Can Scandals Be Covered Responsibly?   

Peepshow: Media and Politics in an Age of Scandal
By Larry J. Sabato, Mark Stencel, S. Robert Lichter
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
192 pages; $22.95

Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money
By David S. Broder
Harcourt Inc.
272 pages; $23

In "Peepshow," three serious authors offer commendably succinct, specific and sensible guidelines for more responsible coverage of today's scandal-saturated politics. The problem, however, is that "responsible coverage" by "responsible media" may not be enough anymore.

At least the authors still have faith in the system, and their book is applaudably direct. Instead of lingering over the problem for several chapters and then ending with a few recommendations, "Peepshow" delivers a concrete prescription in Chapter 1. "Our proposal," the authors write, "simply divides private conduct into two categories: behavior that generally should be covered by the press and behavior that in most cases should not."

Here is what they say should be covered:
*personal and professional finances
*health that affects performance in office
*any civil or criminal legal matter
*sexual activity "where there is a clear intersection between an official's public and private roles" or that is "compulsive and/or manifestly indiscreet"
*alcohol and drug abuse and illegal drug use as an adult
*other private behavior involving public funds or facilities

Here is what the authors say should not be covered:
*most nonlegal matters involving a candidate's children and family
*extramarital sex that is "discreet and noncompulsive"
*past sexual activity
*sexual orientation
*"youthful indulgence" with drugs or alcohol.

In explaining and defending their recommendations, the authors draw on a familiar inventory of cases from Monica Lewinsky's dalliance with the president to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's divorce to Hustler publisher Larry Flynt's investigation of members of Congress. The key problem they want fixed: "the obsessive focus on personal foibles that distorts traditional news standards."

Sabato (a political scientist), Stencel (an online politics editor) and Lichter (a veteran pollster and media analyst) also want the press to limit scandal coverage to a volume "commensurate with the offense," to resist rumors and to devote more resources to explaining their decisions to the public.

Their position, while concise, is nuanced and careful. For example, they do not reflexively recommend withholding all spicy information. In one interesting chapter, they grade press performance on various stories. They give the media a D for overcovering rumors that a congressman was gay, a D for stories about a 1960s-era affair involving Bob Dole and an F for speculating about a possible photo showing George W. Bush dancing naked on a bar ("no evidence supported any published account of the photograph"). But they also give an A for coverage of problems Sen. John McCain's wife Cindy had with painkillers ("legal matters involving the candidate's family are newsworthy") and an F for "showing too much discretion" by undercovering allegations that Gingrich had an affair with a committee staff member.

The problem here is not with their thoughtful recommendations but with what they themselves acknowledge are rapidly changing times. In the "modern, technology-driven editorial arms race," news standards are being set less by the mainstream media than by "the least common denominator." Nontraditional news sources ranging from the alternative press to tabloid newspapers and TV to the Internet are putting information into play faster than anyone can vet it or offer context.

And the public's appetite for gossip seems bottomless. While the authors make an argument that titillating fare produces "relatively small shifts" in sales and ratings, it seems unconvincing. In a wide-open information age, wide-open information sells. It is hard to see any way around that reality.

Perhaps the most important recommendation here is one made almost in passing, a one-sentence remark about "teaching readers how to be their own discerning cybersleuths." Even if mainstream media follow "Peepshow's" advice (as they probably should), we will still have a lot of sludge in the information stream, and audiences will need help in filtering it out. Otherwise, we face the slow deterioration of faith in our very system--a development that reporter and columnist David Broder, in "Democracy Derailed," argues has ominously begun.

Broder contends that the rash of electoral initiatives, in which the public votes directly on issues from term limits to medical marijuana to casino gambling, "threatens to challenge or even subvert the American system of government."

Direct voting may at first seem admirably democratic, but Broder maintains convincingly that it can be hastier, harsher and more easily manipulated than the traditional representative system, with its deliberateness and checks and balances. He points to "slanted or uninformed journalism," especially the reduced and often cynical coverage of the legislative branch, as one chief cause of public disaffection from government.

Many critics have bewailed the potential costs of a market-driven journalism that neglects serious issues. Broder's book is important because it goes further. It turns the abstract argument into troubling specifics.