Behind the Times Read Online Free Page A

the opening to detonate the blockbuster, and permit the
Times
to settle the case that “everyone was on.” The use of Bowman’s name made it possible for the
Times
to introduce the stepfather’s name and complete the social drama: the House of O’Neil against the House of Kennedy.
    All the talk of “deadline pressures” made it sound as if the Butterfield-Tabor story somehow slipped through the system, when actually everyone involved knew what was expected from them. The “little wild streak” quote was so attractive that the copy editor repeated it in the subhead. Moreover, the story appeared in the editions of April 17 together with an article on Edward M. Kennedy filed by correspondent Robin Toner from Washington. The Toner story reported on the commencement address Senator Kennedy had given at American University the day before; it went on to describe how Kennedy was the senate’s “most visible standard bearer for liberal causes,” despite all the tab headlines and, seemingly, a persistent drinking habit. The Toner story began on page one and continued on page 17, allowing the
Times
to present the narratives of Bowman and Kennedy as a package. At the top of page 17, the headline informed readers: “Woman in Florida Rape Inquiry Fought Adversity and Sought Acceptance.” Below, readerslearned: “Torn by His Roles on Life’s Stage, Kennedy Can’t Avoid Dark Cloud.” It was a neat twinning of the traditional public-policy
Times
and the contemporary enticement
Times
, the old Journal of Record and the new homage to
People
magazine.
    When Patricia Bowman testified during the Kennedy Smith trial, the TV networks used electronics to project a blue dot over her face, to keep up the pretense of anonymity. After the Florida jury returned a not-guilty verdict on the rape charge, Bowman decided to defend her version of the encounter. She appeared, sans dot, on national television with Diane Sawyer of ABC News. One year later, Frankel was asked to reconstruct the
Times’
handling of the Bowman story—to remove the dot, so to speak, obscuring the
Times’
processes. He agreed. “There were several days of great tension because of two
Times
policies,” Frankel recalled. “First, the policy of protecting the anonymity of victims of sex assault. Second, a similar policy of not naming the accused until there are official charges. The accused being a Kennedy Smith, thewhole thing got out of control.” Frankel remembered that he grew increasingly upset. “We were doing something very unfair to the accused, and we did not have the slightest suggestion in print as to who the accuser was: a Palm Beach socialite? A whore? Or what? So I pressed very hard for every biographical detail that we could get, even if we weren’t going to name her. The reader was entitled to know who was making these accusations. Then we ran into trouble: the stepfather and his wealth, and his hiring of fancy lawyers. If we couldn’t name her, we couldn’t name him. His company was one of the Fortune 500. We were absolutely bound up in a mess. We had no way to tell the true story of who was attacking Kennedy Smith as long as we stuck to the policy of anonymity. I said, ‘OK. So we can’t name her and we can’t name her stepfather. Let’s do the best we can.’ That very night, we’re working on the biographical sketch, and NBC pushed the name out. I said, ‘That solves our problem.’ It never occurred to me that after twelve million people knew the name, the press would still pretend that anonymity existed. NBC not only solved our problem, but it forced us to rush our biography into print that night, when we might have wanted to work on it another day or two. In the rush, that story was not as deftly done as it should have been.” Frankel concluded: “We got it in the neck both ways. The rest of the world still pretending that the name was private and the press attacking us—with some cause—about aspects of the story we