Press: When Reporters Make News

By John Elson

Nina Totenberg, the respected legal-affairs correspondent for National Public Radio, was co-anchor for PBS coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Clarence Thomas. Her commentary, though a bit preachy, sounded authoritative. Totenberg had a more than normal interest in the outcome. Several committee members were demanding an inquiry into the leak that had provided Totenberg and New York Newsday's Timothy Phelps with the scoop that Anita Hill had accused Thomas of sexual harassment, which led to the hearings she was covering. Moreover, Totenberg said one reason she took the charges against Thomas seriously was that she herself had once been sexually harassed. That disclosure led to a public reopening of a painful, 20-year-old chapter in her life.

Juan Williams, a frequent guest on TV talk shows, writes for the Washington Post's Sunday magazine and Outlook section. On Oct. 10, the newspaper's op-ed page carried an influential column labeled "Open Season on Clarence Thomas," in which Williams accused some Judiciary Committee staff members of desperately seeking "mud" to block the nominee. Not until five days later did Post readers learn that Williams was facing charges of verbal sexual harassment filed by female employees of the newspaper.

In far different ways, the Totenberg and Williams situations illustrate the ethical and professional dangers that confront journalists when they allow themselves to become part of the story they are covering. Totenberg is no stranger to scoops or controversy. Until the Thomas hearings, she was probably best known for her 1987 disclosure that Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg smoked marijuana while a law professor at Harvard. The subsequent furor compelled Ginsburg to withdraw his candidacy. A Boston University dropout, Totenberg graduated from the women's page of the Boston Record-American to the now defunct National Observer. She was fired from the Observer after writing a story that contained quotes she lifted from the Washington Post. Since joining NPR in 1974, Totenberg has earned a reputation as Washington's best at covering the federal courts, although critics consider her abrasive and tactless.

Totenberg's role in breaking the Anita Hill story has made her the target of Thomas sympathizers. Last week the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, whose parent company published the National Observer, ran a lengthy piece on the hearings, including a rehash of Totenberg's dismissal for plagiarism 20 years ago, as well as her charge that she was sexually harassed at the paper. Why did the Journal go into all that? Observers noted that the Journal had editorially championed Thomas and attacked Totenberg for her role in the Hill leaks; what's more, the paper had been criticized for its minimal coverage of Hill's allegations.

Williams first met Thomas in 1986 and subsequently wrote an admiring profile of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chairman for the Atlantic. In recent TV appearances Williams suggested that Hill's charges against Thomas, who is now a friend, were baseless. Shortly after he wrote his op-ed-page piece, Williams was told by Post assistant managing editor Tom Wilkinson of the newsroom-harassment charges, which Williams claims involved only a few innocent "jokes." In what the Post admits was an administrative lapse, Meg Greenfield, who edits the op-ed page, was not informed by either Wilkinson or executive editor Leonard Downie of Williams' potential conflict. That his piece ran with no mention of the sexual-harassment charges against him apparently inspired several Post employees to add their names to the list of his alleged victims.

So what, then, ought to be the guidelines? Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, believes that reporters with a special interest in a story should be barred or should recuse themselves from covering it. "There are two problems," he says. "One is whether reporters with an involvement or stake in a story can be objective. The other is whether or not readers can believe they're being objective."

Some experts argue that Totenberg was just doing her job in the Hill case and that her opinions on issues are all up front and available for the audience to accept or discount. "The fact that she happened to be the vehicle for Hill's charges becoming public isn't germane to her being a commentator," says Stephen Isaacs, associate dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. As for her own involvement with sexual harassment, George Harmon of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern is more sanguine. "She's a professional," Harmon says. "She ought to be able to cover a story without having her mind clouded by her own experience."

Different issues arise from the Williams case. The columnist says, and Post editors do not disagree, that his pro-Thomas piece was invited and submitted before he was told about the harassment charges. But Mark Jukowitz, media critic of the weekly Boston Phoenix, contends, "If I'm Juan Williams, I absolutely take myself out of the ball game" -- meaning no further comment on Thomas. (In fact, executive editor Leonard Downie ordered Williams to stop appearing on TV shows until the charges against him are resolved.) It may be hard to decide where to draw the line, but Columbia's Isaacs points to one helpful rule: "Always conduct your business with the knowledge that whatever you do could end up on Page One."

With reporting by Sophfronia Scott Gregory/New York and Elaine Shannon/ Washington