In a typically hysterical and superficially reported April 3 screed, Rocky media columnist Michael Tracey wrote that "someone leaked extracts" from the Simpson diary to the Times-Call -- a move that puzzled Tracey, because, he says, "If you are going to leak, why on earth go to a small paper rather than to one of the major metro papers?" These comments bother Plasket in a couple of ways. First, he thinks the Times-Call is a larger paper than the Rocky or the Post because it publishes seven days a week, whereas the Denver dailies only come out six, thanks to the joint operating agreement that links them. Second, he says he didn't get hold of the diary via a leak. "I'm not going to tell anyone when or where I got it, because the where might tell you the when," he teases. "But for almost two months, it was not under a protective order."
Once the diary was sealed, the folks at the Rocky and the Post knew of only one way to get it: from Plasket. He was ready, willing and able to help. "They started asking me if they could have access to the material I got my butt in a sling over, and I thought, 'Sure. I'm done with it. It's just gathering dust.'" Plasket doesn't think his display of largesse qualifies as a leak, because he obtained the diary when it was a public document. Consider it more of a friendly gesture.
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Rocky reporter Lynn Bartels used the pages Plasket supplied to write March 24's "An 'Angry' Diary," which made a bigger noise than the Times-Call article had by virtue of the News's larger circulation, not to mention the prominent play the paper gave it. "The fact that the Rocky chose to splash it on their front page is, at the least, disconcerting," says Simon, Simpson's spokeswoman. "I can only imagine they were fully aware of the impact it would have on Lisa."
To that, Bartels says, "So it's okay to tease a story on the front page in which athletes may be portrayed in a negative light, but it's not okay to portray stories in which the alleged victims may be portrayed in a negative light? I don't buy it." Moreover, Bartels isn't convinced that the diary article undermined Simpson at all. "The reaction in the newsroom was divided," she notes, "with some people thinking she looked vindictive and other people asking, 'How can you read this and not think that she was raped? She's so hurt and angry.'"
Simpson was upset by the Rocky article, too, and her legal reps asked Judge Shaffer to sanction CU for leaking the diary. At a March 26 hearing, he declined to do so without proof that CU had done anything wrong. CU spokesperson Pauline Hale thinks that was appropriate. "I have not put myself in the position of leaking information. I don't really see the point in leaking things," she says. As for Evan Dreyer, the former city editor for the Post who now serves as spokesman for the independent commission looking into recruiting at CU, he says he's unaware of anything that's been leaked to the commission by the university or Simpson's supporters. He worries, though, that "if documents the court has deemed to be protected continue to find their way into the public eye, the judge might broaden the protective order or impose gag orders -- and that could affect the ability of the commission to secure testimony from witnesses or see documents it needs."
This isn't an idle concern. Judge Shaffer ordered lawyers on both sides to come up with plans to prevent leaks in the future, or else face the prospect of being formally muzzled for the remainder of the case. Simon says Simpson's lawyers wrote Shaffer that they'd support a gag order if it would exclude the commission's work but encompass everything else.
Not that a gag order's necessary, since the principals in the CU situation, like those with a connection to Zubeck's article about the Air Force Academy, say they've had nothing to do with leaks. More urgent would be a giant grain of salt.
