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CNN Talkback Live
Chandra Levy: Following the Cybertrail
Aired July 18, 2001 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we get this kind of national media attention for a farm bill, I think it really says something.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Everyone knows what it says, but as cameras focus on Congressman Gary Condit, police are focusing on what they think could be a "cybertrail" left on Chandra Levy's laptop.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASSISTANT CHIEF TERRANCE GAINER, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE: She surfed the Web for plane and train information as well as newspapers, and some governmental where congressional committees were meeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: Not unexpectedly, one of the paths led to Condit's Agriculture Committee. Police say the missing intern also visited restaurant sites and mapped the Rock Creek Park area where police have been searching, and there's the e-mail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GAINER: It does at least suggest, I think, a state of mind and it appeared, given that the tone and tenor of those e-mails, that there was nothing unusual going on in her life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: Police are releasing a list of Web sites Levy visited on May 1. After 11 weeks where might the cybertrail lead?
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. The day after missing intern Chandra Levy was last seen, police say she spent several hours on her laptop surfing the Web, sending e-mail, and leaving what investigators hope are clues to where she may be. Police plan to release a list of those Web sites to the public hoping they'll trigger someone's memory.
CNN national correspondent Bob Franken joins again today with us very latest. And Bob, what do we know about these Web sites that she visited on the day?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't think that the police are claiming there is anything remarkable. They're talking about the fact that she, apparently, keyed in her newspapers, that is to say the two main Washington newspapers, three of them in the city actually and one from Modesto, California, her home town.
So they are interested, of course in what she might have read. As you pointed out, she had looked at the activities of the House Agricultural Committee, of which Gary Condit is a member. Condit of course linked to her in this story so very closely. And there is going to be such things as restaurants that she might have looked up. And what they intend to do, they, being the police, is to put this information out, hopefully somebody will watch it and say, oh, yes, I remember seeing her at X place.
As a matter of fact there are some places in the town where tips are already coming in. One that has not really been developed yet that I know the police have investigated. It was a restaurant in the general area where Chandra Levy lived. So there is a lot of this going on and they are hoping, the police are, that more is generated after the list is released.
One last thing, the release might come today, it might come tomorrow. Police are trying to organize it in a way that it is easily comprehended by the general public.
BATTISTA: I know that you are not a police officer, Bob, although you may be earning your stripes in this story, but I am just curious as to why this trail wasn't followed a lot sooner? I know that there has been a lot of criticism of the D.C. police and how they have handled this and why they did not do certain things earlier in the game. It would seem to me that checking her computer along with her phone records like they did, would have happened a long time ago?
FRANKEN: As a matter of fact, they say that a lot of this has. The question is: When would they release the material? And they were hoping that they could do this earlier in the game. They, for instance, the question was asked that you just asked about, why didn't they search the area around Rock Creek Park which also came up on her computer.
Rock Creek Park is this large expanse of federal land, wooded area, that you are seeing right now, the police are searching it. Why wasn't this done earlier? And the answer is, it was done earlier but not to the extent that it's being done now. What has happened is 11 weeks have transpired since Chandra Levy has been missing. The investigation, because of that fact and the fact that there is this massive publicity about it, the investigation is intensifying, so they are retracing their steps, to use their words, and pulling out all of the stops, quite frankly, to see if they can finally resolve this matter.
BATTISTA: Let me take a question from the audience for you, Bob -- Betsy. BETSY: Yes, have they found anything significant in the last 12 hours in the park?
FRANKEN: They have not found anything significant at all. What they have found are some animal bones, they are virtually certain of that. They have found a couple of items that they are certain have nothing to do with the disappearance of Chandra Levy and they are going to have to continue this kind of a search for the next couple of weeks.
The big problem is, and you are not able to tell with what you just saw, it looks like a very clear expanse of land, this is a pretty heavy forest area which is to say there is massive underbrush, there is a lot of tree, there are a lot of trees, and it makes searching very difficult.
You can see that they have to go very, very slowly and they inch by inch are trying to clear the ground. That gets a little bit difficult when you are talking about 2,800 acres in this park alone. And I might add that they are looking at several other areas of a similar type in different sections of the city to say nothing of the abandoned buildings that they are searching. So this is very slow going.
BATTISTA: Another question from Ken.
KEN: Is the FBI assisting in the investigation?
FRANKEN: The FBI has been involved in this investigation almost from day one for a variety of reasons. First of all, this is an investigation that involves separate parts of the country, so routinely the FBI would get involved in this. Secondly, the District on Columbia is a unique jurisdiction. It is a federal city. The FBI and the local police force here have a constant cooperation, so the short answer to your question is, yes, the FBI is involved.
BATTISTA: Meanwhile, Bob, the congressman was back on Capitol Hill today. The live cameras were on him again. What has his day been like? What was his agenda?
FRANKEN: Your typical day of late. First of all, it is not altogether typical. He went out the back of his apartment house this morning and avoided the cameras but he knew of course he would not avoid them when he came to the House Agricultural Committee meetings.
This has probably been, no probably about it, this is the most coverage that the House Agricultural Committee has ever gotten and of course it all centers around that Gary Condit is there. His staff makes the point of saying that he is going about his normal congressional business and he has not been distracted from this, even with the distractions of the Chandra Levy matter.
BATTISTA: I understand that the Levys would like to meet with him again another time as would the D.C. police. Anything in the works about that? FRANKEN: Actually that is overstated a little bit in the case of the D.C. police. The D.C. police are saying it may come to pass that they may want to interview him a fourth time. They have not drawn any conclusion to that. They have not said, we want to meet with Congressman Condit. What so often happens in this particular story is they say something like that, and then it is developed over a period of days to, they are trying to arrange a meeting.
That has not occurred yet. They have only said that they don't want to foreclose the possibility that there might be another meeting.
BATTISTA: Bob, hang tight if you will. We are going to bring you back into the conversation shortly here. But I want to cut away and talk to Kevin Mandia, who is director of computer forensics at Foundstone, a computer security and education consulting firm. Kevin, thank you for joining us.
KEVIN MANDIA, COMPUTER FORENSICS INVESTIGATOR: Thank you.
BATTISTA: Help us understand this and try to keep it in layman's terms if you can.
MANDIA: Sure.
BATTISTA: For us folks who are not computer geeks. What sort of evidence would you able to find on a computer? Say you were working on this case and you had a list of Web sites where Chandra Levy had been on her computer.
MANDIA: Basically, following standard investigative procedures one of the first things that you actually do is you start seeing different user applications that are installed on the machine, such whether they are using Internet relayed chat programs, were they browsing the Web.
In this case they were browsing the Web, and immediately what is pertinent is what sites did that person go to? So that's very (UNINTELLIGIBLE) obviously for the investigation. In addition to the Web browsing activities, you also get all the e-mail. Every single that Chandra sent and received has probably been retrieved by the FBI and local law enforcement here.
And that provides amazing insight into the character, her mind- set, and the people that she generally kept in contact with. I always like to end this with, it's becoming more and more of a faceless environment where people aren't calling people anymore, they are e- mailing people. And with this e-mail, you really can get a good, diary, or autobiography about her last few days here.
BATTISTA: The easy part obviously is identifying the Web sites that she visited on the computer. The hard part is trying to figure out why she went there?
MANDIA: That's absolutely correct. What have you is hard facts and now you need to do some king of analysis and conjecture into what they lead to and how you can use these facts to help the investigation.
BATTISTA: Worst case scenario is that she is browsing, like many people are doing, and there is really no reason that she went there.
MANDIA: That's exactly right.
BATTISTA: It could provide as many false leads as good leads?
MANDIA: That's's absolutely correct. It could send you -- the bottom line is, the good thing is it gives you leads. We have, I can't remember, maybe 11 weeks have gone by now and something needs to be done. And at least there are leads. You can look at the e-mails and say, we knew she knew Scott and we knew she knew Bob, but who is this Greg guy she kept mailing? So you have another person to interview and another information source.
BATTISTA: And I guess they would be able to get the same sort of helpful information had she -- we have no information that she did -- had she gone to a chat room, for example? Can you retrieve that whole thing or not?
MANDIA: Well you can. And again, the answer is, it depends on chat rooms. Web browsers were made to keep a history for the ease of the user and I believe Chandra Levy was probably your average user using default settings. Every site she went to is going to be stored on her machine.
But with Internet relay chat, by default, it doesn't log where you go or the conversations you have. She could set it up to do so, but she may not have. What you may get is blimps and pieces, maybe a glimpse into some of the chats she had, but you won't get a nice, clear picture.
BATTISTA: And going public with the list of Web sites that she visited, hopefully, the police you know want to generate tips from people but what would they be looking for from the public?
MANDIA: Obviously, going forward with this, it might jog or jot somebody's memory where they'll say, oh, I remember seeing this woman at this bar or at this restaurant. And maybe they will notice her behavior, or know who she was with. And granted it's trying to elucidate the situation and you are grasping at something here, but you may obtain some useful information from this.
BATTISTA: We were talking earlier about how we would think that the police would have done this sooner, they may have but not to this degree. Do you lose anything by all of this lost time?
MANDIA: Well, in this case, I think that it's a little bit different. It's probably reasonable to assume that nobody else used the computer during these 11 weeks, and that's when you would lose information.
If Chandra Levy used the computer, then she disappeared, and somebody else used it for the last month, it will be hard to delineate who was Chandra's activities and who were the activities of somebody else. In this case that doesn't apply so the time loss doesn't really hurt the case here.
BATTISTA: Computer forensics: Is this the wave of the future? How else can this assist in police investigations and the like? It's pretty fascinating?
MANDIA: It is absolutely critical that we start to use computers for any type of case. Whether it is homicides or drug cases what we are seeing is the Internet is becoming the safest way for the bad guys to conspire and communicate. You've heard of encryption. With the encryption you can't encrypt your voice when you use the telephone. When you send an e-mail, you can encrypt the e-mail. That is something that certainly affects the efforts of law enforcement.
There is no doubt that the criminal element is starting to use the Internet and the starting to use computers more frequently.
BATTISTA: Is all of that admissible in court, do we know?
MANDIA: So far it's been exceptional. Last year the Department of Defense's computer forensics lab did 240 different cases where they did media analysis or computer forensics on them and none of them were challenged in court.
BATTISTA: All right, Kevin Mandia, thank you for joining us. I appreciate your info output on this. We'll take a break. And in a few moments: media madness. What reporters have to do to get an accurate story. We'll meet one who had to check out whether Gary Condit's wife has thumbs. We'll explain that. How interested are you in the Chandra Levy missing persons case?
Take the TALKBACK LIVE, online viewer vote at CNN.com/TALKBACK. AOL keyword is CNN. While there, check out my note and send us an e- mail. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: Couple of e-mails here. Roy in Texas says, "I think the media feeding frenzy over this case is appalling. Most of the news organizations already have this man accused, tried, convicted and sentenced."
Rita, in California says, "the one key figure in the story that has not publicly come forward with information is Mr. Condit. His silence is deafening, the spin is a logical response to his silence."
The search for Chandra Levy quickly developed into what people in the media business call "legs." It's the "Newsweek" cover story this week and it's prominent in other weeklies including "TIME" magazine. You can only imagine what reporters go through to separate truth, fiction and spin from all sides.
Joining us now along with Bob Franken is Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for "TIME" magazine. And with us -- oh, there you are. Evan Thomas is also with us, assistant managing editor of "Newsweek" magazine. Welcome to both of you.
KAREN TUMULTY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Hi, Bobbie.
BATTISTA: I have to tell you that we labor every day in the morning and afternoon meetings about whether or not we should continue with this story on TALKBACK LIVE on a daily basis, particularly when the information, any new information coming out about this story is slow in coming.
And you know, the question sort of arises, it's not so much how do we keep it going, but should we keep it going? Do you also have to deal with that, Karen, and Evan?
TUMULTY: Oh, I think absolutely. And for us it's complicated by the fact that we come out on a weekly basis. We have to worry, not only about how pertinent the story is at the moment, but how interested and how relevant it is going to be to people when they open up their "TIME" and "Newsweek" magazines next Monday or Tuesday.
BATTISTA: Evan.
EVAN THOMAS, "NEWSWEEK": Sure, we always worry about that. We don't have the same problem that cable does because we are not up 24 hours a day. We are only once a week. This story is pretty interesting to a lot of people. So we don't haven't had to struggle over whether to do it. We have struggled over getting information, trying to break news.
BATTISTA: And you are lucky.
THOMAS: There's no question that we want to do it.
BATTISTA: You are fortunate because you do only come out once a week. But as Bob can speak to here, Bob, you go on the air what, every half hour with this story.
FRANKEN: True. True. First of all, the nature of the business is changing even for the weeklies now that they have Web sites. And oftentimes new information has shown up on those Web sites.
But yes, we do go on and there was a debate earlier on about the merits of this story, but to be perfectly honest about it, those questions were overtaken by the fact that there is now a huge interest in it. That debate is over and taken over by the fact that certain developments have made this what everybody would agree to be a story that is valid.
Such things as the information that we've gotten from police investigator, that the congressman did have a relationship with the missing woman, Chandra Levy, and the investigation of his apartment and the polygraph matters, all of those things have really made it a story now that can't not be told. And quite frankly, just about every day -- and it happens oftentimes late in the day -- some new development of significance occurs and it really takes away the question, should we be reporting this? BATTISTA: There are still degrees of validity though I would say, because let's compare for example the covers of "TIME" and "Newsweek" this week. "Newsweek" put the Chandra Levy story on the cover. "TIME" put a different story on the cover and put the Chandra Levy little tease up there in the box on the right-hand corner.
How do you make that decision, Evan, as to whether or not this should be your cover story and deserve that much validity and attention?
THOMAS: There is no question that this is the story that everyone in America was talking about. "USA Today" had a poll showing that 85 percent of Americans were highly aware of the story. In that sense, it was pretty easy, because we are very topical and we go to that which interests America. And this sure did.
The more interesting discussion for us, was whether to put the congressman's face on the cover, or a more generic image in this case, Chandra Levy's. That was a tougher call because, although everybody was talking about the congressman, you have to be careful that you don't imply implicitly in some way that you think he is guilty, because we don't know yet.
In fact, if you were laying bets, there's certainly is no evidence yet to prove even close that he is guilty.
BATTISTA: And Karen, why did "TIME" decide to put how apes become human on the cover, and then the congressman in a little box?
TUMULTY: Well, it was -- basically, every week we have to sit there and look what we have. And look at, you know, not only relevance but what people are interested in. And it's -- it's just a choice. And this was the choice that we made this week. We used the image of Congressman Gary Condit on the cover in the corner, in part because one of the major themes of our story was -- one of the conundrums of this whole case, which is that three months into it we don't know a whole lot more about why or how Chandra Levy disappeared.
But we do know more a lot more about Gary Condit and the type of life that he was leading in Washington and how it compares to the type of life he was leading in California. And so we used that image to sort of stress that theme.
BATTISTA: I have a another question to ask, but Stacey is going to take the words right out of my mouth -- Stacey, so I will go ahead and let you ask.
STACEY: I was just wondering what other news stations or even politicians were thinking about CBS's refusal to cover this story.
BATTISTA: Can an argument be made, any or all of you, about this story not having any real consequence?
FRANKEN: Well, not anymore. Not anymore. I mean, there was a point, where all of us were arguing about that, whether in fact this was a story that really was of relying on innuendo. But, some of the innuendo has been borne out and so now the debate seems to be over. I appreciate the CBS desire to maintain some sort of purity, but I think in the process, they are ignoring the journalistic considerations that this is now news.
TUMULTY: This is the story too, that has felt at several points in the last three or four weeks as though it was beginning to ebb, as though the air was going out of the balloon. And every time it reaches that point some new bit of new information comes out that adds new life to the story. And a lot of it, generally, is coming from the Levy family.
They understand right now that all of this attention is their very best hope of finding out what happened to their daughter. And so they have very carefully managed the information and put out new information at every point when the story looked like it was about to go away.
BATTISTA: Evan, I want your reaction to that question as well and let me bounce it off this e-mail because this is very typical of the reaction that we get from a lot of folks to this story.
"It's disgusting that we are focusing on Levy so much just because a sexual soap opera is involved. When there are equally distraught families out there with missing loved ones. How would you feel? Turn to daytime TV if you want love affairs."
THOMAS: There is something to that. We go places in journalism where we didn't go 20 years before. And I'm troubled in the sense that Condit's extramarital sex life alone would not warrant pretty much any coverage much less this degree of coverage. But for the missing young woman, and Condit being less than forthcoming, and, of course, it's the latter, the fact that he appeared to be stonewalling that has really dragged him into trouble.
Sure we all have a disquieting sensation that we have become more salacious in the last decade or so. That's not new anymore but it's nonetheless true and I can understand why people are turned off by it.
BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break here and then we will solicit opinions from the audience. Stay with us.
MO: Hi. I'm Mo at American University. It's a sad day in the United States that public relations are more important than police investigations.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBE LOWELL, REP. CONDIT'S ATTORNEY: Let the police get back to their job. Go take your cameras and your pads and your pencils and try to see if there is somebody else out there who might have some information that could actually find this woman as opposed to prying into the private lives of the Condits, once and for all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: All right. Let me speak to those people, there are so many high-priced lawyers and public relation's people involved in this story, now, I am curious, how you guys separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of the rumor, innuendo, spin, whatever. Karen, how do you do it?
TUMULTY: There are a lot of rumors out there, a lot of things being passed on usually by a source that goes off of record to pass it on, and the first thing you ask yourself when you hear something like this is, is this person in a position to actually know this information that he or she is passing along? Most often it's not, but it does give you a lead, and then you go to the sources you think might actually have the knowledge of whether or not this is true.
BATTISTA: Bob.
FRANKEN: Well, it's an interesting collaboration. Of course we are just flooded with information. A lot of it is speculative, a lot of it is provided by somebody who has a point of view. I'll tell you what is a difficult problem, it's reporting this live sometimes where you are getting information as it is occurring.
And the rule of thumb is, unless you know it's true, unless it's been thoroughly vetted, you don't talk about it. I will give you an example. The other day as I was on the air we were confronted with tape of the police cordoning off an area in Rock Creek Park because they found something. That's all we knew. We could report that they had obviously found something because the police tape was up there. We heard that it was a bone. We had not heard that it was a bone, that it was a human bone and of course it turned out that it was not, so we had to be exceedingly careful and also had to point out that the police were not saying that they had found something of consequence.
this kind of problem comes up all of the time and again, the rule thumb is, if you don't know it to be true, don't talk about it.
BATTISTA: Evan, there has been a lot of police leaks in this investigation. There's been a lot of news conferences from lawyers, and statement, you know, from PR people. Do you ever feel like you are being used by these people?
THOMAS: Sure, all of the time. I work in Washington. I am constantly being used.
(LAUGHTER)
FRANKEN: True.
THOMAS: That's the nature of Washington reporting.
BATTISTA: How do you reconcile that?
THOMAS: It's a daily, weekly dilemma, I have been doing it for 25 years. You know, it's commonplace and obvious you try not to be spun too much. You check things out. One of the keys here is you use information to try to get more information and to try to find out what is true.
The usefulness of all these flacks and the lawyers leaking is that you can take that information and take it to some other source and run it up the flagpole and see whether it's true or not or get a better feel for whether it's true or not.
So you don't just accept what they give you. You take it, and you try to check it out, and you try to learn more things. And that's the nature of the beast and you are constantly using your judgment, and sometimes your judgment is bad, and sometimes you get burned. It's tougher on the TV guys and the daily guys who have to, as Bob says, react very quickly. We have the luxury of more time. But even we can feel in a pretty harry spot sometimes on a Saturday afternoon.
FRANKEN: You know what, if I could, Bobbie. I just want to point out that Evan correctly agrees that we are used by the different spinners, to use he cliche, but we use them too. And our normal rule of thumb would be if one side comes up with its thing on something, the immediate thing would be to go to the other side and try and get some sort of rough idea where the truth is between at least those two sides. Maybe there are three or four other sides too.
BATTISTA: Let me take a phone call from Mary in Ohio -- Mary, comment?
MARY: Hi, Bobbie, how are you? My comment is, what about all these other missing people? Especially the little children? Who is speaking out for them? I find this story to be -- you have gone too far from this and I thought reporters report the facts, not speculations. And I mean, the media if going to lose respect if you keep doing this.
BATTISTA: Bob, do you think that the media is guilty of stepping a little too far over the line of speculation?
FRANKEN: I'd like to think not. And I am wondering if we have that much respect left to lose. But -- the truth of the matter is that we try and separate the speculation and try and find foundation of fact. Whether we have been entirely successful in this matter is a subject of debate. But we have tried. This was one that we agonized over. Was this really based on speculation that was empty or was there something to it?
And from the beginning, we tried -- we tried -- to stay with what we could talk about, as fact.
TUMULTY: And you know, I would argue too, that this case has in fact brought a lot more attention to some other missing persons' cases. Every major publication in fact has done something on the fact that this is one of thousands of missing person cases. In Washington, I know, there have been some stories written about other people that have gone written that wouldn't have been written if it weren't for this.
And "People" magazine this week, if I can plug somebody in the corporation here, has profiles of several other missing women.
BATTISTA: All right. We do have to take another break at this time and we'll continue in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: E-mails. Darryl says, "I think the media is justified in its coverage until the case is involved."
Rick in Nevada says: "If you are sick and tired of hearing about the Levy case, just change the channel."
Sherri has a question from the audience. Go ahead.
SHERRI: Yes, I was just wondering, you know, the media can be so scrutinizing of everybody, and yet Mrs. Condit and the children have gotten away without anybody standing at their front and back door, and I'm just wondering, you know, how they have been able to escape the questions and the media attention throughout this whole ordeal.
BATTISTA: Karen.
TUMULTY: Mrs. Condit has in fact been questioned by investigators, but there is no evidence that she had any reason to know about Chandra Levy's disappearance. Even without facing what her husband does, which is a media stakeout every time he leaves his door, this ordeal has got to be absolutely excruciating for both her and the Condit children.
So it's not like they are being spared, but I think at this point, there is no reason to stick camera in their face every time they move.
BATTISTA: Bob, you know, for the last two days in a row, there has been a live camera on the congressman, as he's been sitting in a House committee meeting or whatever.
FRANKEN: As there is now.
BATTISTA: Yes. As there is now, there you go. It's Conditcam. Is it fair, do you think? Does this cross the line where it starts to sort of irritate people? What are we expecting to see here? Are we waiting for him to break down on camera? Why do we have that there and why do we show it?
FRANKEN: First of all, long ago, we passed the line about whether this irritates people, but one of the things that you learn as a public figure in Washington, is that you always assume you are on camera. You're smart if you do that.
I'll tell you what, though: there's something very interesting that's going on right now at the Capitol. Not only is that camera watching his every move at the House Agriculture Committee meeting, considering the Farm Bill, by the way. But other cameras were chasing him as he walked from that office building over to the Capitol. There is actually a rule against cameras moving like that on the Capitol Plaza. It's rarely been enforced, but that has so infuriated people, because it has caused such a ruckus, and literally it has caused people to be in danger, that there is a meeting right now called by the organization that controls the news cameras, to decide if whether or not that rule has to be enforced.
There have been complaints from Condit's office, from other members, you're seeing an earlier version of that when cameras chased him down the hallway of the Longworth House Office Building, you see this scene that was also from earlier, and several members of Congress are quite offended by this. The sergeant at arms, Bill (UNINTELLIGIBLE), who is no enemy at all by the media, is saying hey folks, we can't have this, this is dangerous.
BATTISTA: Evan, this is kind of a two-pronged story, I'm sure you would agree. It is the search and investigation into Chandra Levy's disappearance, but it is also a story about who Gary Condit is, and a big part of your coverage this week is on Gary Condit's secret life, as is "Time"'s. What are we learning about this man through this investigation?
THOMAS: Well, he had two lives: In California he was the family man and he -- his first campaign slogan was a good example. He ran on family values. He comes from a culturally conservative district.
It turns out that at the same time, he has had at least several extramarital affairs. He certainly has a reputation amongst those who know him, as somebody who has been a womanizer for a long time. This is not terribly unusual in lawmakers, I gather in Sacramento, in the '80s there was an atmosphere that was pretty wide open and fast, and lots of lawmakers had as I said, were married on the weekends. So, he is not alone here.
But, nonetheless, he is susceptible to at least the political charge and I guess the real charge of hypocrisy, because he has positioned himself as a good family man when he apparently has not been.
BATTISTA: Karen, speaking of sort of wacky leads you have had to trace down, it was you that actually had to investigate a tip from someone that Mrs. Condit didn't have thumbs. What was that all about?
TUMULTY: Well, that was one of the stranger rumors that was going around for a few days. Carolyn Condit has been one of interesting aspects of this story. The Condits have been married a very long time. They were married as teenagers, but somehow there was an impression in Washington, one that was repeated in a lot of the early stories that Mrs. Condit was some sort of reclusive invalid, that she had some sort of illness that was basically debilitated her.
It turns out that in fact she does have some health problems, but she has been a very important part of his political career back in California. She is a vivacious woman, who has often stood in for him at political events that he wasn't able to go to, things like political picnics, that kind of thing. And this is one of the misconceptions that grew at the beginning of the story and, I think, lingered for well over a month was that she was some sort of invalid. FRANKEN: Well, you know, it's a matter of fact, it's interesting of how these things can evolve. The health problem that she has, is she gets headaches every once in a while: significant headaches, different versions, whether it's migraines or the outgrowth of encephalitis when she was a child.
But in any case, that is what they mean by her chronic illness. That in one publication which will remain nameless was translated into a critical illness. As Karen points out, this is a woman who's been very active in the community, is well loved out there, and really is somebody who is very, very active, socially and physically.
BATTISTA: Let me do a comment here from Mel and then we'll head to break. Mel, go ahead.
MEL: Yes, the story is about the woman who is missing. Levy. Everybody, and especially somebody with his stature, Condit, has a moral obligation to come forward with whatever information he knows and can to provide to the police to try to find this lady and to alleviate this problem.
BATTISTA: We will be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: That's a good point in that comment there. We will get into that in just a few minutes about what the networks and the news weeklies are not covering because of this. But I just got this e-mail which I think is interesting.
Jean from Texas says: "This whole affair and the coverage by the media is yellow journalism at its best. CNN, "Newsweek, and "Time" resemble "The National Enquirer" and the tabloids."
The point being: that the rules of journalism have changed a bit, I'm sure you will all agree. And I'm wondering how much credence you give to reports that appear on the Internet at say Drudge or Salon.com or in the tabloid publications, when you see something there, do you have to investigate?
I mean, in a day we are seeing "The New York Times" quote "The National Enquirer" and "The Enquirer" breaking national news stories. What do you do, Evan?
THOMAS: Well, we investigate all sorts of stories that we don't publish. We have a much higher standard of proof, by far, than Drudge, and certainly the supermarket tabloids. I think in all of this discussion, people maybe don't appreciate how awful it feels for a journalist to be wrong. I have been behind some wrong stories and it feels terrible. And can kill your career. And that's a very powerful disincentive to printing stupid wrong stories.
And the big publications and the networks are pretty careful not to get it wrong. It's getting harder as the news cycle gets faster, and as we dip into these more salacious stories, it's trickier terrain, but I think the good news organizations still have the same, fairly rigorous, standards of truth, of just not getting out there, putting out things to the reader that are untrue.
BATTISTA: Yes.
FRANKEN: And very stringent. Very standards certainly, certainly here at CNN. They are sometimes unwieldy, they are so stringent, but the fact of matter is, is that you have to check out everything, and the scorn of being wrong is also matched to the scorn you get when you get beaten. So there's always a time pressure involved, and one of the things you have to do as a reporter is to resist that.
And as a news manager, is to resist that and make sure you get it right. The worst thing of all is to be wrong on a story.
TUMULTY: You know, Bobbie, on your other point, what is not getting covered, I think other stories are getting covered, maybe not as loudly as this one, if you look at "Time" Magazine this week, for instance, you will see that we actually ran a longer story on the stem cell debate than we did on Chandra Levy. We also gave coverage to the budget surplus and the fact that's it's disappeared and the political ramifications are of that, we have an item on campaign finance reform.
So I think the other things are getting covered, but as Evan said, the surveys would show that what people are paying attention to, is this. So of course news organizations are going to go where the attention is.
BATTISTA: We found that out last week. We did a show that was half on this and half on stem cell research, and let's just say the audience left in droves when we switched to stem cell research.
FRANKEN: And how sad that is, Bobbie. We're talking about something that has incredible consequences. It could in fact be something that leads to the discussion about the lengthening the human life span by double or triple, if in fact the potential for stem cell research is played out, to say nothing of the political consideration. That's a hugely consequential story.
BATTISTA: Oliver on the phone from California. Go ahead.
OLIVER: Yes, hi, Bobbie. I want to make a comment. Every single day, we hear the Levy story and everything. I think there are more interesting or more important issues we have to concentrate today. For instance, environmental issues or the defense issues, Bush introducing with his weapons and stuff.
I think Levy every day is getting tired. Same with Clinton issues, every single day, I think there are more important stories we have to cover today. It's getting tired.
BATTISTA: Thank you, Oliver.
Let me ask our journalists, when does this story fall off the front page? At what point, Karen?
TUMULTY: Well, as I was saying earlier there have been several points in the last few weeks when I thought that was going to happen. And just when you think that is happening, there is some new revelation, whether it's Chandra Levy's aunt coming forward with her own accounts of this affair: the minister in Modesto suddenly announcing to "The Washington Post" that Congressman Condit had had an affair with his daughter, an affair that the congressman, by the way, denies.
This is a story that seems to get a different life every week. And so it could go on for quite awhile.
BATTISTA: Any other thoughts on that, Bob? Evan?
FRANKEN: Well, the one thing is, is that oftentimes the story doesn't just have a startling revelation, but one side or the other causes it to be something that is once again pushed under the radar screen.
For example, it looked like at the beginning of last week, after Congressman Condit reportedly had told police that he had the affair with Chandra Levy, according to police sources, it looked like, OK, that could be the story. It's over. We now know what we have been trying to find out. Come Monday, the Levy family through Attorney Billy Martin said we want a polygraph test. Bang! The story was once again a very hot story.
BATTISTA: One thing we know may be in the headlines for awhile would be the congressman's future, possibly, so we will talk about that quickly, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: E-mails here.
Caesar from Florida: "I commend the people covering this and other important stories. Reporters are people, too. They obviously give us what we want to hear, so who is to blame? Let's not be hypocrites."
Tom in Texas says: "With so few developments in the case, now the media resorts to covering their own coverage."
We do that all the time, Tom: It's called navel-gazing. We do that a lot. And for a good reason. Up to the audience. Pam?
PAM: I teach 8th grade social studies every day to students, and I teach the kids about the freedom of the press and I think it's great. That's one of our major rights. But I applaud CBS for not giving so much coverage of this, simply because if this were me or my daughter missing, we don't have a senator or a congress person that we're related or that I'm involved in. We wouldn't get this coverage. I really would like to see the media back off and give the Washington police the opportunity to do what they need to do, and I would also like to see if they want give some attention, my husband is a devoted farmer, give some attention to the agriculture bill that Congressman Condit is working on.
(APPLAUSE)
BATTISTA: Speaking of the Agriculture Committee, let's talk a little bit about the senator's (sic) future, whether he is found to be related to -- or congressman's future -- whether he is related to the disappearance of Chandra Levy or not, this could have political repercussions for him that that could be fairly devastated.
Evan, what do you think?
THOMAS: He, for a long time, had a complete lock on his district. I don't think he had an opponent last time out. He's been reelected a half dozen times. Very popular figure in his own district.
Right now, that popularity is eroding for obvious reasons. It depends what happens. People have short memories. If this goes away and he does something to rehabilitate himself, he might get re-elected again. If there are more unfortunate turns, he is probably you know, done politically.
Interestingly, there has been a little bit of pressure on him to resign, and he said, forget it, I'm not resigning.
BATTISTA: And isn't there an effort underway to re-carve up his district, so it becomes a moot point?
THOMAS: Yes. He was so strong that they were going to take some Democrats away from him because they figured he could win with Republicans. As his own political future gets more shaky, maybe that doesn't work. Who know what the state legislature will do when it comes time to carve up that district again?
BATTISTA: Bob.
FRANKEN: By the way Congressman Condit through his various spokesman has made it clear that it is his plan right now to run for re-election, but I know both Evan and Karen would agree that the 15 months or so before the next election is eternity. You can't really make any predictions that you can count on, about what will happen to him politically.
BATTISTA: Karen?
TUMULTY: Well, California, is one state where the Democrats control the entire redistricting process for the governor and legislature, all being in Democratic hands. So on the part of the Democrats right now is in fact as Bob suggested, that he can hang on until the next election, at least that long, so that they can redraw those lines and possibly obliterate the district entirely.
BATTISTA: Eleanor is on the phone from Texas. Go ahead.
ELEANOR: All I want to say is, I like to read, and to me it is a wonderful mystery and I wouldn't want to open the book without ending it. That's how I feel.
BATTISTA: You are sticking with us until the end.
ELEANOR: Yes, I am.
BATTISTA: And Chris, final comments from the chatroom? Lee, what is going on in there?
LEE: They are saying the story lacks facts, and it's basically all innuendo, and they are saying people are interested because it has a makings of a movie and they have a question about whether the congressman should resign.
BATTISTA: All right, Cat in Chapel Hill says: "If Gary Condit wasn't a congressman, would the media have been as willing to give this story that much coverage? No, is the simple answer, but isn't that the point?"
Bob, a lot of people ask that question. If it weren't -- you know what I'm saying.
FRANKEN: Well, the family, quite frankly, has been very instrumental in seeing to it that all this information about the relationship between the congressman and the missing Washington intern, that it has gotten out there. It was a very calculated effort to get this story out in public, so it could focus attention in the desperate hope that this would help find Chandra Levy. Of course, sadly it has not had any affect so far in that direction at all.
BATTISTA: If we take a quick look at our poll question today: How Interested are you in the Chandra Levy Story?
And Chris is getting that up for us there really quickly so we can get the answer to that. A little slow on the uptake here today: 31 percent can't get enough, 27 percent take it or leave it, 42 percent are saying anything else would be better.
All right. Evan Thomas, Karen Tumulty and Bob Franken, thank you all so much for joining us. Appreciate it.
And we will see you again tomorrow for more TALKBACK LIVE. Join us then.
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