For Idaho Paper And Reporter, Craig Story Posed a Moral Dilemma

It is hardly unusual for an elected official facing such allegations to make the press the issue. When the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported in 2005 that Jim West, then the city's mayor, had offered gifts and an internship to what he thought was an 18-year-old man online, West complained that the paper was fomenting "media hysteria." West, now deceased, was ousted in a recall election after the sting orchestrated by the newspaper.

Media accounts stressed that Craig and Vitter had built careers on a platform of morality and family values. A Statesman editorial yesterday noted that Craig had supported constitutional and state amendments banning same-sex marriage.

"For journalists and for voters, hypocrisy is always a hanging crime," says Tobe Berkovitz, interim dean at Boston University's College of Communication. "I don't know if I buy that. Someone's private behavior either is or is not newsworthy. What their politics are is irrelevant."

While most journalists are "properly skittish" of rumor and sexual innuendo, Berkovitz says, in today's digital culture "you'll always find some blog willing to cover it. And then it catches fire in the new media and leaps into the old media."

Mainstream news organizations generally do not publish stories about private sexual conduct based solely on unnamed sources. And despite "outing" campaigns by some gay activists, news outlets are particularly reluctant to accuse a public figure who says he is heterosexual of engaging in gay sexual acts without definitive proof.

Popkey launched his examination of Craig in part at the urging of a gay blogger and Washington fundraising consultant, Mike Rogers, who made the accusation online and on a radio talk show. Popkey says he was cautious because Rogers "had an ax to grind. He wanted to bring down Larry Craig." Rogers declared on his blog this week that "exposing anti-gay right closet cases is important for our democracy."

Should the 63,000-circulation newspaper have mounted such an extensive effort? "You could question the initial decision to commit those kinds of resources to study this issue," says Jim Weatherby, a professor emeritus at Boise State University. "They didn't find the smoking gun."

As he pursued the story, says Popkey, who interviewed 41 of Craig's fraternity brothers, "these were very unpleasant questions to be asking of people. The investigation went all the way back to Craig's youth." While "it may seem to an outsider invasive to be going back into the guy's college days," Popkey says, Craig was prominent early on as a student body president at the University of Idaho.

A onetime police reporter who speaks in measured tones, Popkey says he interviewed a former student who said Craig made a sexual advance in 1967, and a man who said Craig had "cruised" him at a Boise store in 1994. But these and other accounts could not be corroborated.

Popkey also visited Kevin Naff, editor of the Washington Blade, a gay newspaper, and showed photos of Craig to people using restrooms at Union Station to see if any of them recalled the senator engaging in sexual conduct there.

Craig denied the allegations during an hour-long interview with Popkey in May, saying he is not gay and that "I don't do that kind of thing." The following month, says Popkey, Craig sent the Statesman "a nasty letter telling us to cut it out," but declined to provide some documents requested by the paper, including a waiver that would allow access to his FBI file. Craig was arrested in Minnesota days later.

Though some journalists might feel pride at breaking exclusive information, Popkey says he has mixed feelings about Craig. The columnist recently praised his "gutsy leadership on immigration reform" and took note of Craig's nine grandchildren in describing the lawmaker's decision on whether to seek reelection next year.

"He's a senator who's done a lot for Idaho," Popkey says. "He's delivered a lot of goodies from his spot on the Appropriations Committee and is very popular. . . .

"He is a tough guy. He loves his job. He cares about what he does. He cares about the people he serves. This has been his life."

For two decades, Idaho politics has been Popkey's life as well. Only in the past 48 hours has the rest of the media world discovered him, and he has appeared on programs from "Hardball" to "Nightline."

"Dan writes hard-hitting opinion pieces, and that offends some people," Weatherby says. "But he's probably the most courageous reporter in Idaho. Everyone reads Popkey."