Word: proof
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...sample of 1,000 adults said information about private behavior, including extramarital affairs, should be kept from voters out of respect for the candidate's privacy. The sentiment hardly varied -- it was 69% to 25% -- in the hypothetical case that a reporter happened on hard proof. While reporters have justified special probing of Clinton and, previously, Gary Hart by citing rumors about them, 73% of poll respondents said the same standards should apply to all candidates; only 11% thought it right to concentrate on targets of rumors. While editors often run a story citing a charge made in another news...
...THOUGHT YOU were safe. Education is supposed to be one of those recession-proof industries like McDonald's and Hallmark Cards. You could never imagine one of them closing their doors. When things get really bad, that's when you need to drown your sorrows in a 49 cent burger and read a Shoebox Greeting from somebody who loves you--like your Mom, perhaps, who won't bug you about not being able to find a job or a summer internship...
Musings on this ripe topic often muddle three distinct questions: First, what level of proof is required of stories about marital infidelity? Second, should such stories be suppressed, even if provably true, out of respect for the candidate's privacy? And third, are past extramarital affairs (to take the meat-and-potatoes issue here) relevant to a candidate's qualifications for office...
Question One is simple, in theory. Sexual allegations should meet the same standard of proof as allegations on any other subject. By their nature, sexual allegations are often furtive and hard to prove. That is a perfectly good reason not to publish them...
...there is a genuine dilemma. Rumors can become so thick and widespread that not to report their existence -- even if they cannot be proved -- becomes a kind of dishonesty. The Washington Post once got in trouble for publishing a rumor without proof it was true, and defended itself editorially on grounds that, well, it's true there was a rumor. Much chortling and indignation at that. But it's not a worthless point. Past profiles of Clinton, in TIME and elsewhere, have reported vague rumors about marital infidelity as exactly that, and rightly...