So How COULD The Press Miss Craig’s Arrest For Three Months?
Editor & Publisher finally asks the question that is on the tip of the tongue of anyone who has ever worked in the news media (and this site has several people who have): how COULD news outlets miss for some three months the news that Senator Larry Craig had been arrested for making lewd advances in a men’s restroom?
The revelation late Monday that Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested nearly three months ago for allegedly making sexual advances in a men’s room raises the issue of how such an action could occur without the press reporting it.
Even Roll Call reporter John McArdle, who broke the story late Monday, admits he only received word of the arrest and subsequent guilty plea via a tip last week.
“You would think in the 24-hour news cycle, something like this would slip through,” said McArdle, a four-year veteran of the Capitol Hill daily. “He wanted to keep it quiet, and he almost got away with it.”
So how? MORE:
Even more surprising is that the unreported arrest occurred at a time when Craig was under scrutiny following previous allegations of gay relationships and sexual advances dating back to late 2006, when a blogger accused Craig of having relationships with men. The conservative senator has long denied the allegations.
McArdle said the latest incident, in which Craig was arrested June 11 for allegedly making advances to a police officer in a Minnesota airport bathroom, only came to his attention through a tip he received last week.
Declining to offer specifics about the source, McArdle said the tip came in midweek and was confirmed by Roll Call through police reports obtained from law enforcement officials in Minnesota.
“We have been working the story since we got the tip, getting the specific arrest report,” he said. “We had to go through their different filing systems and we were able to expedite that process.”
Given the fact that this story involves someone well-known and in a sensitive public position, you could come up with various scenarios about why the press didn’t quite miss the boat but caught the last boat out on this one. They scenarios include:
(1) The Senator was able to hush it up for a while. If this is a possibility, reporters and editors need to find out who bottled it up and why. And name names.
(2) News outlets were too distracted on other stories and just missed it. The E&P report suggests this isn’t the reason. But if it was, then line editors and reporters deserve the most terrible question an editor can get from a higher-up or a reporter can get from an editor: “Why didn’t WE have this?” (a question TMV co-blogger Shaun Mullen, a former editor, most likely asked and probably got when he was a reporter).
(3) Some news outlets hushed the story up. This is truly unlikely. Even though many partisans on the right and left like to point to some huge Godlike Editor who goes into newsrooms and prevents reporters and editors from covering stories or forces them to do p.r. type stories, it happens very seldom. It does occur, but when it does, the story is often leaked to an alternative paper or broadcast outlet. And these days there are always weblogs.
Most likely, the restroom advance allegations story didn’t surface because somewhere in the bowels of Idaho it got bottled up because there was someone sympathetic to the Senator and things were either done — or not done — to keep the story contained. The press can sort this out later…but some journalistic “negligence’ could also have been involved.
See our earlier post and round-up HERE (in which Craig’s camp argues that he merely assumes a “wide stance while sitting on The Throne and wasn’t sending sexual advance code signals.)
Meanwhile, Craig held a press conference in Boise to tell his state’s voters “I am not gay.”
UPDATE: For more weblog comment on this E&P story. See memeorandum.
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9 Responses to “So How COULD The Press Miss Craig’s Arrest For Three Months?”
Far more likely is that no one caught it because it was a generic misdemeanor filed in a large city, out of state where no one connected the name, and thus didn’t rise to notice until it actually reached court for disposition (August 8th) and the verdict was filed and published with that week’s reports. Which would match the timeline of the reported tip.
What Tully said.
Also, it’s Idaho for heaven’s sake.
I admit to going back and forth on these issues. On the one hand, I don’t need to know if the Senator is gay or straight. I don’t even need to know if he’s operating on the down low. You can say his wife should know it, but I’m not his wife. (Though I am attracted to conservative, older men, so, Senator, call me. Don’t tell my wife. And I’m not gay either.) It’s not even clear I need to know if he’s gay or bisexual but can’t admit it even to himself and is living a tortured existence of sexual repression. Senators can keep their sexual repressions to themselves, by and large, thank you.
However, if he’s violating the law, then it indeed becomes an issue relevant to the public. The hard part is when you campaign on one value and then live another — the hypocrisy charge – when there is no criminal act…. I honestly don’t know where privacy ends in this issue, and I can see both sides.
I will say though that the number of these cases lately is becoming astonishing. It does make one look at many of the family values supporters and ponder if they “doth protest too much”. I actually had always believed we disagreed sincerely. (This too is said tongue-in-cheek. Do not get too upset. though you are cute when you’re angry.)
I agree with Tully: misdemeanor, large city, out-of-towner, generic-sounding name.
Maybe he shouldn’t have shown his Senate ID card.
BalloonJuice makes an interesting point – the officials in Minnesota keep this quiet even though it sounds like Craig was a sphincter. The claims of handcuff and rough treatment don’t show up in his TD mug shot. As others said it’s only a misdemeanor, but solicitation in some venues gets EVERYONES name in the paper or cable.
http://journalism.indiana.edu/Ethics/johns.html
http://www.oceansidepolice.com/pconviction.asp
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/04/11/loc_ad_plan_shame_is_aim.html
Maybe he shouldn’t have shown his Senate ID card.
DYKWIA. Never use unless you KNOW it’s gonna work. Bad move.
It does make one look at many of the family values supporters and ponder if they “doth protest too muchâ€.
A search on his name and “family values” doesn’t run up that much. He’s never made much of that as an issue. But he did vote for DOMA both state and Fed. Others can argue over whether that’s really hypocritical. I just the whole thing is kinda funny if true. Snicker.
Tully nails it.
There also is what in my view is a larger issue: the decision of Craig’s homestate paper, the Idaho Statesman, to not publish the results of a lengthy investigation that pretty much confirmed that Craig was lying about never engaging in homosexual acts.
But “pretty much confirmed” is the operative word here and based on what I know, I have to support the decision of the paper. I was involved in several not dissimilar investigations during my career and at the conclusion of most of them, there just wasn’t quite enough evidence to destroy someone’s career and life, so in most cases nothing was published. In one case it was. We were dead-on accurate. So dead on that the guy killed himself.
I never have felt particularly good about that, but the man was a sexual predator who was in a position where he was granted enormous trust. And while I and the other editors played God on that one, the information had to get out, especially after the perp denied everything in an interview not unlike Craig’s sitdown with the Statesman.
I read the Statesman article, linked in my update. It boiled down to a couple of unprovable (even anonymous) accusations, and a large pile of Mike Rogers’ accusations, denied by the people involved. They held it because it amounted to innuendo. Even Craig’s gay Washington neighbor of fifteen years was quite doubtful.
One of the two”confirmed” incidents involved nothing more than someone who felt Craig stared at him too much at an REI store, and thought it was a pass. The other was a disgruntled gay Hill staffer who was switching parties from GOP to Dem, who contacted Mike Rogers with accusations but offered no proof.
None of which proves that Craig did or did not make a pass at an airport police officer in Minneapolis. It’s not even very good supporting evidence to show a trend. If Craig really is a mostly straight guy who goes cruising for the occcasional anonymous BJ (a not uncommon thing, as vice officers know) he’s been very discreet about it over the years.