All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid
2016; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 41; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2161-430X
Autores Tópico(s)Media Studies and Communication
ResumoBai, Matt. All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. 263 pp. $26.95People who remember Gary Hart probably think of him as the politician whose career ended after a photograph was published of him with Donna Rice sitting on his lap. They were aboard a boat named Monkey Business. It all unfolded, according to the received account, because Hart had challenged a reporter to follow him around. Matt Bai presents a detailed report of the events of 1987 and argues it was a turning point for political journalism that changed all the rules.As it turns out, Hart did not cavalierly tell journalists to follow him around before Miami Herald reporters staked his house and then reported what they saw. Bai's research also reveals who tipped off the Heralds reporters, and who was paid for the photograph of Hart with Rice. The presumed Democratic nominee for president did, in fact, say to a New York Times Magazine reporter, Follow me around, I don't care. Hart's comment, however, was not published until after the Herald, acting on tip, had staked Hart's home. Later, after the photograph of Hart with Rice was published, he suspended his campaign and eventually dropped of the race. Rice repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and went on to create a happy, successful life. Hart was never back inside the highest levels of politics.Before Hart, the boys on the bus had kept the personal lives of candidates and office holders private during the twentieth century as long as the politician did so. None mentioned Warren G. Harding's liaisons. Journalists did not show or write about the equipment allowed Franklin D. Roosevelt to stand. They asked no questions about the women who had private meetings with John F. Kennedy or Lyn- don Johnson. By not reporting on politicians' private lives, reporters had access to unguarded moments with candidates and politicians. At the center of the book is Bai's argument about why Hart was treated differently from Johnson or Kennedy. Hart had no reason to think he would have been. After all, reporters had ignored Hart's reputation as a womanizer for many years. Hart had lived with the Washington Post's Bob Woodward during a separation from his wife but actually spent most of his time with one woman. The U.S. senator from Colorado had lost the 1984 Democratic nomination to Walter Mondale, and as Bai reports, friends had told Hart his zipper problem was out there.Reporters had changed, technology had changed, and Hart was an atypical candidate. The key reporters on the story cooperated with Bai, and talked to him about the difficult decision-making at each step of the reporting. …
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