Editors Back Reporting Hart Allegations : Some Question Methods and Thoroughness of Miami Writers

Most editors and publishers interviewed Tuesday believe that the Miami Herald acted properly when it reported allegations that former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart spent much of last weekend with 29-year-old model and actress Donna Rice.

Some editors, however, do question the methods and thoroughness of Herald reporters, who conducted a police-like stakeout of Hart’s home to get their story. And at least one prominent editor is concerned that in an environment where nothing is off limits to disclosure, candidates may never again allow themselves to relax around reporters, which could result in still more distant and made-for-TV politicians in the future.

Still, a majority of the editors interviewed believe that the Miami paper was right to pursue the story.

Post ‘Would Have Pursued’

“We’ve been sitting around here for months asking how do you cover this allegation (that Hart, who is married, engages in extramarital sex), when, by definition, it’s a private act,” said Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee said that, if the Herald’s tip that Hart had invited a woman to Washington for the weekend had come to the Post, “I would have pursued it too.”

Editors said one reason the story was newsworthy is that “womanizing” was already an issue in Hart’s campaign, as one of his own staff members acknowledged in a recent Newsweek story. Several times over the past months Hart even has invited reporters to look into the allegations.

“Ordinarily I would consider what takes place in the confines of someone’s own home, even if he’s a candidate for high office, to be his business,” said Gene Roberts, executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But the thing that makes this one different, I think, is the public challenge: Come on and follow me.”

‘All Bets Are Off’

Others go further. For example, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, himself a Republican presidential hopeful, told newspaper publishers here Tuesday: “If you are going to be a candidate for President, all bets are off” about privacy.

This is a substantial change, for reporting on politicians’ sex lives traditionally has been taboo among American journalists. Reporters knew of but did not report the extramarital affair of Franklin D. Roosevelt, or the many liaisons of John F. Kennedy. In the 1970s, the press did not dive into Wilbur Mills’ drinking and dalliances with stripper Fanne Foxe until Mills drunkenly drove into the Capitol Tidal Basin.

In Kennedy’s day and before, however, the selection of presidents involved a certain amount of back-room politics by party insiders, many of whom knew of their candidates’ dalliances and took it upon themselves to gauge their relevance. Today, when presidents are selected entirely by the public through the primary process, the spectrum of what is relevant public information is wider.

Different Standards

Given that fact, politicians now must live by different standards than private figures, said Burl Osborne, editor of the Dallas Morning News, and Hart should have been well aware of that.

Reg Murphy, publisher and editor of the Baltimore Sun, agreed: “Most people here (at the annual newspaper publishers convention) don’t give a damn about whether Gary Hart is an adulterer. They care about his judgment.”

The primary criticism leveled against the Miami paper by other journalists generally involves the fact that the Herald reporters who staked out Hart’s home were absent between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Saturday and failed to cover the rear entrance to the home from midnight to 5 a.m.

“There are serious problems with the execution here,” said Al Hunt, Washington bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal.

“If one is going to do this, one should watch the back door,” said Osborne.

Troubled by Stakeout

Other editors said that, although they consider the story appropriate subject matter, they are deeply troubled by the idea of staking out a candidate. “That is a technique for police, not journalists,” said Bill Kovach, editor of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

At least one prominent journalist, however, does find the nature of the Hart story troubling. “Something we ought to think about is who candidates are if they are never off stage,” said Walter Mears, managing editor of the Associated Press and a longtime political reporter.

“If he can’t talk off the record, or tell dumb jokes or be human. If you can’t sit down with a reporter and be yourself. If you made a judgment that a man is never off stage then you get into the territory that this takes us into,” Mears said.

Nonetheless, many agree the lasting imprint of the Hart story, whatever its impact on the former senator himself, will be to make it easier in the future to examine the private sexual behavior of candidates. “I think it has advanced the territory,” said Kovach.

On the other hand, said George Cotliar, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, because of the many questions about the Herald’s thoroughness and methods, “I honestly think it may be counterproductive to newspapers pursuing their legitimate responsibility in the future.”