Idaho Paper Made the Right Call

Vicki Gowler deserves a pat on the back. Instead, she's getting the third degree.

Gowler is the editor of the Idaho Statesman, the paper that spent months looking into claims that Sen. Larry Craig was leading a double life, only to get scooped by Roll Call on news of his arrest.

Gowler's taking it from two sides: from those who think she should've pulled the trigger earlier rather than sit on evidence of a senator's hypocrisy, and from those who think the Statesman had no business prying into a guy's private life.

Craig himself, naturally, fell into the latter camp, as did MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, who said, "I do think it's indefensible that the newspaper in Idaho spent a year interviewing 300 people to answer the question, Is he gay? That's none of your business."

Actually, while it may not feel like it to Gowler and her staffers, they made exactly the right call: investigating rumors that a lawmaker whose No. 3 priority is to "defend and strengthen the traditional values of the American family" was applying a different set of values to his own life, and shelving that investigation when rock-solid evidence failed to materialize.

Blogs that proudly publish unverified gossip have made it ever harder for anyone to show such restraint; once a rumor's in the blogosphere, as the allegations about Craig were, any journalist with an ounce of competitive fire is going to feel like a patsy sitting on his hands.

But it's still the right thing to do. "A blog said so" is not sufficient grounds for running with something. Reporters who use the excuse that a story is already "out there" to publish something half-baked only make it easier for those with shady motives to manipulate the press.

That's what happened last fall, when Lane Hudson started a deceptive, anonymous blog to bait mainstream media outlets into exposing Rep. Mark Foley's flirtations with Congressional pages. As I reported at the time, a number of political reporters knew of the allegations against Hudson but had declined to publish them for lack of corroboration. Hudson's information turned out to be legit, but his methods weren't -- which was why he was fired for his crusading.

Another tactic reporters are seeing more of is the dishonest Wikipedia edit. But we're catching on. Someone used this trick not long ago to try to plant a phony story about a cable news anchor's supposed affair; the planter ended up getting exposed instead. And this site will make a lot of would-be Wiki-mischief-makers think twice.