Earth Day Leonardo April 6, 2000 From Reuters Thursday, 06-Apr-2000 White House, ABC Dispute DiCaprio 'Interview' WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Titanic feud has erupted between the White House and ABC News over whether actor and environmental champion Leonardo DiCaprio came to the White House last week to interview the president or look at the weatherstripping. ABC News is angry because Clinton, it says, ignored the network's plans to have DiCaprio and a camera crew receive a "tour" of White House weatherstripping, low-energy light bulbs and other environmental improvements for a special show related to Earth Day this month. Instead, ABC says, Clinton sat down with the superstar actor and answered questions about the environment. When news of the session spread and reportedly made ABC's reporters angry about the use of celebrities as journalists, ABC denied that DiCaprio and Clinton had planned a formal interview. That ruffled feathers at the White House, which insists the president came prepared for an interview and that is what he gave. Both sides were sticking to their stories on Thursday. "I'm firmly convinced, based on my own personal involvement in this, and based on what I've been told by my staff, since I was out of town, that it was an interview," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said on Thursday, a day after he called ABC to try to iron out their differences. ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said, "Whether we're ever going to be in complete agreement with the White House is a question I can't answer." "What we wanted to get out of the visit to the White House ... was a tour with the president of the White House and to look at the changes that they had made in the White House to make it more environmentally correct," Murphy said. She said even though the producers expected Clinton to answer questions, a formal interview was not the point. DiCaprio appears to be siding with the White House. "Why were we preparing questions almost nonstop for 24 hours before the actual interview?" said DiCaprio's spokesman, Ken Sunshine. "He (Clinton) wanted to sit, so he sat." Nevertheless, Sunshine said, DiCaprio made no pretense about his skills during the filming. "The first thing he said was 'I'm not a journalist. I'm not a politician,"' Sunshine said. ABC is expected to air the special, with the working title "Planet Earth 2000," sometime around Earth Day, April 22, Murphy said. Although DiCaprio will appear in the show, there has been no decision on whether the Clinton interview will be used, she said. Asked whether Clinton wanted the interview aired, Lockhart said, "The president, generally when he does an interview, it's used." "I think he thought he did pretty well. He made some important points on climate change. There's not that many people who are normally interested when he talks about climate change," he said. Which evokes rule No. 1 in Hollywood: any publicity is good publicity. "In truth, it probably helped. Controversy is good," Sunshine said of the flap. "A lot of people know he (DiCaprio) is chairman of Earth Day now."