Media soul-searching has been in vogue ever since. Academics have criticized the obsession with private lives. Op-ed pages have clucked and scolded. The almost daily rumor-mongering of The Washington Times reminds the inside-the-Beltway crowd of where, but for the grace of caution, go they. Editors read the polls, and the polls say that the public is turned off by between-the-sheets reporting. And don’t underestimate the queasiness of reporters themselves: the men from The Miami Herald didn’t particularly enjoy hiding in the hedges outside Hart’s townhouse.
The full flavor of charactercop craziness is documented in a new book by Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia campaign expert. He debriefed leading reporters after 1988. The title sums up his conclusion and theirs: “Feeding Frenzy.” “There have been a lot of second thoughts in newsrooms”, Sabato says.
Second thoughts don’t mean full retreat. The Hart episode was explosive because “no one knew what the rules were,” Sabato says. Now people think they do. Sabato’s dictum: extramarital sex isn’t a story unless “it’s a compulsive bedding of everyone in sight.” The New Republic’s formula: private life is out of bounds unless it “clearly impinges” on a leader’s ability to function or it’s so “hypocritical” that it “calls attention to itself”
Sabato hopes editors in the “prestige media” will focus on issues, track records and money-not sex. But he concedes “that may be wishful thinking.” Early signs aren’t encouraging. NBC’s Tom Brokaw grilled Sen. Charles S. Robb about alleged coke parties and a hotel liaison. Arkansas newspapers (and The Washington Times) have run stories hinting at potential personal-life trouble for Gov. Bill Clinton, who may run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton seems willing to bet that the public-and the media-have had enough of the character cops. The media, he told the Arkansas Gazette, have no business being “the moral police of the country.” If he runs, he said, he will refuse to discuss rumors of extramarital sex and illegal drug use. “I find it amazing,” he said, “that members of the press believe they can go and ask people questions that people of all Christian religions–except Catholics–are not required to tell their ministers.” It’s amazing, and a little depressing, but also inevitable.
