When Is It Appropriate to 'Out' Pols?

By: Joe Strupp When revelations surfaced in August that Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) had been arrested on charges related to soliciting a police officer for sex in an airport men's room, The Idaho Statesman of Boise unleashed a detailed report recounting its months-long investigation of Craig's sex life. Some accused the paper of reporting rumors and innuendo based mostly on the account of one anonymous source who had claimed sex with Craig in a Washington, D.C., bathroom years earlier. Others slammed the daily for waiting far too long to reveal its findings, which had been sparked by a 2006 blog item. The Statesman had declined to report that accusation, despite the fact that other news outlets had run it along with Craig's denials.

Moving with caution allows time "to decide what your readers need to know, and why," says Statesman Editor Vicki Gowler. "You have to answer the question, 'Why does it matter? Why do readers care?'" But as is often the case in newsrooms, that's not an easy question to answer. To some, the private lives of politicians are fair game. Others declare that's none of voters' business.

Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., leans toward the cautious side. She contends that true news value is needed beyond just a closeted gay life. "I have been very squeamish about outing gay public officials because it reinforces the notion that there is something wrong with being gay," she explains.

But others, such as Christine Tatum, president of the Society of Professional Journalists and an editor at The Denver Post, call for reporting all aspects of a politician's life, including their sexual identity. "The bottom line is that when you are in public office, everything in your life is open to scrutiny," she says. "It is very difficult to say that their personal life doesn't affect their public service."

In Sen. Craig's situation, he had been an outspoken opponent of gay rights in many cases, says Dan Popkey, the veteran Statesman reporter who penned the investigative piece. Craig had also pleaded guilty to a criminal act. "There have been extramarital affairs that I have investigated and found, and have not published," Popkey says, adding that they did not rise, in his mind, to the level of public information. "We did the reporting in those cases because there were allegations, and in one case, a child born."

Gowler says that if the blog item on Craig having sex with other men last fall had not appeared, the paper might not have looked into his alleged behavior, or if he was not married and strongly against gay rights. "I don't know if I would spend any resources to find out if he is gay or not," she says of that scenario. "It is a part of who people are. I don't know if it is our job to out somebody just to out somebody."

Steven Smith, editor of the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., took a similar view on the topic after his paper drew attention several years ago for setting up a sting operation to catch former Mayor Jim West using the Internet to find young men for sex. Eventually, West was found to be using his office computer for such connections and, in at least one case, allegedly offering internships at city hall.

West, who died last year of cancer, was recalled from office months after the paper published its report on the Web sting in 2005. "We knew West was gay and closeted, but that was his private life," Smith observes. "Where West was different was that you had allegations of continuing activities that were illegal in some ways and unseemly. He offered jobs for sexual favors."

Smith says he would even avoid outing a gay official who is publicly against gay rights: "We don't require a black politician to support affirmative action. I am not convinced that seeking the sexual identity of a politician is worth all of that time and effort." Smith says his paper reported on the Craig blog item last year because part of its readership is in Idaho and because the senator publicly commented on the blog item.

Kevin Naff, editor of The Washington Blade, a D.C.-based gay weekly, comments, "Sexual orientation is not a private thing for straight people, so this is a double standard. It is this 1950s mentality that homosex- uality is to be ashamed of." Eric Hegedus, president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, echoes that view: "Journalists are afraid to ask those questions and they shouldn't be. By not asking about it, you are assigning shame to it."

But Poynter's McBride says reporters do not even have as much choice to keep such matters private in the 21st century. Blogs and other sites will put out reports like the Craig item that might not have gotten attention in the pre-Internet world. "We are no longer gatekeepers," she points out, "and have to make decisions about rumors that are very different."

When former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey revealed he was gay in 2004, some criticized the state press corps for not outing him sooner, as rumors had circulated for years. When it was revealed his gay lover was a man he'd appointed to a top security position, the criticism grew louder. Jim Willse, editor of The Star-Ledger of Newark, says he had assigned reporters to look into the gay rumors but never uncovered enough proof to publish: "There was a lot of reporting on the subject, but that was as far a we felt we could take it."

But Willse stresses that the reporting was sparked not only by allegations of the married governor being gay, but the fact that he had appointed his lover to a sensitive post: "The source of our interest was the possibility that he had placed a companion on the public payroll who was not qualified." He declines to say how much reporting his paper would do to out a closeted gay official with no other apparent aspects to the story.

Other editors take similar views. Among them is William Hawkins, executive editor of The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., who says longtime rumors that a prominent politician from the state is gay have never prompted him to assign staffers to an outing story. "It is just not something we see worth doing," he says. "The question is, what is the news value? I don't see it."

Then there is the case of Mark Foley, the Florida congressman who was forced out of office after it was found he had been sending sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages. The Blade's Naff says his activities only crossed the line when he went after minors and allowed his sexual preference to compromise his job: "We had outed him years ago, he had led a fairly open gay life in Washington."