Castleton Communication

Journalism, Cronyism, and Bob Packwood: What Took So Long, Anyway?

by Bridgett Taylor

When a public figure is accused of a crime, the public stops and watches. They determine in their own minds what the truth is to the allegations, and watch to see if they are right. Sometimes-- as in the allegations of sexual harassment Diane Parkinson made against television host Bob Barker-- the truth is somewhat unclear, and has no real impact on our daily lives. But other times-- as in the sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas-- the public has a right and a need to know the truth. The Bob Packwood case involved serious allegations against a United States Senator, and the truth about the allegations had to be known. When the truth was discovered-- in complaints that reached back to the 1960s-- the public was left to wonder: why weren't they told sooner?

When allegations about Bob Packwood's sexual misconduct first surfaced, Packwood's state newspaper, the Oregonian, found itself with egg on its face. The article breaking the Packwood story was written by a freelance journalist for the Washington Post; the Oregonian, a large newspaper from Packwood's own state, seemed to have missed the story entirely. Oregonians-- along with the rest of the country-- were later surprised to find that the Oregonian had known far more about Packwood's sexual misconduct than it told the public.

According to the Washington Journalism Review, one of The Oregonian's own reporters, Roberta Ulrich, had been the subject of an unwanted Packwood advance. A political consultant told Oregonian columnist Steve Duin that Packwood had kissed her and tried to undress her in 1968. Duin mentioned the incident in his column, but-- in an effort to protect the consultant's privacy-- Duin did not name her or Packwood, referring to the senator as a "Northwest politician." The Oregonian assigned reporter Holley Gilbert to look into rumors about Packwood after the column appeared in March 1992. Soon after, Ulrich was kissed by Packwood after an interview. She told two senior editors about the incident. Although Ulrich told the editors "to be careful about whom they told the story to," it seems odd that the editors never thought to tell Gilbert or her editor, Robert Hilliard, about the incident. Hilliard later told Editor & Publisher that "the senator knew for months that the Oregonian was looking into the rumors. . .the Ulrich incident would have been a potent wedge to pry loose information that has now been made public." Hilliard added that the editorial board, who had endorsed Packwood for re-election, should have been made aware of the Senator's misconduct.

In an editorial for Nieman Reports that bordered on the ludicrous, Oregon journalist Patrick Yack wrote that "it's a safe guess that a number of reporters and editors had perhaps 'heard something' about Packwood, but they did not have enough facts to prompt a serious and dedicated inquiry into Packwood's sex life." He added that "the question of whether it was a story worth pursuing, given the skimpy evidence, the lack of corroboration and the high Packwood stakes, remained. The answer is yes. . .private behavior often can be a reflection of public character."

The stakes for Packwood were indeed high: not long before the November elections, Packwood was only eight percentage points ahead of Democratic opponent Les AuCoin. Allegations of sexual harassment would probably have doomed the Senator's chances for re-election. Yack's conclusion: "Bob Packwood would argue that his private life has no real bearing on how he conducts the public's business, either in fact or theory. The real test of Packwood's view would come during an election, a vote...the senator would almost certainly lose." While Yack's editorial ignores a crucial issue-- Packwood's behavior toward government employees, lobbyists and reporters could certainly be considered public behavior-- he raises some important issues about privacy and the public interest.

The Packwood story first broke in the Washington Post on November 22, not too long after Packwood had been elected to a six-year Senate term. The article was written by freelance reporter Florence Graves. If Oregon's newspapers had decided to investigate Packwood for sexual harassment, the story might well have hit the front pages just days before the election.

The editors of the Seattle Times were faced with a similar conflict when Senator Brock Adams was accused of sexual misconduct by eight women. The women, "all Democrats who earned their living as lobbyists and full-time employees of the Democratic Party," would not let their names be used. Executive Editor Michael Fancher was faced with a dilemma. The allegations, which ranged from sexual harassment to rape, were very serious, and an election was coming in November. Fancher and his staff decided on an interesting ploy: asking the women to sign statements agreeing to testify to the truth of the charges if the newspaper was sued. In Fancher's words, "the choice we had was this story or no story." Fancher and his staff felt that "voters have a right to know about the charges." Adams dropped his re-election campaign soon after the story was published. While the case inspired some controversy, The New York Times ran an editorial commending the newspaper for what they called "textbook examples of meticulous, convincing journalism."

It is difficult to know when the evidence is strong enough to justify an accusation. While Yack considered the evidence against Packwood in 1992 "skimpy," and Oregonian metro editor Bob Caldwell felt the story forming against Packwood was "far from" unassailable, the Post found ten women willing to accuse the Senator of sexual misconduct-- and Packwood all but confessed to the charges in the days immediately following the accusations. While Packwood's attitude toward the charges was contradictory at best (in December 1992, The New Republic noted "he now more or less admits to [unacceptable] behavior," while Time reported that "he fumed that he was the target of an unfair investigation" in September 1995), his own diaries indicate that the charges were accurate.

And Florence Graves, the reporter who broke the Packwood story, says that "something seems amiss when a person living in Needham, Massachusetts, working on her own, financing it herself, could develop a story to the point where she had identified enough women to make it credible." The Post's Executive Editor, Leonard Downie, Jr., felt that "many people in Oregon knew of. . .serious allegations [against Packwood], and most of the paper's reporting took place in the state."

A lack of evidence may not have been what motivated the Oregonian to keep the charges against Packwood quiet. When Congressman Wilbur Mills's drunken dalliance with stripper Fanne Foxe landed him in legal trouble, reporters were forced to confront the Congressman's drinking problem. "Reporters who had covered Mills knew he was a heavy drinker and appeared to be drunk at some committee meetings, but they would not pursue the story because they did not think they should invade his private life." Washington reporters may have felt intruding into Packwood's behavior with staffers and lobbyists was too intrusive.

But Mills's behavior extended to more than his private life: according to David R Jones, former national editor for The New York Times, "[Mills] himself says that his drinking affected his job." Packwood's misbehavior followed a similar pattern. His crude advances toward female reporters and Beltway reputation as "lecherous" did nothing to improve the public relations woes of Congress: and his harassment of female employees was indefensible. Interestingly, when the allegations against him first surfaced, Packwood used a Mills-like defense: he retreated to a private facility for alcoholism and explained that alcoholic blackouts had led him to "honestly [believe] these events had never occurred."

But none of these considerations- heavy drinking, womanizing, "Packwood's tendency to lunge for every pair of lips and breasts passing through his second-floor office--" had stopped the Senator from rising to the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee, and no one dared ask the question: should a man Time later described as "a vain, lecherous, insecure man still caught in the clutches of adolescence" have been trusted with such power? Misbehaviors of all sorts have been ignored by the Washington media: the first story on Iran-Contra scandal was published in a tiny Middle Eastern newspaper, and even then the media were all too eager to focus on Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North rather than accuse the President or Vice-President of misbehavior. In the words of Newsday editor Les Payne, the press is often" "too cozy, too intimidated, and too respectful of people in power."

The Post's Downie comments that "there are a lot of senators over the years who have drunk too much and groped," giving the impression that behavior that might get the average person fired is all right as long as you have a Congressional seat. Time noted that the "most damaging" allegations against Packwood were "obstruction of the [Ethics] panel's inquiry by tampering with portions of his diaries;" evidently sexual misconduct and misuse of a federal office for personal gain aren't half as serious as lying to your cronies. Packwood may have also been subject to less scrutiny because of his strong record of supporting abortion rights and other traditionally feminist causes. When he championed a bill to end discrimination against women in life insurance, Fortune magazine referred to him as "the leading Republican advocate of women's causes." His office was one of the first in Congress to adopt a policy against sexual harassment-- when sexual harassment was perfectly legal for United States senators to practice.

As The New Republic commented:
"Some feminist groups knew of his behavior. . .and actually seem torn about whether he should stay or go. Their argument has been credited by most of the media covering the story, who have followed the Post in portraying the tale of the two Bob Packwoods-- friend to women in general and molester of women in particular. This is a fatuous paradox. Conservatives are no more intrinsically accepting, or guilty, of sexual harassment than liberals."

Unfortunately, Packwood's Congressional support of women's issues helped his Senate career and kept many women who had been harassed quiet. In the words of conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, "he introduced the Senate's first bill to legalize abortion, thereby acquiring feminist immunity for his behavior." Packwood often voted in support of women: and many women supported him-- despite his inexcusable behavior-- in fear of losing one of their few allies in Congress.

Many reporters may have felt the same way: that Packwood's moderate approach to legislation was more valuable than his harassment of women. If, as some surveys seem to indicate, most reporters lean in a liberal direction (and most editors are conservative), Packwood's centrist position may have been a factor in press coverage. Rather than exposing a controversial figure, the press would have been demonizing a popular Senator. The centrist and feminist positions Packwood took were, in some ways, an insurance policy against exposure.

The outcome of the Packwood case is hard to predict; but a few early factors seem to indicate that Packwood's misbehavior-- and its treatment in the media-- has had little impact on politics or the press.

Has Packwood's expulsion from the Senate changed the way Washington works? It doesn't look that way. Congress' own 'watchdogs' seem as indecisive as they have always been: Newt Gingrich may well leave the House before the House Ethics Committee does anything substantial with the ethical violations charged against him. Media 'watchdogs' don't seem to be any more vigilant: Gingrich's ethical violations, the confusing Whitewater case, and other possible legal violations are usually relegated to the back pages. When Packwood himself implicated Presidential candidate Phil Gramm in financial misconduct-- in Packwood's own diaries-- the national media discarded the scandal within a few days.

Packwood, who still receives a substantial Senate pension, has returned to Washington, hoping for a successful career as a lobbyist. Maureen Dowd reports that "most people in the capital do not expect [Packwood] to be a pariah. They expect him to go on to great things." In a recent column, the New York Times columnist quotes Ed Rollins as saying:

"Washington takes care of its scoundrels...if Packwood goes back to Oregon, all he has is a house trailer and his pension. As a lobbyist, he can get 5 or 10 grand a month taking care of clients who owed him something from when he was the chairman of the Finance Committee doing them favors. In another six or eight months, people will call him 'Senator' again and treat him with respect."

Dowd comments that in Washington "scandal is often merely a prologue to greater fortune," and adds-- near the end of the editorial-- that "those close to Packwood said he did not feel he had done anything wrong."

After the Packwood scandal broke, the Oregonian decided to take an editorial stance against Packwood, who cited the paper's criticism as a reason for returning to Washington. Evidently papers inside the Beltway were not so harsh to Packwood; the former senator told Dowd that "I'm better off doing business [in Washington]. A lot of people have stuck with me and it's been very, very sustaining." Packwood's return to the Washington scene-- only a few months after he was forced out-- can only deepen public cynicism. And the media's lack of interest in ethical and legal violations by politicians cannot do the public any good. Power will remain unchallenged in the hands of those that wield it. The only hope for journalism, politics, and the public at large is that more journalists will work outside the cronied web of Washington, and that more journalists-- separated from the "good old boy" network-- will be unafraid to expose political hypocrites for what they are.

Bibliography

Cheryl Reid, "A Newspaper Confesses: We Missed the Story," Washington Journalism Review, January/February 1993.
M. L. Stein, "Scooped: lack of communication cited as reason why Portland daily was not first to print sexual harassment allegations against Oregon Senator," Editor & Publisher, 19 December 1992.
Andrew J. Campanella, "Oregon's Busy Ballot," National Review, 16 November 1992.
Patrick A. Yack, "Packwood Case Tests Oregon Papers," Neiman Reports, Spring 1994: 33.
Gene Goodwin and Ron F. Smith, Groping For Ethics in Journalism (Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1983) 140.
Cheryl Reid, "Anonymous Sources Bring Down A Senator," Washington Journalism Review April 1992: 10.
M. L. Stein, "Scooped."
The Editors, "Resign, Bob Packwood," The New Republic 21 December 1992: 7.
Jill Smolowe, Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Suneel Ratan, "Betrayed By His Kisses," Time 18 September 1995.
Reid, "A Newspaper Confesses."
Goodwin and Smith, 2270-2150.
Goodwin and Smith, 2150.
Reid, "A Newspaper Confesses." Michael Lewis, "Undersexed," The New Republic, 31 May 1993: 13.
Smolowe, Birnbaum and Ratan. Reid, "A Newspaper Confesses."
"Getting Tough About Unisex," Fortune, 25 July 1993.
Pam Lambert, Linda Kramer, and Bill Donahue, "Packwood's Folly," People Weekly, 14 December 1992: 48-51.
The Editors of The New Republic.
Kate O'Beirne, "Bread and Circuses," National Review, 9 October 1995: 24.
Maureen Dowd, "Honoring Disgrace," Rutland Herald 15 December 1995: 16.
Dowd, "Honoring Disgrace."

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Last updated 8-4-02