A History of Sex and Journalism

Tabloid outfits sometimes act as a conduit in bringing such stories to light. The National Enquirer reported in 2001 that the Rev. Jesse Jackson had fathered a child out of wedlock with a staffer in his Rainbow Coalition; that became big news when Jackson confirmed it. And it was a Hustler reporter who last year forced Louisiana Sen. David Vitter to admit having contacted a Washington escort service. (For that matter, years after the Star story, Clinton admitted to a sexual encounter with Flowers.)

Journalistic caution is easy to second-guess. In 2006, after the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times declined to publish a suggestive e-mail from then-congressman Mark Foley to a teenage House page, ABC's Brian Ross put it on his blog -- and gathered so much evidence of sexually explicit messages to other pages that Foley resigned the next day. The Idaho Statesman, which spent eight months investigating allegations that Sen. Larry Craig had engaged in gay sexual encounters, decided last year not to publish a story, in part because the sources would not be identified. The Statesman ran its piece after Roll Call reported that Craig had pleaded guilty in a police sting operation in an airport bathroom. Craig has been fighting to withdraw the plea.

On rare occasions the decision is clear-cut. The Detroit Free Press last month published explicit text messages ("Did you miss me sexually?") between Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff. The steamy stuff happened to contradict the couple's sworn denials in a lawsuit that they had had an affair.

The hardest thing in journalism is to spend months on a story and then admit you haven't got the goods. There is, instead, a tendency to dress the thing up with fine writing and larger themes in an effort to demonstrate that it's not just about sex, when of course that is the only element most readers -- and the rest of the media -- will focus on.

Indeed, Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt wrote yesterday that "if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affairs, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than the Times was able to provide."

Many conservative commentators who cheered on every media revelation about Clinton's dalliances denounced the McCain story. Of course, it turned out that Clinton did have sex with that woman, and of course McCain scored political points by denouncing a newspaper reviled on the right. But many journalists with no ideological ax to grind have also criticized the piece, and even most liberal bloggers haven't defended it. And The Washington Post, which ran a story on McCain and Iseman the same day that focused on lobbying but said nothing about romance, largely escaped the backlash.

In online comments Friday, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller seemed taken aback by "the volume of the reaction" and "by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot. And, frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story."

That's the problem with journalists making unconfirmed charges about an affair alleged to have taken place nearly a decade earlier. The larger point, if there is one, gets lost.

Generation Gap

Sometimes middle-aged editors just don't get it. Last September, 25-year-old Newsweek reporter Andrew Romano pitched a story on Barack Obama's appeal to young voters, and his 31-year-old editor approved. But as Romano wrote recently, their 43-year-old boss nixed the idea, saying he'd heard overblown claims of youth support in too many past campaigns. The evidence pointed to Managing Editor Dan Klaidman, who cheerfully admits to blowing the call.

Furthermore . . .

Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis goes off on Bill Keller's insistence that the McCain story was far broader than a piece about a possible affair:

"That the editors of the Times don't see that is incredible -- that is to say, not credible. They can't be that clueless, can they? They can't be that bad at understanding news and politics, public opinion and media, surely. So are they merely trying to spin us? Are they embarrassed at what they did? Are they trying to convince themselves as well as us that this sex story -- the sort of thing these high-fallutin' journalists would usually insist is the stuff of Drudge and blogs and tabloids -- is just an illustration in their bigger point about the life and times of John McCain? Surely, they can't thing we're that dumb. Surely, they're not that dumb."

Well, the media have decided to harp on McCain's age. "McCain's Age May Figure In Choice of a Running Mate," says the NYT. And the LAT uses the transparent device of rounding up old people: