ENTERTAINMENT

Wanda Jablonski might be the most powerful journalist you never heard of.

Unless, of course, you were an oil minister or executive in the second half of the 20th century. Then you had to read her articles in Petroleum Week and, later, in her own publication, Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, to stay on top of the biggest developments in the industry.

Ms. Jablonski brought in major scoops, including Saudi Arabia's King Fahd's firing of oil minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani in 1986 for refusing to violate production ceilings set by OPEC.

She also befriended oil ministers and helped them articulate their nationalistic dreams of wresting control of their natural resources from major oil companies. Power was shifting from Western Big Oil companies to once-poor nations growing rich on their oil reserves, and Ms. Jablonski understood this long before many oil executives did.

She introduced the founders of OPEC, Venezuela's Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso and Saudi Arabia's Abdullah Tariki, to each other. She carried messages between oil executives and Middle Eastern leaders. She even taught the Shah of Iran a thing or two about the industry.

A new biography, Queen of the Oil Club, by Anna Rubino, describes Ms. Jablonski's rich career as a journalist traveling the Middle East from the 1950s through the '80s to meet the oil ministers who would challenge the imperialism of Big Oil.

The book is also a history lesson on how OPEC rose to power. It's a topic of particular interest now, as raging oil prices reveal that OPEC's time in the sun might be waning.

Ms. Jablonski, a Slovakian who grew up in West Texas when her geologist father took a job with Vacuum Oil, knew instinctively how to cajole important people into giving her more information than they'd planned. She worked on their egos, challenged their statements and held a true dialogue, rather than just a question-and-answer session.

She mastered the most important reporting skill: trading information. Government officials and key executives who refused to be interviewed by anyone else would meet periodically with Ms. Jablonski to gain valuable insight and to use her as a messenger for their views.

All of this might make a college journalism ethics professor wince. It's one thing to trade information, but another to help a source refine his views and present them to the public.

And Ms. Jablonski had a definite ethical lapse when she started a consulting business on the side. Her clients paid her for private consultations on the industry gossip and insight that she would normally use for her reporting and writing.

Still, Ms. Jablonski didn't bow to her sources. She bravely published articles that, she knew, would anger even her closest friends and result in canceled subscriptions to Petroleum Intelligence Weekly.

In the end, even Exxon chairman Ken Jamieson came crawling back. Exxon canceled corporate subscriptions to protest a major scoop by one of Ms. Jablonski's reporters on changes to production contracts between Arab countries and Big Oil but eventually resubscribed.

Ms. Jablonski's information was simply too valuable to miss.

The Intrepid Wanda Jablonski and the Power of Information

Anna Rubino

(Beacon, $29.95)