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| JANE DOE #5 | |
 February 24, 1999 
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NewsHour media correspondent Terence Smith discusses how the media handled the story of Jane Doe #5, a woman who accused the President Clinton of sexual assault in 1978.
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| Outing the story. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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LISA MYERS: The explosive new allegation tonight is that President Clinton sexually assaulted a woman 20 years ago in Arkansas. It involves an alleged encounter at this Little Rock Hotel in the late 1970's between then-Attorney General Bill Clinton and a campaign worker, Juanita Broaddrick.
SPOKESMAN: The Internet is buzzing with it. So is talk radio. So is the e-mail to Fox News Channel. It is the interview NBC News has done with a woman known for a long time only as Jane Doe Number Five. TERENCE SMITH: While NBC held the interview and reportedly sought corroboration, it was being discussed openly on its offspring cable channel, MSNBC, by talk show host Don Imus. Commentator John McLaughlin raised it on his syndicated broadcast. JOHN McLAUGHLIN: Discussion also focuses on why NBC has declined to air an interview with Mrs. Broaddrick conducted by Lisa Myers. TERENCE SMITH: Last Friday, the "Wall Street Journal" published its own interview with Broaddrick on its editorial page, and other news organizations followed suit over the weekend.
TERENCE SMITH: The White House flatly denied the allegation as absolutely false, and on Monday Spokesman Joe Lockhart bemoaned the performance of the press. JOE LOCKHART: I think it's a sad day when news organizations follow the lead of Internet and talk radio and some of the parts thereof. |
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| When the news becomes the news. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Finally, NBC announced that it will air the month-old videotape of the Broaddrick account at 8:00 tonight on its newsmagazine "Dateline." JIM LEHRER: And Terence Smith is here now. Terence Smith, here we are now talking about it. And the "New York Times" did it today for the first time, mentioned the story. It's a whole new way of journalism, is it not?
JIM LEHRER: And in some cases, as you just said in your report by people who work for the same organization. MSNBC and NBC is the same organization, as you just said. Now, what is the explanation that NBC gives for holding the interview for a month? TERENCE SMITH: They insist that it took them a month to check out many details of this story. They tell -- I spoke with NBC executives this evening, not long ago. They said that they had submitted, among other things, a list of questions to the White House, and they received the answers, or the reply, just yesterday. The reply, "no comment." They also say that there were discrepancies in the story, apparently originally Juanita Broaddrick was confused or uncertain about the day of this alleged encounter. They attempted to document whether then-Attorney General Bill Clinton was where she said he was that day -- things like this. So they got through a process, a rigorous process. But the fact is they were being pushed. They were being pushed by others saying they had the story and weren't airing it. They were being accused, I would say without any foundation, that they were protecting Bill Clinton through the impeachment process. So it was not in any way a pristine editorial judgment here. This was a hot spot. JIM LEHRER: It's life in the rough lane of journalism right now. TERENCE SMITH: Indeed. |
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| "Narcissistic journalism." | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Legally, probably not. The statute of limitations on any such charge, and no charge has been lodged, would have evaporated a long time ago. Politically - JIM LEHRER: Now, she's also not filed any kind of civil lawsuit. For the record, Paula Jones filed a civil suit against President Clinton. Juanita Broaddrick has not done anything like that, correct? TERENCE SMITH: That's quite true. And so far as we know there are no book projects in the works, there is no obvious motive of money or anything else here. If, I suppose, politically, if Ms. Broaddrick is credible to many people, I suppose it would be embarrassing to the president and could possibly further complicate his situation. But I suspect that the biggest impact really is for the media and the process. JIM LEHRER: Well, I was just going to ask you, embarrassing to the president, this whole thing is very embarrassing to the press as well. TERENCE SMITH: Indeed it is. You have a kind of narcissistic journalism going on here where news organizations are reporting on each other's reporting. In the "New York Times" today, you had quotes from the editor of the "Washington Post" about why and when they decided to run the story. So it all gets very incestuous here. But the point is, an intensely competitive atmosphere. JIM LEHRER: And it's not only competition. I mean, for instance, we are part of this process, we made the very clean editorial decision not to do this story, but we are talking about it tonight in a media context, because it is media news.
JIM LEHRER: It's a real story about may or may not be a real story. TERENCE SMITH: Exactly. JIM LEHRER: Well, okay. Thank you very much, Terry. |
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TERENCE
SMITH: An allegation that President Clinton sexually assaulted a woman
campaign worker in 1978, when he was Arkansas attorney general, dates
back years. The charge arose in the 1992 presidential campaign and was
investigated last year by lawyers representing Paula Jones, who identified
the woman as Jane Doe Number Five. That led to this report last March
on the "NBC Nightly News" by correspondent Lisa Myers. 
TERENCE
SMITH: Broaddrick initially denied the allegation to the Jones lawyers,
but then confirmed it for investigators, for independent counsel Kenneth
Starr, who included a brief summary of the charge in his report to congress.
It reportedly hardened the decision of some House Republicans to vote
to impeach the president. But the story went nowhere publicly until
last month, when it surfaced on the Internet that Lisa Myers had taped
an interview with Broaddrick on January 20th in which she detailed the
charge. At that point, the story, but not the interview, began to crop
up on talk shows and the all-news cable channels. 
SPOKESMAN:
Over the years she has been known as Jane Doe Number Five, a woman who
Paula Jones' lawyers believed had suffered a sexual assault at the hands
of President Bill Clinton. 
TERENCE
SMITH: It certainly is, Jim, in really two respects. Ten or fifteen
years ago, this sort of story probably would not have surfaced at all.
It would have been part of the background noise of a presidential campaign,
and likely remained that way. But two things really have changed now.
There is a change, I think, in the cultural climate. We talk about things
in the media that we wouldn't have 10 or 15 years ago, and on the floor
of the House of Representatives. Secondly, technology. The Internet
has come along, the all-news cable channels, there is a kind of ubiquity
of news. It's everywhere. It is, as the saying goes, out there. And
mainstream news organization such as NBC, no longer have any confidentiality
even within their own shop. They don't have the time now to go and do
their reporting and check it and corroborate it and then make a decision
whether or not to run it. They're being heckled, in effect, by others
in the media. 
JIM
LEHRER: Now, just for the record here, Terry, are there any lingering
legal implications to this story? 
TERENCE
SMITH: Mm-hmm. And this, as you say, for a good deal of time, the "NewsHour"
did not want to discuss these allegations. They are ultimately really
unprovable, and yet, when the story becomes the story, the reporting
becomes the news, then you find yourself looking at that, and I think
legitimately, because it has implications for the information process,
the industry and the way news gets out to Americans.