The 'Jane Doe No. 5' Episode
By E. R. Shipp
Sunday, February 28, 1999; Page B06
When readers picked up the Feb. 20 edition of The Post and saw on the
front page, " 'Jane Doe No. 5' Goes Public With Allegation" and a
subheading that read, "Clinton Controversy Lingers Over Nursing Home
Owner's Disputed 1978 Story," many of them wondered: What gives?
Especially because, as Lois Romano and Peter Baker reported in the third
paragraph of this story about a purported sexual assault by
then-gubernatorial candidate Bill Clinton, this was a "sensational yet ancient
and unproven allegation."
Actually, this is what some readers said:
"I am disgusted, appalled, nauseous to read this front-page story about this
woman and Bill Clinton. I mean, come on! It is not even a substantiated
story. It is a bunch of junk. It's innuendo and rumors. . . . This isn't even
worth two lines on Page 32."
"The publication of this story was a sorry day for The Washington Post."
"I am completely and thoroughly confused as to why the [Juanita]
Broaddrick story appeared in The Washington Post as a news story.
There seems to be a theory that whatever everyone is talking about is
news. Under that theory, if I accuse someone of beating his wife and I can
get enough people talking about it, you will publish it as a news story." This
caller added: "This is not The Washington Post standard, and if this is your
standard, then you're no longer The Washington Post."
Why was this front-page "news" in The Post the day after the Wall Street
Journal treated it as the subject of an opinion-page column? (The New
York Times deemed it worthy of Page A16 several days after the Journal,
The Post and the weekend pundits had batted it about.) If the story wasn't
solid enough in 1992, when reporters on the campaign trail first got wind of
it, then what makes it more credible with the passage of time?
The Post's executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr., said that the paper had
"already run the gist of the allegation" in news articles about the Paula
Jones case and about the impeachment process, when wavering
Republicans were shown the Broaddrick file compiled by investigators but
deemed "inconclusive." The Broaddrick story apparently affected some
votes. Sometimes, Mr. Downie said, the paper has to run a story to
"explain what's going on."
But, truthfully, nothing was "going on" at the time of publication -- nothing,
that is, except a campaign by columnist Matt Drudge on the Internet, by
the Fox News Channel and even by CNN's "Reliable Sources" program
(co-hosted by The Post's Howard Kurtz) questioning why NBC was
taking so long to broadcast an interview it did with Broaddrick on Jan. 20.
The fate of the NBC story, which did air last week, seems to have been an
obsession of "official Washington" -- also known in The Post as "political
and journalistic circles" and sometimes just as "everyone."
Mr. Downie denies being influenced by that "buzz" and said that the story
wasn't so much what Ms. Broaddrick accused President Clinton of doing
to her but "what was going on in the impeachment process." Yet the
headline did not cast the story in that manner. Moreover, if Ms.
Broaddrick's claim was so significant to the impeachment process, then
The Post should have reported it in detail weeks ago. It should have more
aggressively sought her permission to use interviews The Post had
conducted with her for many months.
Readers who complained saw the story as an example of the unwillingness
of a ravenous press to let go of Clinton scandal stories. "How long are you
going to go on with this nonsense?" a caller from California asked. "Our
role," Mr. Downie responded, "is not to keep the controversy going nor is
it to declare it over." But surely that role calls for a greater exercise in news
judgment than was evident in the "Jane Doe No. 5" episode.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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