The judge in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit against President Clinton excoriated media coverage of the case Monday as she soundly rejected “disingenuous” requests to lift her order keeping much of the evidence collected so far under wraps.
“Driven by profit and intense competition, gossip, speculation and innuendo have replaced legitimate sources and attribution as the tools of the trade for many of these media representatives,” wrote federal district Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock, Ark.
“Stories are apparently no longer subjected to critical examination prior to being printed. Indeed, the printing of a story in one publication is itself now considered newsworthy and justification for its reprinting in other publications, without critical examination for accuracy and bias.
“Thus, stories without attribution and based on gossip, speculation and innuendo fly through media outlets with blinding speed only later to be placed in context or subjected to clarification and/or retraction, as the case may be.”
Wright was faced with motions to loosen her protective order by a variety of parties, including The New York Times, The Associated Press, USA Today, CNN, ABC, Time magazine and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Clinton’s lawyers fought the groups’ request, while Jones’ side in the lawsuit took no position.
In part, those groups seeking to alter the protective order claimed that the decision to keep a lid on much of the information collected during pretrial discovery, including Clinton’s Jan. 17 deposition, was an infringement on 1st Amendment right of access to civil proceedings.
Wright said the parties seeking to open much of the evidence to public view before the trial had contended that full disclosure would be an antidote to rampant rumors and self-serving statements by the litigants.
“This argument is truly disingenuous,” Wright wrote in her ruling. “It is, after all, the media themselves who are providing a vehicle for the dissemination of alleged leaks of information and rumor and deeming such matters to be newsworthy.”
The trial is to begin May 27.
