Rumor, Innuendo and the ‘New Journalism’

I don’t know Vicki Iseman, I don’t really know the McCain people involved, and John McCain wouldn’t know me from Adam.

But I think I know how a story like the one in The New York Times can happen.

First, it starts with a rumor.

Rumors in Washington, D.C., are worth less than a dime a dozen. Some rumors are true. Most are not.

Rumors often start in the lobbying world. They start because people see certain facts and they make certain assumptions and then jump to certain conclusions.

For example, an attractive young lobbyist volunteers to take a certain Senate office as part of her lobbying assignment.

Other lobbyists conclude the worst immediately, and then pass on the rumor to all who will listen.

Washington, being the kind of town that it is, loves these kinds of rumors.

The rumor reaches the staff. They immediately decide to take action. They ban the attractive young lobbyist from the office. End of story.

Time passes. But the rumor doesn’t quite die.

The senator decides to run for president. Other campaigns may hear about the rumor. They may start spreading it.

Some lobbyists take the bait, some who have no great love for a senator who has made his reputation in screwing them on all kinds of policy matters. They start spreading it themselves.

Some enterprising reporters, perhaps over some cocktails, hear about these rumors.

They decide to track them down. They talk to some staffers for the senator. The staffers confirm that they took effective action in keeping the lobbyist out of the office.

A-ha! the reporters conclude. We have a story.

The editor is not so sure. He hems and haws. He asks the reporters to find more facts.

Months pass. The reporters think they have all they need.

A magazine hears that the paper has been sitting on a story about a rumor about a presidential candidate.

The editor gets nervous.

He doesn’t want to look like he is burying a story.

He runs with it.

He prints the rumor, and with it, the innuendo.

Both the lobbyist and the senator deny that anything improper happened. The denials are duly noted.

But the damage is done.

The rumor is published. The innuendo is delivered. Reputations are ruined.

There was a time when great newspapers didn’t dabble in rumor.

That day has apparently passed.

It is a sad day for those who had their reputations ruined by rumor and innuendo. It should be even sadder for those who think of themselves as journalists and don’t particularly care for the “new journalism” that mistakes rumor and innuendo for real news that is really fit to print.