Privacy Is an Innocent Victim in the Chandra Levy Case

Jonathan Rauch | July 21, 2001

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Well, what if Condit is eventually charged with something to do with whatever happened to Levy? Wouldn't that retroactively justify the scrutiny he has received? The answer is still no. No one, not even a Congressman, should have to prove his innocence to the press in order to secure privacy.

If reporters dig up hard evidence implicating someone in a crime, good for them. But nothing dug up about Condit's or Levy's sex lives, or alleged about them, comes close to meeting that standard. Even the police said so. "We're not the sex police here," Washington Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey admonished the press in early July. "We've got a lot of people out here interested in a sex scandal. I'm only interested in that if it has a connection to the missing person."

Although it's a stretch, it's not impossible to imagine reporters telling the Levys: "OK, maybe the guy is a lying sleazeball. Maybe he had an affair with your daughter. We believe you. Please tell the cops. But it's not news." It's possible to imagine stories that discreetly alluded to rumors of an affair without naming names. Once upon a time, quite a few respectable media outlets--not just The CBS Evening News--required at least one very strong reason to take a bazooka to privacy. Now, apparently, a string of very flimsy reasons will do just as well.