A Case of Blaming Messenger? : Ethics Epidemic: Fingers Are Pointed at the Media

“You here to cover us mindless cannibals?” a reporter in the House press gallery asked a visiting colleague.

If the reporter sounded defensive, forgive him.

Since the ethics investigation of former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), followed by allegations involving House Democratic Whip Tony Coelho of Merced and Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), some famous fingers have started pointing toward the press gallery.

So supercharged has the atmosphere become that Republican operatives circulated unsubstantiated rumors about new House Speaker Thomas S. Foley’s private life among the media. Their antics led Wednesday to the sudden resignation of an aide to the Republican National Committee.

All this, some in both parties worry, could ultimately undermine public confidence in Congress and erode the sense of good will necessary for the institution to function.

And the press, they charge, bears a share of the blame as a sometimes reckless conduit for rumor, innuendo and allegation.

Is it true? Does the press have any responsibility for what Wright called a “period of mindless cannibalism” over ethics? Or is this simply another case of blaming the messenger?

The answer, many journalists and legislators agree, is that the press has made some mistakes. But the reasons for the current epidemic of ethical charge and countercharge go deeper and reflect a confluence of long-building political and social forces:

--The growing success of attack politics.

--The rise of personal character and the decline of issues as dominant in politics.

--A broadening of what is acceptable to talk about in public.

--A willingness in Congress to break the code of silence about indiscretions among colleagues.

Together, they have formed an atmosphere in which events seem to be spinning out of the control of both politicians and the reporters who cover them. And the most aggressive politicians have taken advantage.

Last week, for instance, an aide to Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) reportedly tried to goad reporters into writing about Foley’s private life on the basis that other news organizations were about to break the story. The Washington Post reported that the aide, Karen Van Brocklin, had asked one of its reporters whether the Post planned any stories about Foley’s personal life.

Gingrich said in an interview with The Times that Van Brocklin spoke with reporters only when they called her and asked whether she had heard any rumors about Foley’s personal life.

Resembled Other Stories

The rumors discussed by Van Brocklin resembled similar accounts that Times reporters had already found to be untrue. No major paper wrote a story about Foley’s personal life.

Van Brocklin could not be reached for comment; Gingrich told the Post he had instructed her not to talk with reporters any more.

Then, earlier this week, the Republican National Committee issued a memo calling Foley “out of the liberal closet” and comparing him to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a liberal and an acknowledged homosexual.

“They’re just trying to trap us into using it,” said NBC’s Andrea Mitchell of the Republican technique.

No one used the story directly. But when Frank protested the “innuendo” about Foley’s personal life, most papers decided that the flap had entered the public domain. By Wednesday morning, Foley was on the Cable News Network saying: “I am, of course, not a homosexual.”

Copley News Service reporter Finlay Lewis called it “the story from hell.”

To some, the press seemed too willing a conduit for unsubstantiated allegations. “Of course (the media) have something to do with the probe” of Wright, former House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) charged on “Nightline” before the memo about Foley had surfaced.

Assails Press

Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), an author of ethics legislation covering Congress, accused the press of “mean-mindedness and reckless disregard for balance.”

Some of the press’ behavior has raised questions even in the press gallery.

A recent Newsweek cover story on Congress charged that today’s lawmakers care more about personal fame than about producing laws. Many politicians and journalists took issue.

Many also questioned a CBS report based on anonymous sources May 30 that the “FBI has opened a criminal investigation into financial dealings involving Democratic Rep. William H. Gray III of Philadelphia.” Now, more than a week later, all that is clear is that the FBI is looking into an “allegation” that an employee on Gray’s staff might have been paid without showing up for work.

Even before the Foley story emerged this week, New Republic reporter Fred Barnes and syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak printed that unsubstantiated rumors were circulating about the private lives of House members. Justifying their accounts, they argued that the rumors would have political impact on their subjects, including Foley and Coelho, whether the rumors were true or not.

Coelho Denounces Story

Coelho, who announced his resignation from Congress after stories described his profits from a junk bond purchase in 1986, aimed his criticism at The Times. He denounced as wrong a story quoting anonymous sources as saying the Justice Department had opened a preliminary investigation into his financial dealings with the brokerage firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.

“We stand by our story,” said Shelby Coffey III, editor of The Times. The Washington Post has since confirmed the article.

But by most accounts, the press is not solely responsible for the present preoccupation with ethics in Congress.

Perhaps the most fundamental factor, say politicians and journalists, is the rise of attack politics.

Until even a few years ago, political consultants say, negative politics was considered a kind of political nitroglycerin, best handled with care.

“But the whole attack theory of politics now is that as long as you can keep on the offensive and keep the other guy on the defensive you will win,” Republican political consultant Doug Bailey said.

Last year, George Bush even helped himself throw off his “wimp” label by attacking Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis.

All that is carrying over now into the politics of governing. “We have now trained an entire generation of politicians to rely on negative politics as a way of being successful,” said former Democratic political consultant Bob Beckel.

The rise of attack politics is helping break down the code of silence that members of Congress once honored when they learned of indiscretions by their fellow members. Michael McCurry, a press specialist with the Democratic National Committee, described a “palpable sense of grief by members of the Senate” when Sen. Harrison J. Williams (D-N.J.) was convicted in the Abscam scandal in 1982. McCurry was Williams’ press secretary at the time.

But when Wright and Coelho resigned last month, the Republican National Campaign Committee prepared a briefing paper trying to capitalize on their fall, ascribing their “corruption” to 35 years of uninterrupted Democratic dominance of the House.

Coinciding with the rise of attack politics is a fundamental shift in politics away from issues and toward character. At the presidential level, character has dominated at least since Franklin D. Roosevelt sold confidence on the radio.

But now candidates for Congress and even local office commonly run on character, too. And sometimes when they resort to issues, as Bush did last year with prison furloughs and the Pledge of Allegiance, it is largely to define their character.

Television, political consultant Bailey said, is one of the reasons. “TV allows people to make those kinds of personal judgments about someone, and that reduces the importance of issues,” Bailey said.

Hence, political attacks are becoming increasingly personal. A watershed, said press critic Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, was the downfall of former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart as a Democratic presidential candidate last year over reports of his suspected adulterous behavior.

Today, said American Enterprise Institute scholar William Schneider, “nothing is out of bounds” for politicians and press to talk about.

Contributing to that atmosphere, many political observers say, are increasingly permissive standards about what is appropriate for television. Bailey said political consultants watch “L.A. Law” and “thirtysomething”--not to mention such so-called tabloid TV as “Inside Edition” and the “Morton Downey Jr. Show”--to decide what politicians can talk about in campaigns.

And contributing to the press’ focus on ethics has been the relative absence of substantive issues in Congress this year. “This is a story that grew legs because there wasn’t much action anywhere else,” McCurry said.