John Temple, the Rocky's editor/publisher/president, doesn't see it that way. He's something of an anti-Overholser, arguing that papers can be too willing to print names unnecessarily. To that end, he stripped the name of a woman who denied unsubstantiated reports that she'd had an affair with presidential candidate John Kerry from a February 17 Associated Press article that ran nationwide. To explain the name's absence, Temple had a line inserted that read, "The Rocky Mountain News is not identifying the woman because no basis has been shown for the allegations" -- an extremely broad rationale.
No wonder Temple didn't hesitate to stop using the name of Jessel's client. "It was a very brief period where her name was public," he says. "And these women are not public figures in the traditional sense. This isn't a Bill Owens or a Betsy Hoffman, who are familiar with the glare of publicity. I saw no harm in erring on the side of giving her back her anonymity."
Mark Andresen
Mark Andresen
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But at this point, isn't that like trying to give someone back her virginity? Indeed, the name of Jessel's client can still be found on the Rocky's website, not to mention the pages of the Camera and the Colorado Daily.
Managing editor Hilliard says Dailyreporter Adam Ewing got Jessel's consent to use her client's name, which was published in about six articles before the attorney left a voice-mail message asking to rescind the deal in the wake of the Rocky report. Hilliard responded with a voice-mail of his own: "I said, 'I understand that there's stigma and public scrutiny for these women, and it's regrettable. However, you've given me your agreement, and we've received no objection from you or your client until this moment -- and I don't feel that I can afford to give our readers the impression that we'd somehow obtained that permission in an unprofessional or inconsistent way.'" He offered to arrange an interview with Jessel's client that would allow her to "speak directly to her peer group" -- University of Colorado students who read the Daily in large numbers. Although Simpson took the Daily up on a similar proposal last May, Hilliard says he has yet to hear back from Jessel.
Despite its appearing in the Daily, Simpson didn't want her name in the Greeley Tribune, because her family lives in the paper's circulation zone. This wasn't a problem for a while, says managing editor Randy Bangert; the Tribune didn't see enough of a local hook to dispatch one of its staffers to Boulder. As the story expanded, though, the Tribune ran an AP piece that mentioned Simpson, and "her family called us," Bangert remembers, "and said, 'We're really upset that you've identified our daughter.' That was the first we knew she was a local girl." The Simpsons maintained that many of Lisa's family members and friends in northern Colorado had no idea that she was at the center of the CU controversy, and they wanted it to remain that way. As further enticement for the paper to drop her name, Bangert says, "they indicated that in the future, it was very possible their daughter might be willing to do an interview with us -- so we talked, and after some internal debate, we decided that we would follow the family's wishes and not identify her in our coverage."
The Tribune kept its part of the bargain as long as it could, but eventually something had to give. "The whole thing got bigger and bigger, and her name was out there more and more," Bangert says. "What crossed the line for us was when she was on TV testifying in the legislature. That's when it reached the point of ridiculousness. Everybody else in the state had her name on TV, and if her friends and family hadn't known before, they certainly did then. So we called the family and said, 'We're looking foolish by not identifying her. It's not much of a secret anymore.'"
The Simpson clan reluctantly agreed and released the Tribune from its pledge. After all, no one could mistake the paper's sensitivity -- not even at CU.
