Mr Lucero and he said I’ll talk to you one on one and then left.
Smith: As I explained before the press conference, this is a press conference about the budget....
....Epstein: Why would he say that if that’s not true?
Smith: Well, he’s not going to talk to you one on one. So…
Epstein: He just said he’s going to talk to us one on one. What did he mean when he said he’ll talk to us one on one.
Smith: Guys, this is getting silly. He’s giving…
Brand: No it isn’t. He said himself…
Smith: He’s giving an address tomorrow at the American Jewish Council, hes giving an address tomorrow night on News 12 and that is the focus of…
Epstein: What did he mean when he said he’ll talk to us one on one if youre saying that he wont talk to us one on one? What did he mean by that? You heard him say it too.
Smith: I cannot tell you what he meant, but we’re done.
Epstein: Why did he run out of the press conference so quickly.
Smith: We’re done.
Later on…
Epstein: Why does he think it's more effective to do that than to do take questions or to show up at any of these community events?
Smith: It’s, you know, as we said before, he doesn’t , he doesn’t want himself to become the story. And, umm,
Epstein: Then why is he taking 10 minutes of TV time?
Smith: Well, because there the message gets out, not the story. And there is a difference between the message and the story.
Epstein: What does he think that difference is?
Smith: The message you'll hear tomorrow night. The story is when reporters at a budget press conference try to bring up uh, unrelated questions and then try to get video footage and photographs from Newsday...
Epstein: Should we not ask questions or take video footage of his press conferences?
Smith: If that becomes the story, its unfortunate. Because that’s not the message.
Epstein: Whats the message?
Smith: The messsage, you’ll hear tomorrow night or tomorrow morning. It wont be the same word for word, because on News 12 obviously we'll be constrained by time.
UPDATE: Levy may have walked out because the first vigil he attended only came after Reid Epstein posed his eemingly innocuous question. Following the question, and without prior arrangement with the sponsors of the vigil, he did attend a school vigil last night. Here is a Newsday blog on the strange circumstances surrounding that visit by Levy with News12 in tow.