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THE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN K REVIEW OF TUES. PAPERS May 21, 1974 ADMIN "RN Relays Note Sailor Put in Bottle" is p. 1 LA Times account by Irwin. P. 2 photo of Navy man Metivier RN Finds Note in Bottle" is also p. 1 Trib "Bottle of Cheer for RN" is the way NY News puts it Sun w/ inside head: "Bid In Bottle Floats To The Very Top. " Inquirer reports the sailor's grandfather, unsure about taking the call from RN, said, "There was still the possibility it was a crank. But when RN came on the line I recognized his voice I said to my wife, it either had to be RN or [impressionist] Rich Little. 11 Wm. Staples added, "The longer he talked the more flabbergasted I became, " and he asked RN if his grandson was in trouble "for littering the waterways. 11 Monitor's Sperling reports Clawson says press has committed "incredibly major excesses¹ in W'gate coverage. Rejecting theory of press "vendetta" against RN, Clawson "instead attributes what he sees as unfair coverage to reporters 'who didn't go to great lengths to round out selective leakage. 11 He also noted when 12-20 reporters are assigned to a story, "there's incredible internal pressure to write 12-20 stories. " Clawson said, "Sometimes there's a good reason, of course, for a main story. And there may be even good reason for 2-3 sidebars. But there's seldom good reason for 12-20 stories. 11 In going past the 1st 3-5 stories, he added, "you're publishing stories which sometimes are terribly peripheral. 11 Asked if press hadn't been the "messenger," not the "message, 11 Clawson notes there's been more journalistic commitment to reporting W'gate than since WWII and "when does the time come when the press stops being the conveyor of info and begins to become the instigator? And that is, not by design, not by conspiracy and not by anybody's fault, has there been a reversal of the normal journalism role in this thing. 11 Clawson added he was "not downgrading" press' roll "in the investi- gative function, tho I'm saying that had they not performed that function I think the US district court probably would have anyway. 11 Referring to leakage, he pointed out he saw on TV news 1 Judiciary member "after another walk out and in effect tell what was in the exec session. And I'm not saying that's bad, per se but each person who violated the terms of the exec session, of course, put his own personal spin on the material he talked about publicly. 11 Sperling notes Ken was "particularly critical of what he sees as undue focus" on t'scripts. He noted t'scripts