Why the Times didn't publish the Foley e-mailsBy NEIL BROWN, Executive Editor
Published October 5, 2006
In the days before the September primary, this newspaper was tipped to allegations about the personal life of Republican gubernatorial front-runner Charlie Crist, including a charge that he was involved in a paternity dispute over the birth of a girl 17 years ago.
Although it was just before the primary and we understood that his political enemies might well be behind it, we vigorously pursued the story. The moment we had a story that we believed was fair to the attorney general and that went no further than the facts we could substantiate, we published it. That happened the day before the primary.
We deliberated extensively before publishing that story. Newspapers are reluctant to run controversial stories so close to an election, when the subject has little time to react. Still, we decided to publish a story we were convinced was relevant, accurate and fair. In fact, the St. Petersburg Times was one of only three newspapers to print the paternity story, though many others had much of the same information.
In short, we try whenever possible to publish what we know rather than keep it out of the paper.
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Last November, we chose not to publish a story about how the Republican congressman sent cryptic, though arguably inappropriate, e-mails to a former congressional page from Louisiana.
Let's be clear: The e-mails we obtained were not at all sexually explicit. As Tom Fiedler, my counterpart at the Miami Herald, said, they were "ambiguous." Further, the page had provided Foley with his e-mail address voluntarily and had acknowledged in an e-mail to a friend that he initially had no suspicions about the congressman. We later tracked down the page, who told us that the e-mails made him uncomfortable. We also interviewed another page who had received e-mails from Foley and found nothing inappropriate.
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Our decision not to publish was a close call. We decided to hold off. Why?
I led deliberations with our top editors, and we concluded that we did not have enough substantiated information to reach beyond innuendo.
We were unsuccessful in getting members of Congress who were involved in the matter or those who administer the House page corps to acknowledge any problem with Foley's ambiguous e-mail or to suggest that they thought it was worth pursuing.
Emphasis added. So, the coverup by certain members of Congress is substantiated further by this statement.
It's past time for testimony under oath for those involved in this coverup.