'Idaho Statesman' Editor and Reporter Defend Craig Probe

By: Joe Strupp Vicki Gowler was just sitting down to dinner with her mother and extended family in central Illinois Monday night when the phone rang.

The editor of The Idaho Statesman in Boise had been on vacation for several days, hoping to get some relief from the daily news grind some 1,500 miles away.

But once she picked up the receiver, that relief ended.

On the other end was Publisher Mi-Ai Parrish with word that Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) had been arrested and pleaded guilty to charges stemming from alleged sexual advances in an airport bathroom. The same Larry Craig the Statesman had been investigating for months and had found to be linked to at least one other sexual encounter in a public bathroom with a man, along with several accusations of at least questionable behavior toward other men.

After some quick discussion, the editor decided to run the paper's lengthy investigation by veteran political reporter Dan Popkey, a tale of Craig's alleged bathroom encounter with a man in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, as well as other alleged signs of come-ons to men.

"We felt that that was enough, that we needed to publish and show readers what we knew," Gowler said by cell phone Wednesday. "There wasn't a lot of discussion, they were waiting for me to weigh in and nobody disputed it."

The result was Popkey's in-depth story of Craig allegedly meeting a man in the bathroom for oral sex, as well as other examples of alleged improper behavior. The paper had launched the investigation last fall after a local blogger posted an item claiming Craig had had secret sexual activities with several anonymous men.

The Statesman made some news at the time by not reporting the blog item, while at least four other Idaho papers, and a handful of national outlets, did. "We did not because it was based on anonymous sources, the senator denied it and on the basis of that we wrote nothing," Gowler, editor since 2005, recalled. "We got a little bit of a pushback at the time and I decided we should spend some time to look into it."

She put Popkey, a 23-year Statesman veteran, on the story, in which he dug up several examples of alleged improper behavior, including the Union Station incident. In May, he confronted Craig in a sit-down interview, during which the senator denied everything. That convinced the paper to hold off still.

"We absolutely made the right call," Popkey told E&P about the decision not to print the story until this week. "It was frustrating to have five months of work sitting in a file cabinet and on my desktop. But we were not ready to do this."

The Craig arrest and guilty plea were revealed Monday night by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which received a tip about the arrest, according to a reporter. Popkey said he wished he had broken that piece of the story. "That was my first thought -- how did they get it and not us?" Popkey said. "I understand, but it was a little deflating to see all that work and have somebody else break the story."

Still, both Popkey and Gowler contend it was the right decision to hold off until the arrest was made public, and then report their findings. "When we heard about the guilty plea for a similar incident, it changed everything," Popkey said. "That was the corroboration that we didn?t have before."

Gowler agreed. "With one person saying he had gay sex, we held off, which was the high road," Gowler said. "It was not enough. But this allowed us to layout a much richer story on Craig after the arrest. Even now, we are going to get lots of criticism about running the story at all."

During a press conference on Tuesday, Craig lashed out at the Statesman, claiming it had engaged in a witchhunt. Gowler and Popkey defended their actions.

"I don?t understand the senator's actions at this point," Gowler said. "Plead guilty to something you claim you didn?t do and claim we are at fault. He acted in ways that don?t make sense."

Popkey, who said he has been getting non-stop requests for media appearances, also stood by his paper. "He must think this is the best way to respond," he said of Craig, noting the paper had regularly endorsed him in the past. "He is fighting for his political life. He is a very skillful, experienced, tough politician."

When asked if the story had prompted other people to come forward with claims of improper behavior or sexual activities involving Craig, Popkey said only, "I'm not going to discuss the nature of calls."

Gowler, who plans to remain on vacation until next week, said the paper is on the story daily. "We will continue to blanket it, report all sorts of things and see what else we find out."