Sabato Fears Trend Set by 'LA Times' Series
Calls Schwarzenegger Allegations 'Piling On'
By Joe Strupp
OCTOBER 13, 2003
NEW YORK -- The Los Angeles Times' decision to publish several articles revealing sexual harassment allegations against Arnold Schwarzenegger just days before the California recall election will make it easier for other newspapers to report potentially damaging information closer to Election Day, predicted Larry Sabato, a leading political scholar. He condemned the Times stories as a case of "piling on."
"The fact that it happened has set a precedent of airing tough allegations three or four or five days before an election," Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told E&P Online. "The timing was a problem. Hitting people with allegations that generate a strong emotional response that affects the vote should be done only in extreme cases."
Times Editor John Carroll could not be reached for comment Friday.
Sabato's comments were in response to the Times series that ran Oct. 2-5 detailing allegations from 15 women claiming that Schwarzenegger had either touched them inappropriately or otherwise sexually harassed them. The series started with a story that included allegations from six women, but named only two.
"I didn't have a problem with the first [story's] allegations, but I had a problem with the follow-ups," Sabato said. "They were not properly vetted -- that is where the sloppiness creeps in." He added that the charges published in follow-up stories were too close to the Oct. 7 election date to allow proper time for a response. "These were women whose comments were taken at face value who should not have been," Sabato said. "There is a tendency to pile on and keep the story your own. I think it hurts credibility."
But he agreed that the unusual nature of the recall election, which included only about two months of campaigning, made it more difficult to spend a lengthy amount of time on the reporting. "This was a campaign in dog years," Sabato said. "It was highly compressed."
Source: Editor & Publisher Online
Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is associate editor for E&P.
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