Now Doug Clifton Wishes He Had Kept Quiet

By: Joe Strupp Should Editor Doug Clifton of The Plain Dealer have just kept his mouth shut? He thinks so.

Now that federal investigators are now demanding to know who leaked sealed documents to The Plain Dealer, the kind of documents Clifton predicted in a column three weeks ago would spark an inquiry, the veteran editor contends he should never had revealed that his paper had the confidential information.

"It set everything in motion," an exasperated Clifton told E&P Friday, just a day after a federal prosecutor asked a judge to order that the sources of the leaked documents be revealed. "If I kept it to myself, it wouldn't have ultimately set the fuse. I think I was wrong to think that when I revealed it, it wouldn't become the cause celebre that it has become in the media. ...

"I thought that it would help to dramatize to people the consequences" of the Judith Miller/Matthew Cooper case, he said. "Instead, it became a simplistic discussion of a chickenshit editor and a source he was protecting."

Clifton is referring to the June 30 column he wrote in which he revealed that The Plain Dealer had been holding off publication of two unspecified major stories based on leaked documents because he feared investigators would demand the sources' identities. E&P first reported nationally on that on July 8, with other media outlets following nationwide.

After Clifton's column ran, media interest in the spiked stories intensified. The Cleveland Scene, a local alternative weekly, ran a story on Wednesday about a federal investigation into former Cleveland Mayor Michael White. The Scene reported that its story was based on the same leaked information that The Plain Dealer held. A day later, the Plain Dealer confirmed that this indeed was one of the two stories Clifton had referred to earlier, and finally ran its story on White, which prompted the federal probe into its sourcing.

"It is inevitable that some alternative newspaper, especially the Scene, would do it and we had no choice but to go forward [and publish the story]," he said. "The Scene changed the situation."

Clifton said he was still right to hold off publishing the story originally, even if another paper eventually scooped his paper. He just believes he should not have revealed the decision to sit on the report.

He pointed out that the paper was continuing to pursue the story, with plans to run something in the future if it could be nailed down without using the documents. He believes a story would have eventually come out. "We were trying to get the story in the newspaper but we weren't at the point yet where we could use a document under seal," he said. "If the climate were different in terms of eagerness [by investigators] to pursue sources, we probably would have gone right from document to story, but this is the situation we are in."

He also added that once the Scene ran the story -- and revealed that the Plain Dealer had the leaked documents -- federal authorities would have likely come after the Plain Dealer anyway, so it was not worth sitting on the story any longer. "Once it was out there that we had the documents, they were going to make us a target of a leak investigation," he said of federal investigators. "So is it better to be the target and not run the story or be a target and run the story?"

When asked if the seriousness of the story -- a federal probe into a former mayor's possible involvement in a wide-ranging bribery scandal -- might have made it more worthwhile to publish, even with the potential for a federal probe of the source, Clifton said no. "It is a good story, an interesting story," he said. "But they still don't have any goods on him. He still has not been indicted."

Clifton also stressed that his initial decision to hold the story is not as unusual as some of the coverage has suggested. "People are deceiving themselves if they think editors aren't making these decisions all along," he said. "Every day editors are deciding not to run stories based on varying reasons. They just don't usually talk about them."