"That's not a rumor."

1On the evening of April 27th, 987, Tom Federer's phone rang. He thought it might be the phone of another weirdo, and this kind of political reporter can always hear it. But Federer, a senior campaign chronicler for the Miami Herald, can't ignore the caller's message: "Gary Hart is having an affair with a friend of mine." The editorial office of Old A Record was anxious to find that married American Senator Hart from Colorado was the leader of the Democratic presidential nomination from 65438 to 0988. When he announced his candidacy two weeks ago, he vowed to uphold "the highest standards of integrity and morality", but since then he has been surrounded by rumors, which are groundless and say that he is * * *. There are some innuendos in the reports of mainstream media. Federer expressed regret over this printing practice. He concluded in the Herald that morning: "From a strict point of view, media reports themselves are spreading rumors, pure and simple."

"These are not rumors," Federer's caller told him in the evening of April.

Federer began to investigate. A few days later, he found himself staring at his house in Harttown, Washington, DC. What am I doing? This is not what a political reporter did.

Before that, no. But Hart's legend will change the rules of the game.

Before the 1988 presidential election, American political journalists usually followed an unwritten rule: a politician's private life is private, and there is no written evidence that his personal behavior has affected public performance. When the press corps turned a blind eye to President John F. Kennedy's extramarital adventure and handed it over to the Senate investigators, it was considered that the 35th President shared a mistress with a gangster 12 years after his death.

Things changed on Sunday, May 3rd. 1987, roger federer's colleague Jim McKee told the readers of The Herald: "Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart denied the accusation of sexual behavior, and spent most of Friday night and Saturday at his home on Capitol Hill with a young woman who flew in from Miami to see him." Paul taylor, a reporter from Washington post, greeted the candidate directly at a news conference in New Hampshire: "Have you ever committed adultery?" "I don't think this is a fair question," Hart replied. But two days later, after the news reported the tsunami, he withdrew from the competition and condemned a process of "reducing the pressure of the state on hunters and hunted presidential candidates". By then, a heated debate about whether it is appropriate to report on the personal life of candidates has begun.

Federer was laughed at by many colleagues for violating the candidate's personal territory, but he said he had no regrets. Now, Roger Federer, a researcher at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, says, "Everything is done the way it has to be." In the media, we are in the position of playing the role of truth checker. "There is a big gap between Hart's words and deeds," he said. "We think we have an obligation to do something about it."

Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center, a Washington think tank, said Hart's story was "a milestone in the evolution of our cultural norms and journalistic norms. Today, for better or worse, there is more scrutiny of candidates' private lives than before. Taylor of Washington post has also attracted considerable attention because he crossed a threshold 20 years ago. Columnist Edwin Yode lashed out at what he called "totalitarian news"; Other lawmakers warned that future political journalists will have the courage to routinely investigate the private lives of candidates. Taylor also said that he didn't have any doubts then, and he doesn't have any doubts today.

"I'm very satisfied with the way I acted then and what I thought afterwards," he said, referring to the question he asked Hart in New Hampshire. He said he thought the senator's aide's SS.

McKee found a woman who matched the informant's description at the ticket office. He bought a plane ticket, followed her on the plane and watched her meet another woman in Washington. He thinks he took the wrong flight,

Mackey then called a colleague in Washington, got Hart's address, took a taxi to the neighborhood and stood guard across the street. At 9: 30 in the evening, he saw the door open and Hart was caught by the woman who came back from China Eastern Airlines. Mackey called Federer who flew in the next morning (read the introduction of The New York Times magazine on the way), a photographer and an editor, and the monitoring continued.

The Herald reporter confronted Hart outside after seeing the woman leave and re-enter the house in town on Saturday night. They later reported Hart's denial: "No one lives in my house. . . "I have no personal relationship with the person you are following. When the reporter asked to talk to the lady, Hart replied, "I don't need to make friends with anyone. "

The report in the Herald published the next morning was widely read and criticized. Surveillance on Capitol Hill is not strict, especially in the early hours of Saturday. The woman who was later identified as Miami model actress Donna Rice may not have spent the night in the town house. At the same time, the reporter of the Herald was attacked by experts and readers, who all thought it was spying on Thomas.

However, this report has attracted the attention of the whole city of Washington post. Paul taylor and his editors concluded that Hart's personal behavior caused people to question his judgment and honesty more widely. This is a fair game. This conclusion and Hart's claim that he has high moral standards are the reasons behind Taylor's adultery in New Hampshire.

Hart's refusal to answer this question ("I don't want to enter the theological definition of adultery," he said) did not make it disappear. By then, he had been criticized for vacationing with Rice in Bimini a month ago, because he took a boat called "Monkey Business". Rice herself provided this information to reporters on May 4th. In the decisive week after the Herald's report was exposed, Hart never apologized to the voters or admitted any personal defects. Finally, he insisted that he was an innocent victim of news censorship.

Hart withdrew from the competition on May 8 (Rutaceae was wearing a T-shirt with rice on his knee before the National Inquirer published a photo of him in a monkey suit). His departure aroused considerable vigilance. Even in the press, future political journalists will behave like deputy detectives, searching for candidates' personal lives and cleaning up the battlefield only for those who are the most perfect or immoral. Most journalists usually avoid this task.

At the same time, candidates will also be subject to more stringent scrutiny. On the one hand, in the past 20 years, politics has become more partisan, on the other hand, non-traditional media has entered the political arena. "With the rapid development of blogs, talk radio stations and more and more party media, the norms of what is a story and what is not a story have been broadened," said Tom Rosenstiel, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times who reported on media and politics in the early 1990s, and now he leads the Pew News Excellence Project. . . It is an established fact that everything is fair now.

1992, the supermarket tabloid, with the help of Bill Clinton's opponent in Arkansas, reported the accusation that the Democratic presidential candidate had been having an affair with a bar singer named Jennifer flowers for a long time. 1998, when the House of Representatives debated whether to impeach Clinton for lying about his disorderly conduct, Robert L. Livingston, the elected speaker of the House of Representatives, resigned after Larry Flint, publisher of Liar magazine, learned that Livingston was having an affair. In 2004, Matt Drughi, the self-proclaimed "nigger" who presided over the Hard Work Report, trumpeted the rumor that presidential candidate John Kerry and a Senate intern were "suspected of infidelity".

Yes, mainstream media do investigate private lives if they think it is relevant. A week of media frenzy focused on Draghi's so-called Kerry exclusive; No one found any evidence to confirm this. At the beginning of this campaign, there were many reports about the marital difficulties of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani. The New York Times's February report on the relationship between Republican candidate John McCain and a female lobbyist was indeed widely criticized, but it is inappropriate to make unfounded accusations against anonymous former McCain staff.

This is a thorny area for candidates. Some people try to put their actions in the most favorable perspective. Clinton told CBS' 60 Minutes that he and his wife had "marital problems", but their relationship was strong. Giuliani only said that he and his third wife Judith were "very in love".

But the campaign is ultimately not about candidates and the media; Voters have the final say. For them, exposing unhealthy behavior is not necessarily fatal. Despite being impeached, Clinton 200 1 stepped down, and the public's support rate for his work performance exceeded 60%; Giuliani's marriage history did not stop him from actively voting in the Republican Party on the eve of the primary election. Paul taylor called this phenomenon "the expansion of acceptable range",

Tom Rosenstiel said that voters are now "more and more willing to look at these scandals one by one". We have all grown up in how to deal with this kind of information.