Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Journalists wrestle with their ethics, as usual. This time, it’s over the question: Who should publish a claim that Republican Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is gay?

The claim could be bogus. It’s from a gay-rights blogger who won’t provide proof. And the senator denies it.

Yet some newspapers have covered it. Their editors reason, whether or not it’s true, the rumor could affect the senator’s political future, as he represents a highly conservative, highly Mormon state.

Idaho’s statewide paper, the Statesman, assigned two reporters to check it out, and when they couldn’t get confirmation, Statesman editors decided not to make it news. Not yet, that is … Meanwhile, the Idaho State Journal (Pocatello) made it a front-page story. The Lewiston Tribune and the Spokesman-Review (covering northern Idaho with its hq in Spokane, Wash.) have also fashioned stories out of it.

The process, if we can call it that, shows how journalism works — or staggers around — these days. A leading journalism think tank, The Poynter Institute, examines how this particular rumor becomes news, and how each editor thinks differently:

None of the three papers investigated the … claim to find out whether or not it was true. Two of the editors said they didn’t have the resources. (Steve) Smith, the Spokesman-Review editor, said the truth of the claim was a non-issue. … “Whether (the blogger) was right or wrong was not what we were interested in dealing with,” he said.

It’s relevant to you, wherever you are, because someday journalists and bloggers may inflict themselves on you, whether or not you deserve it.

The Poynter analysis has links to all the stories that have been published so far. No doubt, there will be more.