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CNN Crossfire

Have the Media Devoted Too Much Coverage to Chandra Levy's Disappearance?

Aired July 18, 2001 - 19:30   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.
BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Tonight, "Talk" magazine says it has a bombshell about the Chandra Levy case. We'll tell you what it is. Plus with the latest headlines, have the media finally gone too far?

ANNOUNCER: In New York, Lisa Depaulo, contributing writer to "Talk" magazine. And later, Jake Tapper, Washington correspondent for Salon.com, and Marc Sandalow, Washington bureau chief of "The San Francisco Chronicle."

PRESS: Good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE.

One more day with no word from and no sign of missing intern Chandra Levy. Rain today hampered their efforts, but D.C. police expanded the search of area parks finding nothing. And they continued checking out computer sites Levy logged on to the last day she was in her apartment.

On a related front, "Talk" magazine reports in its next issue, that according to a friend of Chandra Levy's, she was pressuring Congressman Gary Condit to leave his wife and marry her and got angry when he did not.

"Talk" also says that Ms. Levy's parents knew all about her affair with Condit, in fact, told police about it, but lied to the media about it when they first came to Washington.

So what? How does this help find Chandra Levy? Should the media even be reporting such private matters? We start tonight with the author of that "Talk" magazine article, Lisa Depaulo -- Tucker.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Lisa Depaulo, hundreds of reporters and producers have been digging into this story for the last couple of weeks. What have you found that they've been unable to find?

LISA DEPAULO, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "TALK" MAGAZINE: I think a real good sense of what Chandra's state of mind was vis-a-vis the relationship in her last weeks. It is a story that is much different from what Congressman Condit has reportedly told police. But can I correct something you just said?

Her parents certainly did not come out and lie to the press by any means. What her parents did was tell the police everything they knew from the beginning, and they trusted the police and the FBI to do their jobs, and that Congressman Condit would step up to the plate, tell the truth, as Mrs. Levy said to me, be a man, and that didn't happen, which is why...

CARLSON: Wait a second, Lisa.

DEPAULO: Yes.

CARLSON: As far as I know, the Levys met with police around May 6. On May 14 Mrs. Levy went on "Good Morning America" and said to Diane Sawyer almost verbatim, I know of no boyfriend that my daughter had. Now that's a lie.

DEPAULO: OK, characterized, but I think we have to give them a break here. I think it was very well-intentioned, and I'm going to tell you there were two reasons why: One was that they were advised to not put it out there, to let the police do their job. But No. 2, you have to realize something: In the early days, the Levys really, really believed that this woman was coming home, that Chandra was coming home. You don't want to spill someone's deep dark secrets.

PRESS: I just want to point out, first of all, that if we got any little detail of your article wrong, there is a good reason for it. We have not read the article. In fact, I have two paragraphs of the article, which is all that "Talk" magazine would give us before the show. But my question to you is that this woman is still missing. We don't know what happened to her. Before we even know what happened to her, you are dragging her name through the mud. Why? Why don't you leave her alone?

DEPAULO: Her name through the mud? I'm sorry. I think it's time to take a look at this through the perspective of a 24-year-old woman who was in love with a man who we know has been lying. And her name, far from it -- this was a fabulous young girl who was in love with someone who clearly, clearly did not feel the same way as she did. It is far from dragging her -- the only person who has dragged Chandra Levy's name through the mud is Gary Condit's spokesperson.

PRESS: Well, I will be so bold as to suggest that you are. According to what we know about your article you're saying she was a woman, a 24-year-old...

DEPAULO: Correct.

PRESS: ... knowingly having an affair with a married man who was conspiring every day with another male friend of hers on how she could convince this man to divorce his wife, break up his marriage.

Now, are you proposing...

DEPAULO: No, that's not correct.

PRESS: ... are you putting her forth as a model young woman, I mean a vestal virgin? What is this?

DEPAULO: No, that is incorrect.

PRESS: What was incorrect? What was incorrect?

DEPAULO: She was not conspiring. She was in love with the man. She wanted a commitment from the man. She was not a manipulative woman. What she was, was she wanted a commitment from someone who led her to believe that this was a real relationship, that this was something that had a future. And I think some of what you're saying, spoken like a true guy. I mean...

PRESS: I'm reading from what I know of your article.

CARLSON: Lisa let me jump in here and defend you from the Bill Pressian onslaught.

DEPAULO: Yes, thank you.

CARLSON: I agree with you that you are not the primary name- through-the-mud-dragger here, but I...

DEPAULO: I'm not -- there's no -- guess what. Tucker, there is no mud on Chandra Levy. Chandra Levy...

CARLSON: But to the extent that there is, it comes from her parents. We wouldn't have known that they were having an affair if her parents hadn't leaked it.

DEPAULO: Thank God -- thank God we know this. You know, it's amazing to me, quite frankly, that she confided in several people, because, given the rules of this relationship, you know, you can't tell anyone or it's over, you have to, you know, pretend you're not in my elevator, we can't take a cab together, there's a special pager.

Guess what, you know, everybody goes on about people leaving without a trace, she left a trace. She left some secrets. And you know what? It's a good thing that she talked to people.

CARLSON: Well, I agree with you. Well, that's interesting. I agree with you that's appalling treatment. But what I am struck by here is that her parents knew about it.

So put yourself in their position. Your 24-year-old daughter is being treated this way by a congressman. If you're Mr. Levy, why don't you call up the congressman on the phone and say, hey, pal, hands off my daughter? Why didn't he do that?

DEPAULO: First of all -- well, a couple of things. They knew she was involved with someone. They did not know until the end, until the last few weeks who this person was. They did not approve of it. As her parents said to me, you know, we're pretty hip parents, but we have very old-fashioned values. No, they did not approve, they did not think it was OK, but she was a 24 year-old woman who was in love with this man.

And you know, I think you have to say OK, in retrospect could they have, should they have, would they have? Yes, sure, but who expected Chandra Levy to disappear? I think her family and friends, the worst-case scenario to them, was that she would have a very broken heart. Not that she would disappear.

PRESS: All right. I want to ask you -- first, let me get a fact straight. Is it true that you report in your article that Chandra was talking almost daily to another male friend of hers?

DEPAULO: A platonic friend.

PRESS: Getting his advice...

DEPAULO: Getting his advice on how to handle the relationship.

PRESS: Getting his advice on how to break up the marriage, correct? DEPAULO: That is a real, you know, ridiculous characterization. Getting his advice on how to navigate this romance, how to -- and yes, at one point, at several points, actually, how to get what she thought she deserved, which was a serious commitment. You know, as she said to people, his wife is 3,000 miles away. And guess what, he characterized the marriage as, quote, "unrewarding."

Now, you have to -- you are looking at this like she is a 50- year-old woman. She is 24.

PRESS: Let me ask you, what is the -- who is this male friend of hers? What is his name? And is he the only source of that information?

DEPAULO: The article will be out August 3rd. At that point I think it will become -- certain things will become clear. Secondly, though, I will say that he is a very, very smart, compassionate individual. He, you know, he cares enormously about Chandra and her family. And also I will tell you that a great many other friends who I spoke to, who were not in that close touch with her, but agree with that take on things.

PRESS: So if I have this correct, you're asking us believe this entire story based on one anonymous, unidentified source? What kind of rules of journalism is that?

DEPAULO: I'm telling you -- you want to be the journalist cop. I'm telling you...

PRESS: Maybe.

DEPAULO: ... on August 3rd some of this will become more clear. But I can tell you, I've done this for a very long time. I know when someone is a credible, reliable source. And trust me, this man is a credible, reliable source. And by the way, he has told these things to the police.

CARLSON: OK, Lisa, we're also out of time. I just want to ask you one last question. Gary Condit strikes me, he's done a lot, he's given a DNA sample allowed, he's allowed them to root through his apartment, three interviews, one with his wife. What does the family want him to do precisely?

DEPAULO: Well, first of all, you know, there's this big thing, like, all right, he's done everything. It took him 9 1/2 weeks to admit to the relationship. Now, this -- in another case that might not matter, but in a missing person case, by definition, you have to focus on the people closest to the person.

CARLSON: Right, so they're mad, I understand that, and they -- but he's admitted it. What can he do now?

DEPAULO: Well, if he had admitted this from the get-go and he could in fact be exonerated, they might be on, we might all be on to other things. But I would argue that the reason we are still very much on Gary Condit is because Gary Condit waited 9 1/2 weeks to provide a key piece of information.

PRESS: I just have one last question -- I'm sorry.

DEPAULO: That he was at the very least one of the last to speak to her.

PRESS: I want to -- I have a last question here, Lisa, and I'm reading from again the little I have available, which is a press release we got from "Talk" yesterday.

DEPAULO: Yes, I wish you had it all. Look, I wish...

PRESS: And the headline says, "Friend of Levy Says Missing Intern Pressured Gary Condit to Leave His Wife," and that's basically what you have been telling us.

My question to you is, what's new about that? Do you know any woman who has had an affair with a married man that hasn't tried to get him to get out of his marriage and marry her?

DEPAULO: Actually, I do. But what's new about that is that...

CARLSON: That's the spirit, Lisa.

DEPAULO: ... is that Gary Condit reportedly told police that everything was hunky dory, on the morning that he forgets or doesn't's recall whether they had sex, that everything was fine and calm.

Well, everything was not fine and calm. This was a woman who just lost her job, who was in love with someone who she believed was going make a long-term commitment to her. She wanted him to leave his wife. As I'm led to believe, he made it sound like it was a possibility, and the wife came to town. Add it up.

CARLSON: Lisa Depaulo, you have just been taken off Gary Condit's Christmas card list, but we are grateful that you joined us. Thank you very much.

DEPAULO: Thank you.

CARLSON: And when we return, Bill Press and I will probe the deeper meaning for journalism with Marc Sandalow of "The San Francisco Chronicle" and Jake Tapper of Salon.com. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. Gary Condit's girlfriends. Chandra Levy's boyfriends. How much of this do you need to know? How much of it do you want to know? How much should you be allowed to know? All of it, say most reporters and members of the press. When it comes to politics, sex and scandal almost nothing is off limits. Is this what the First Amendment was written to protect?

Tonight we ask two guardians of that amendment: Jake tapper, Washington correspondent for salon.com, and co-host of CNN's TAKE FIVE, and Marc Sandalow, Washington bureau chief of "The San Francisco Chronicle" -- Bill.

PRESS: Marc Sandalow, I don't know about you, I didn't need to know that Chandra Levy was working every day to try to get Gary Condit out of his marriage. I think it's trashy, I think it is sleazy, I think it is irresponsible. I think it makes "Talk" magazine look like "Esquire" or some tabloid trash. Why am I wrong?

MARC SANDALOW, "THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Bill, if that's the standard you want to set of what you need to know, then you're absolutely right. But you also didn't need to know that there were two blue tennis shoes that came out of Rock Creek Park yesterday, that a bone that might be an animal's was being put in a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) suitcase to be brought back to the lab.

There is a lot more to this story that we do not need to know. The essentials of what we need to know is, where is Chandra and where is Condit's political and legal future. Those are the bare-bone details, and if that's all you care about, I suggest you stick to CBS Evening News and maybe the wire that "The New York Times" is putting on the inside of their papers.

But to a certain extent, this is much more than that. This is, as a member of Congress put it to me, a lazy man's summer beach novel, and if you want the tawdry details, you have everything from "The New York Times" all the way to "The New York Post" and "Talk" magazine.

PRESS: CBS did finally cover the story tonight. I will tell you about that in just a second, Tucker.

CARLSON: If it's a beach novel, it is a great read, I have to say. Yes, CBS did cover it tonight, Jake, for the first time, as you know, broke their silence, sort of a self-righteous silence. And they reported the FBI is taking over this investigation, and apparently the FBI is saying what you know and have known I bet for a long time, which is Gary Condit didn't do it. He's not responsible for her disappearance. So it turns out that's what the FBI believes, and I think you will agree that they are probably right.

So why have so why have media outlets, including Salon.com, been running story after story after story about Gary Condit's involvement? What is the justification for that? JAKE TAPPER, SALON.COM: I don't know that the FBI has ruled one way or the other. I think that what the FBI has said was they thought the D.C. police, first of all, is going a woefully inadequate job at investigating this. And they said they were spending too much time on television and also perhaps too much time devoted the Condit angle, and there were several other angles.

So I don't know if I would agree with your characterization, but the point is, to explore the angle of Gary Condit is an important one, because this is man was intimate with a missing intern. And as we know, boyfriends, husbands are much more likely, or I think the rate for missing women, or for women who have been murdered is 50 percent of them have been killed by somebody that they know. With men it's only 25 percent.

CARLSON: But then 50 percent of them haven't been. Those are the statistics, but the facts remain that in this specific case, there's zero evidence that Gary Condit has had anything to do with this and none has surfaced. And yet the focus from the press has been relentlessly on Gary Condit, and as much as I've enjoyed reading it, I don't see a justification for it.

TAPPER: But Tucker, the focus on the press has relentlessly been Gary Condit because Gary Condit has been lying to world through his spokesman, through his lawyers...

CARLSON: Wait a second, he lied about his girlfriend. I think we have heard this before, haven't we?

TAPPER: He lied about a woman who was missing. He lied about a woman who might be dead. He lied about having a relationship with her, and he didn't tell the full apparently the full and complete truth to the cops until the third interview nine and a half weeks into it. I don't even believe that you think this.

PRESS: And Lisa Depaulo just pointed out that the cops knew everything anyhow because according her the parents had told them everything. But Marc, I want to ask you, back to this "Talk" magazine piece which bothers me so, much for just a second. You're the bureau chief of "The San Francisco Chronicle." How many stories could you get on the front page of "The San Francisco Chronicle" based on one source, not two, anonymous source?

SANDALOW: Well, Bill, very few -- none.

PRESS: None, right.

SANDALOW: But I don't know if I share your outrage at "Talk" partly because partly I don't know, neither of us have seen more than two paragraphs of their story. So I don't know what is in there.

The whole investigation...

PRESS: She told us what it's based on.

SANDALOW: But it sounds like your outrage is based on trashing or as you said, dragging Chandra's name through the mud. I'm not convinced that's what's going on here. I do think that the media has been excessive in this story, but to the extent that the media has focused for better or for worse on Gary Condit, portraying him as a predator of young girls I think is completely reasonable to at least look into Chandra Levy.

Now you better be damned sure that when you print a Chandra Levy story that those details are accurate because you've got a complete, innocent, missing woman, and grieving parents. And you want to be very certain that you get the facts right. So one source, that's got the standard, but looking into Chandra, totally reasonable.

PRESS: But the question is looking into what about either one of them. OK, I want to play something that Molly Ivins said, but first, I wanted to tell you. In the last week or so we have read articles that Anne Marie Smith the flight attendant finds a bottle of massage oil in Gary Condit's apartment. Whoopie, right? We read a story that a minister says his 18-year-old daughter had an affair.

Apparently the 18-year-old daughter, now 24, whatever she is says not true. Now we hear about Chandra Levy's trying to get him to break up his marriage -- Molly Ivins, right on point, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOLLY IVINS, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Sensationalist, salaciousness and not real news. I mean, I can't -- the question is, is the press going nuts? Obviously, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: We are going nuts, aren't we?

SANDALOW: We've gone nuts for years. We are going nutty, but no one should be shocked by this. There was a front page of "The NEW YORK POST" 2,700 miles away from Gary Condit's district today about this sleaze campaign against Chandra as if leaking stories is unheard of in Washington. Now we don't know exactly the details of this leak and the sleaze campaign.

TAPPER: I do. It was salon. I'll tell you all about it.

SANDALOW: I've got to disagree with the word "sleaze campaign" when we have a publicist for Gary Condit who may have told a reporter that Chandra was up to no good. That is hardly the sort of sleaze campaign -- you can't compare that to what went on at the White House, where staffers actually phoned reporters to give them dirt on Monica Lewinsky.

This is not a campaign, this is an off the cuff remark.

TAPPER: One of Salon's reporters, Joshua Micah Marshall has been doing an excellent job covering a lot of this for us. Was on the phone with Marina Ein, who is Condit's spokesperson. Marina Ein said there's a story coming out in "Talk" magazine, Lisa Depaulo is writing that apparently is going say that Chandra had a history of one night stands.

This is the classics nuts and sluts defense. Blame the victim, it's all the woman's fault. She did say it to Joshua Micah Marshall. She might be denying it now but she sure as hell said it to him and she said it to other reporters as well.

CARLSON: Well, let's judge its effect. She may have said this. I'm willing to believe that she did. But the point is she got caught. So if this was a crafty PR campaign it completely blew up in her face. Let's talk about a campaign that hasn't blown up that's working and that is the Levy's.

It strikes me that Porter Novelli their PR firm has done an incredibly sophisticated job of directing the coverage including at Salon and in magazines and newspapers across the country. When they wanted to us know about the affair they wrote about it. So how are they not really the editor in charge of the story -- that is, some nameless flak at Porter Novelli?

TAPPER: Well, Mike Frisbee who is the named flak at Porter Novelli that's been doing this is first of all, doesn't say things that aren't true. Second of all, even when I talked to Mike Frisbee off the record, he never says that Gary Condit did it. He never blames Gary Condit for this.

CARLSON: Well, I am glad to hear that.

TAPPER: Well, Marina Ein is essentially calling Chandra Levy -- well, I don't even have to say what she's calling her.

CARLSON: But Jake, the point is that they are disseminating information about Gary Condit and Chandra Levy's sex life. And the parents are. How vulgar is that?

TAPPER: But Tucker, thank God for them and thank God for the media in this. Because of the media Gary Condit was forced to tell the truth and because of the media the Washington, D.C. police as poor a job as they did, at least they were doing much more of a job than they would have done had the Levys not been out there and had the media not been out there.

Both of those are accomplishments. Usually I'm with you guys at bashing the media. This story with a few exceptions here and there, the media has done the right thing.

PRESS: I want to get something straight here. I want to find out if I'm the only one at this table -- I know -- at least I believe from listening to this interview we had with Lisa Depaulo, that her mission was to get Gary Condit. But when I read what I've read of this article, and she paints the picture of this Chandra Levy as a driven 24-year-old, again who is knowingly having this affair and is talking to a male friend almost every day about how she can accomplish her mission, which is to get him to break up his marriage and marry her. I mean does this put Chandra Levy in a positive light to you?

SANDALOW: No and I find it ironic that we have two print guys here who find ourselves in an argument with two television guys about the bounds of covering a sex scandal.

PRESS: I think this is out of bounds.

SANDALOW: You make a very good point.

CARLSON: You are responsible print people. Settle down there, Marc.

SANDALOW: I completely agree with the fact that there have been media excesses. But the "Talk" magazine article, which neither of us have seen, may well step out of bounds. I don't know that it does. But I have to agree with Jake here that this story is legitimate, and although there have been gross excesses, what you're talking about is not as if Chandra Levy's name has been dragged through the mud, although it appears that some is aimed at her right now.

PRESS: And by the way, this is a legitimate story. I'm not saying we should not be talking about this. I'm just saying what should we be talking about? To what extent does this story, for example, help find Chandra Levy? To what extent does it talk about other suspects, other people that she was talking to? The other people that police have asked to take a lie detector test? Where are they?

SANDALOW: I think you make a very good point which I agree with and would go over very well in a journalism ethics class. But as Abbe Lowell stands there and talks to the media a week ago saying if only you would take your notebooks and aim them at the other 99 people maybe we would find Chandra Levy, as if the media's goal in this is to find Chandra Levy.

Let's drop the facade here. Clearly that is an important piece of what the media is doing. And there are -- there's serious political reporting going on here.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: So our goal is just to talk about sex?

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Jake, I want to ask you a question here. Part of the premise of the original story in Salon about Marina Ein making this comment was that it's appalling, that the flak would be attacking this missing and possibly dead girl, and that the parents did this whole wounded thing, were furious about the slur, I think was the exact quote.

But again, I want to get back to the point that it's the family and the aunt and the parents who were the ones who were talking about their daughter and niece's sex life. How hypocritical is it for them to appear wounded when somebody else talks about her sex life?

TAPPER: They've been talking about the daughter's love life, the romantic...

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: If you don't see a difference between the details that Lisa Depaulo has provided, it sounds like she's got in her "Talk" magazine story, the details that Linda Zamsky, the aunt that provided to "The Washington Post" and to other outlets, those details describe the relationship between...

CARLSON: They are more romantic?

TAPPER: No, I am not saying it is a romance. I think Condit's a sleaze. I have no delusions about what this relationship was about. But the point was this was about nature of their relationship. It's not about their sex life. And I have to defend Lisa Depaulo for a second, for one second. She's an excellent journalist and I am sure that her story, the point she's trying to make, Gary Condit in painting a rosy picture the last few days with Chandra Levy is not necessarily telling the truth, once again because of this driven nature she had.

PRESS: I don't think she helped Chandra Levy the way she did it.

Marc Sandalow, Jake Tapper, good of you to come in and battle two media guys about the media. Thank you very much.

Tucker Carlson will come back and tell you who is good and who is bad in the media in our closing comments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Bill, almost everybody this saga is striking a phony pose but I would say the phoniest of all poses is being struck by Chandra Levy's parents who are pretending to be outraged because some flak talked about their daughter's sex life, which as was pointed out on the program a few minutes ago, they are the ones who have been flogging and talking about it, bringing up and making circles in the news.

PRESS: Well, I want to give them a break, too, because their daughter is missing and they're going through a lot of angst, and I would understand it. But I will not give "Talk" magazine a break.

I like "Talk" magazine. I've always read it. I think this is below their standard.

CARLSON: Well, first of all, "Talk" magazine, "Talk" magazine -- I say this as someone on the masthead, is a great magazine. This is going to be a great story. I just...

PRESS: It's not a great story. It's a lousy story.

CARLSON: Of course, it's a great story.

PRESS: It's a trashy story. But you know what it is, Tucker -- and I say this collectively...

CARLSON: What's trashy about it? PRESS: It's trashy because it trashes her, Chandra Levy's reputation. You can't tell me it doesn't.

CARLSON: Her parents trashed her reputation. They're the reason we know all this.

PRESS: And so does "Talk" magazine, and they ought to leave her alone.

CARLSON: Abetted -- abetted by them.

PRESS: Rest in peace. From the left, I'm Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE.

CARLSON: And from the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Join us again tomorrow night for another edition of CROSSFIRE.

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