All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Think the Larry Craig story was just a tabloid creature of late summertime?

Think again.

Eight men have now come forward in the Larry Craig story – for reasons that range from clear anger to admitted self-promotion – and they have told their stories to the Idaho Statesman, the newspaper that broke the story in late August. According to the Associated Press’ reporting of the matter:

Eight men say they either had sex with Sen. Larry Craig or were targets of sexual advances by the Idaho lawmaker at various times during his political career, a newspaper reported Sunday…

The newspaper identified four men and reported details of the encounters they say involved Craig. It also reported the accounts of four other men who did not agree to be identified but who described sexual advances or encounters involving the conservative Republican, who opposes same-sex marriage and has a strong record against gay rights.

It’s a blockbuster advancement in the story, no doubt. But seeing the coverage given the story all day Monday, a few questions occurred to me:

From a journalistic standpoint, does the fact that you’ve already broken the story make one’s job easier or harder?

If there wasn't already the initial Craig Story out there, would these allegations have the journalistic "oomph" to be considered news?

Does the threshold for news get lower once something is already "out there?"

I decided to put those questions to the Editor, Managing Editor and Political Columnist at the newspaper.

Read full post…

Two months ago, America was downright tap happy over the salacious story of Senator Larry Craig’s (R-ID) guilty plea and arrest for disorderly conduct at a Minnesota Airport earlier this year.

The story was originally broken by John McArdle of the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, but the journalist who immediately skyrocketed to the top of every TV booker’s “get” list was Idaho Statesman political columnist Dan Popkey – who had been covering Craig for years and also conducting his own background investigation regarding allegations of sexual misconduct by the Senator. You couldn't turn around without seeing Popkey being interviewed about the story.

This weekend marks the two-month mark since the story took over America’s watercoolers and dinner table conversations – and late-night monologues, of course – so I tracked down Popkey to gauge his thoughts of the experience, now that the media frenzy is in the rear-view mirror.

Matthew Felling: You were invited onto every major news show. What surprised you about the media frenzy?

Dan Popkey: The intensity of it was something I wasn’t prepared for. The urgency of the requests for interviews was surprising – they initially asked for me, but we started using other people from the paper, like the editorial page editor and the managing editor. This is Idaho, we’re not accustomed to network vans coming here and staying for days.

Another thing? More often than I would have thought, people working for major news organizations didn’t do their homework. For example, they’d call me for comment on a story not having read the 3,800-word piece that we published the day after the arrest and conviction became known.

Matthew Felling: I think I already know the answer to this, but did people mistake you for the person who actually broke the story?

Dan Popkey: Yes. In one of the first interviews I did with some guy, I forget his name – I don’t watch much cable TV. Oh, it was Chris Matthews. He said “You broke this story!” And I had to respond, “No, actually, Roll Call broke the story.” He wasn’t the only one, though; there were several organizations that associated the story with us first.

Read full post…

It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News Capitol Hill producer Allison Davis O’Keefe.

Matthew Felling: What do you do on Capitol Hill for CBS News?

Allison Davis O’Keefe: You could call me an off-air reporter. I run back and forth to various events on Capitol Hill, chasing people down and talking to people in the hallways and conducting interviews at the drop of a hat.

There’s always set things I know about, things that are scheduled -- like press conferences or hearings. Then there are things that just come up. Like yesterday, I spoke with Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) for a piece that’s airing tonight. I get a call, saying ‘Can you do this? Here are the topics and some questions…’ and I work it into my schedule.

Matthew Felling: What has the climate been in the Larry Craig story?

Allison Davis O’Keefe: It’s been tense. Really tense. It’s been one of those stories that everyone is talking about, but you don’t want people to hear you talking about it in the hallways – since the details are very unseemly. There’s a palpable tension among Republicans that they desperately want this story to go away.

Read full post…

In the wake of the Larry Craig story, Mike Rogers -- the blogger/activist who initially ran the accusations against the Senator -- is enjoying some serious media buzz. Take for example the profile in today’s Washington Post, which opens:

Soon, a new name will pop up on Mike Rogers's hit list.

Larry Craig wasn't "the first on my list," the gay blogger says. And the Idaho senator, who announced his resignation Saturday, "won't be the last."

Rogers, sitting on a club chair in his Northwest Washington apartment, is basking in the attention. For three years now, he's been a feared one-man machine, "outing," he says, nearly three dozen senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and, most damagingly, Congress members on his blog. On Capitol Hill, a typical phone call from Rogers -- "Are you gay?" he'd ask -- is "a call from Satan himself," says a former high-ranking congressional staffer whose name is on the list.

To be sure, a lot is being made of Rogers’ role in the Craig story as a sign of the Rise of the Bloggers, but it’s also an anecdote about how traditional media still need to vet new media and verify the chatter happening online.

Read full post…

So …it’s the Tuesday after Labor Day, and we scrammed early last week.

Did we miss anything?

I mean, aside from Bush's surprise visit to Iraq and Katie’s Baghdad trip (more on that later) and the no-hitter and Senator Craig’s post-dated resignation – well, you may have seen us discuss it on “Reliable Sources” this past weekend – and Appalachian State and Hurricane Felix and that new book on President Bush, not to mention Jerry Lewis going all Andrew “Dice” Clay on his telethon.

Yeah, we mean aside from those things.

Read full post…

Just in time to grab some tabloid eyeballs before the end of summer, DC has itself a good old-fashioned sex scandal. Well, sorta. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) was busted at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for disorderly conduct in the airport men’s room, based on the signals an undercover officer believed Craig was sending, and – very importantly – he pled guilty to the charges.

The story was broken by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call yesterday:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call on Monday afternoon.

Craig’s arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.

In a statement released Monday night, Craig denied any wrongdoing and said he regrets his guilty plea.

It’s a blockbuster story, and it leads you to think thoughts of “All The President’s Men” and meetings in parking garages and all that exciting stuff, well, calm down. The backstory is remarkably … normal.

I called John McArdle - the Roll Call reporter who broke the story – telling him that while I didn’t want to give away his particular journalistic recipe, I was curious if he could talk about the piece in general terms.

His response? “The story was based on a tip that came in last week. It took us a while to track down documents with the courthouse and the police department. But we were able to secure the documents Monday and we ran it Monday afternoon.”

I then asked if he’d be comfortable characterizing the source. Was it an activist, somebody with a clear agenda, somebody he’d worked with before, somebody that raised an eyebrow? Anything?

“It was an interesting tip that came in,” he responded.

Read full post…

On Wednesday, the Spokane Spokesman-Review made the controversial decision to run a story about rumors swirling around Idaho Senator Larry Craig – a story that likely never would have seen the light of day a few short years ago. The basics of the story are as follows: Gay-rights activist Mike Rogers claimed on his blog and a syndicated radio program that confidential sources had provided him information concerning consensual homosexual relationships involving Craig. The senator responded to the story through a spokesperson, calling it “completely ridiculous.”

You can read the paper’s story here for the background and comments by Rogers and Craig’s spokesperson. What makes this particular incident an interesting test case, though, is not the detail -- it’s the existence of the story itself. Until recently, the traditions of journalism would have kept such a story from being written. Rumors, of course, have always been a staple of politics, but news outlets have traditionally shied away from repeating those rumors out of concern that doing so would provide a level of validation. News organizations also legitimately feel that they would be doing the dirty work of political opponents to push rumor and innuendo.

None of that is to say legitimate journalists couldn’t try to look into such rumors, but the old rules mandated real evidence be produced before a public airing. In today’s atmosphere, however, when rumors can fly around the world in an instant, there is a direct challenge to the media’s old way of dealing with such stories. If the media ignores it, they appear oblivious to the world they purportedly are covering. If they cover it, they’re open to charges of rumor-mongering. So what to do?

Read full post…