Is Shriver Still Working for 'Today'? -NYT

[Rose Siding]

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She reluctantly left her job at the network - where she worked as a reporter for "Dateline" - after her husband was elected, but she was recently drafted to help NBC's "Today" show decide whom to have on the air. At least, that's the story according to Laurence Leamer, the author of "Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger," who was in negotiations for an appearance on both the "Today" show and "Dateline" to promote the book, which comes out tomorrow.

Things seemed to be going well until a series of e-mail messages in March between John Murphy, head of publicity at St. Martin's Press, which is publishing the biography of Mr. Schwarzenegger, and Andrea Smith, a producer at "Today" in charge of authors. In that exchange, it became apparent that before "Today" would officially book Mr. Leamer, he needed to first obtain Ms. Shriver's blessing. Ms. Smith said as much in an e-mail message she sent to Mr. Murphy on March 8, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times: "Anyway, you can ask Maria to call me so I can just make sure she is O.K. with us doing the Leamer book."

Mr. Leamer, who interviewed Ms. Shriver for the book and had long admired her career as a journalist, was incredulous when the request was relayed to him.

....He quickly called her to straighten things out. "When I called Maria, it was not to have her tell them to have me on the show, but just to tell them it was unethical, that they should just do whatever they were going to do," he said. "And she told me, 'There must be something negative about me in the book. I know you are going to make Arnold look really good in this book and make me look really bad. Send me the galleys and then I'll decide.' "

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/business/media/06carr.html?ex=1118721600&en=0299a97361f184d7&ei=5070&emc=eta1