Media ethics: An oxymoron?
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NewsMax.com
newsmax.com
With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...
Thursday May 11, 2000; 11:04 AM EDT
Giuliani's Marriage, Media Ethics -- Go Up in Smoke
Since the media feeding frenzy began a week ago
over New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's relationship
with Manhattan businesswoman Judith Nathan,
we've argued here that the intense press
scrutiny was the product a horrendous double
standard.
No one had specific evidence that the couple's
relationship was sexual; neither Rudy nor Judi
would confirm or deny. Yet New York's tabloid
press, and even The New York Times, played the
story up as a sex scandal.
The white-hot media spotlight has at least
contributed to the result many in the press
seemed to be rooting for. Wednesday afternoon
Giuliani was forced to clarify the situation;
his marriage to Donna Hanover is now officially
on the rocks and will probably end soon.
Notably absent among the press piranhas that
have been gorging on this story for seven
straight days has been The Wall Street Journal.
From the moment the story broke till today, we
can't recall a single Journal report on the
Rudy-Judi flap. That's right, even the day after
Rudy Giuliani seemed to confirm that
extra-curricular activity had killed his
marriage; a development that poltical wags
suggest could make Hillary Clinton a shoe-in as
New York's next U.S. Senator, the Journal is
reporting not a word of the story.
Could it be that Journal news editors agee with
NewsMax.com: That there has been something
profoundly disgusting about the press' double
standard in the Giuliani case, a dual set of
rules that protects certain politicians in
similar predicaments but is now turned against
the New York mayor with a vengeance?
And like us, perhaps the Journal believes
there's something illegitimate about a story
that grew soley out of the purient interest of a
handful of reporters; and has now lead, not only
to the destruction of Giuliani's family, but
could actually change the course of American
history.
That's right, we haven't forgotten the
considered wisdom of Hillary biographers Barbara
Olson and Peggy Noonan, who have both
editorialized on Journal pages. Their
prediction: at the first opportunity, Hillary
will bolt the Senate for the presidential
campaign trail.
Self appointed media ethicists delight in
reminding conservatives that over the previous
two years, the reporters showered the country
with stories about President Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky.
But we recall the claims of more than a few
journalists who said they knew about Clinton and
Lewinsky, not to mention his relationships with
other White House women, for months -- if not
years.
So what finally triggered mainstream media's
Lewsinsky coverage on Tuesday Jan. 20, 1998? It
was the fact that mainstream reporters had
finally confirmed what cyberscribe Matt Drudge
had reported four days earlier: Independent
Counsel Ken Starr was formally investigating
possible presidential criminality growing his
affaor with Lewsinsky.
In truth, reporters seldom delve into the
private lives of politicans until the sex
scandal du jour becomes the subject of some sort
of court action. And in Clinton's case, even
court filings didn't prompt much media
attention.
Gennifer Flowers? The press broke their necks
looking the other way even after Arkansas
Clinton critic Larry Nichols had named her in a
1990 lawsuit charging she was one of several
woman Clinton was philandering with on the
taxpayer's dime. It took the supermarket tabloid
Star Magazine to bring Americans the truth about
that sex scandal.
Ditto for Paula Jones. Even after she filed the
most famous sexual harassment suit in American
history, pre-Lewinsky media coverage was
sporadic and usually highly disdainful towards
her claims. Not till 1997, when the Supreme
Court ruled seven-zip that she was entitled to
her day in court did reporters begin to take her
seriously.
Kathleen Willey? The press tip-toed around that
bombshell till Willey told her story of an Oval
Ofice sex assualt on "60 Minutes." And that was
two months after she had testified before the
independent counsel's Lewinsky grand jury.
Juanita Broaddrick? If NBC's Lisa Myers hadn't
doggedly pursued Broaddrick for a year, America
still wouldn't know that its president is an
accused rapist. And even after it became clear
that Broaddrick was a witness in Starr's
investigation, the rest of the press wouldn't
touch the news until Myers convinced Broaddrick
to go public.
Even then, NBC held their Broaddrick blockbuster
till after Clinton's impeachment trial was over.
The New York Times, for instance, which front
paged Giuliani's marital troubles Thursday after
covering the story in seven separate reports
over the last week, carried exactly one story
and one editorial on the rape charge against the
President of the United States.
It gets even more bizarre. In a Wednesday press
conference Mrs. Hanover-Giuliani blamed their
break-up, not on Judi Nathan, but on "(Rudy's)
relationship with one staffer." A spokeswoman
for Hanover identified the staffer as Christyne
Lategano, Giuliani's former press secretary.
The New York press, the Times included, has
siezed on this story with the same attack dog
mentality apparent in their intial coverage of
Giuliani's relationship with Nathan last week.
But there's one problem. Both Giuliani and
Lategano denied any sexual relationship in 1997,
when rumors first started to fly.
So what, say reporters now. Even though there's
absolutely no independent evidence to contradict
those denials, the story is now being covered as
a fait a compli. The Lategano debate now
revolves around, not whether the Rudy-Christy
relationship was sexual, but how Rudy's
allegedly false denial may further weaken his
Senate prospects.
Fine. But if the press suddenly chooses to
disbelieve denials about a now defunct
relationship (the 35-year-old Lategano married
her boyfriend last year), that kind of intense
media skepticism opens up a whole new can of
worms for the media.
Reporters can start with Mrs. Clinton, who, like
Rudy, has denied her own long rumored affair;
this one with the late Vincent Foster.
Mainstream news editors have embargoed the
eyewitness accounts of two former Clinton
bodyguards, who say they saw Hillary and Foster
in sexually compromising situations. That's a
whole lot more evidence than the press has on
Rudy's relationship with either Judy or
Christyne.
For sheer purient intruigue, the Foster-Hillary
story is hard to beat, what with the poor man
turning up shot to death just weeks after he
warned his family that the media was about to
break the news of his fling with the first lady.
It's not hard to imagine how reporters would
react if either Ms. Nathan or Ms. Lategano
suddenly met a similar fate.
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