TV-Reporter Fired After Questioning Bush

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - A television reporter who challenged President Bush at a news conference was fired the next day - a management spokesman said the reporter had been "a little too persistent" in his questioning.

Brian Karem, 30, said he was fired by KMOL-TV, an NBC affiliate, for his handling of an exchange Thursday with Bush outside McNay Art Museum, where the president and six Latin American leaders were concluding a two-day drug summit.

Karem questioned the summit's merit, saying he had spoken with narcotics agents that week who "don't believe the war on drugs can be won. They consider this summit a joke, and they consider the president cooperating in the summit to be a joke as well. What do you tell your people in the trenches?"

The president apologized to his guests for what he called a "little divergence."

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari answered Karem's question, saying "our action is completely determined and we will completely maintain it with full energy."

Karem, who was fired Friday by KMOL news director Ron Harig, said, "My boss told me I was rude and that I shouldn't have questioned the president of the United States like that."

Harig said the question was appropriate but that Karem's manner went too far.

"He was insistent and persistent and aggressive in his asking of the question," Harig said in an interview before the firing. "I think it's probably fair to say he was a little too persistent.

"As we all know, an orchestrated White House press conference is a managed event, and the White House press corps is an elite club. It's not easy in a situation like that for a local reporter to get a word in."

Harig said Karem's method, not his question, was the problem.

"I think the question he asked was an appropriate question," he said. "The way he handled it was overly aggressive."

The reporter said his firing sends the wrong message about free-speech rights.

"I think to speak my thoughts in war or peace is my right," he said, "and I defend my right to question the president of the United States in whatever way I want, whenever I want."

In June 1990, a judge ordered Karem jailed for six months for refusing to identify who helped him obtain a telephone interview with a jailed murder defendant.

Karem was released after 13 days when he named his source, who released him from his promise of confidentiality.