| Show The Salt Lake Tribune COMMENTARY A13 Saturday March 7 1992 1 Brook Adams' Anonymous Accusers Confirmed What 'Everyone Knew' By Anna Quindlen NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE NEW YORK — All our lives are filled with "everyone knows" stories "Everyone knows" the man down the street is having an affair with his wife's bridge partner "Everyone knows" the head of purchasing takes kickbacks from suppliers "Everyone knows" the boss is a lech If you've seen him in action you may warn the new receptionist not to stay late and alone And if you've comforted a friend who says he tried to rape her you may even go to the boss's boss It's a balancing act depending on the behavior the evidence on what the stakes might be In the newspaper business "everyone knows" is nowhere near enough What everyone knows someone must attest to Sometimes what everyone knows is simply not true part of reporting is fielding intriguing tips that go nowhere Sometimes what everyone knows cannot be confirmed If a politician and his mistress both deny the affair you have no story rumor There are people who will tell you that everyone knew about only Sen Brock Adams at least within ern tain circles in Seattle and Washington "We referred to it as Brock's problem" said a secretary who says she' agreed to work on his 1986 Senate campaign-onl- y after aides told her the senator had been warned "to keep his hands off the young girl's" In 1988 the problem became public when a young congressional aide the daughter of old friends of the senator accused him of drugging and molesting her The -- US attorney said the charges were baseless but a number of other women not only believed but recognized them And they talked to The Seattle Times The end result was a package of stories in that paper last Sunday that accused the senator of actions ranging from the lecherous to the criminal A young secretary says Adams slipped his hand inside her dress and fondled her breast A Democratic party worker says he drugged her raped her and left $200 on her hall table as he left her apartment In all eight women said Brock Adams had sexually harassed them but they couldn't afford to let a newspaper publish their names The Seattle Times did with this information pretty much what would have done They looked at it and looked at it and looked at it again They tried unsuccessfully to persuade the women to shed their anonymity They talked to friends and family the women had told of the incidents They argued among themselves about whether the seriousness of the allegations outweighed the problems of attribution And they tried for a middle ground When Adams called a press conference Sunday to announce he was withdrawing from the Senate race he called the accusations "hypothetical comments by hypothetical people" This was disingenuous Surely the senator can identify the secretary who says she worked for him from the time he was a congressman until his campaign in 1986 and who says she finally quit with a letter that read in part "1 am sick and tired of women coming to me upset because you've put your hands on their bodies without being invited" The stories of these women do not feel hypothetical They are nameless but not faceless: there are ages job descriptions telling details that ground the accusations in reality And all but one have signed statements affirming the truth of their allegations Readers ask about the rules of journalism and there are plenty from when to use an honorific to how to deal with anonymous sources These words from a New York Times memo sum up the quandary: "If we prohibit the use of confidential sources we would be cutting our readers off from a great deal of information However all of us also know that attributing information to confidential or anonymous sources is the least satisfactory form of attribution" In other words a balancing act just as in real life How important is this? Who gets hurt? How good is the evidence? All The Seattle Times had were anonymous sources But it had eight of them and while one accusation is an accusation eight begins to look like a trend Finally as its executive editor said in a special message to the readers "Over time the reporters and editors involved became convinced of the truth of the accusers' stories" That's the least exact part of the science this reading of situations and human beings and it's often the most important part of what we do This is subjective stuff reporters and editors make mistakes But I don't believe this is one of them A tough call yes The wrong one no Tribune Readers' Opinions Ben Franklin devised the concept of insurance supposing that a large group of people paying a small amount could protect themselves against the calamities of life That is a reasonable concept except the costs have expanded in proportion to the number of insurance companies that limit the pool of insureds The medical care and insurance industry is a disgrace a waste and a national calamity The pool of insureds is divided among 1200 different institutions The individual has no economic leverage and is at the mercy of unscrupulous individuals and institutions There is no standardized cost control During the period of electrification in the 1930s it was acknowledged that the cost of rural electrification would always be too high unless companies were granted regional monopolies to spread the cost between profitable and areas The same concept should be applied to the insurance industry A simple law stating that doctors and institutional care givers must accept a reasonable rate as determined by a national resdew board with no liability to the consumer above the cost paid by insurance would alleviate a tremendous burden on individuals and begin to control the unconscionable spiraling costs Arbitration boards and laws could be established to curtail the rising cost of a litigious society while protecting the rights of common citizens National malpractice insurance could be instituted with national arbitration boards Family practitioners could be saved from exacpensive and with counting procedures dealing a multitude of insurance compale time-consumi- nies XAVIER NARUTOWICZ Salt Lake City What Price Abortion? 1 I Nan Rowley argues that abortion should be kept legal because each year 5000 children die 6000 are permanently brain damaged 60000 are victims of sexual abuse and an estimated 15 million are kicked punched or bitten by parents (Forum Feb 13) These parents wanted their children Ms Rowley is an example of how the abortionists have brainwashed unthinking people into believing that only unwanted children are abused Ms Rowley argues that abortion should be kept legal to "save all of us a mountain of heartaches and financial woes" and says that "we can't even afford to educate these unwanted children" It's sad to say but society is becoming desensitized about abortion rationalizing it from an economic standpoint rather than the killing of an unborn child a child that someone wants ED ALLEN Salt Lake City cold-blood- i went to work on the presidential candidates the environment (both the ozone layer and the Wasatch Front's very own inversion got special consideration) Mike Tyson parimutuel betting and the Utah Legislature Regrettably we can't show them all But featured in this week's Drawn and Quartered are the e winners from each category You'll see the future of cartooning rests in capable hands More than 800 students from around the state submitted entries to this year's Badger Bagley Editorial Cartoon Contest Kindergarteners through seniors in high school participated These fledgling cartoonists showed a clear understanding of complex issues Amusingly a sizable bunch of them also showed a clear understanding of getting sick and passing out at state functions Some sympathized with the president's aversion to broccoli Students armed with felt-tipens and a sense of outrage also 01 le::::Ns - - Jana Ilauser ie -- 1 2nd Grade Draper Elementary School Teacher Gayle Blanchard - -- 274:: f:1 i ISISIP - i' - 1 C t 1 ': ' litiom:4: lp ' talc ei 6ir 11 When submitting letters to the Public Forum please include your full name signature address and daytime telephone numbers Information other than your name will be kept confidential Preference is given to original letters of 300 words or less that are typewritten and permit publIcation of the writer's true name (Names may be withheld for good reason) All letters are subject to editing Mail to Public Forum The Salt Lake Tribune PO Box 867 Salt Lake City Utah 84110 double-- spaced Rescind Call Several years ago the Legisla- ture voted to put out a call for a constitutional convention Supposedly this was (lone as a tactic to force Congress to pass a amendment We can add an amendment without a constitutional convention According to Article V of the s US Constitution IT of the states call for a convention then Congress has no choice but to do it Our country has amended its Constitution more than 20 times in 200 years without resorting to this method The only time our country ever had a convention was in 1787 and the purpose then was to strengthen the Articles of Confederation A runaway convention occurred and our present Constitution was formed If such a convention were called today no one could predict what would happen We could literally balance- -the-budget three-fourth- see our Constitution change thrown out the Bill of Rights destroyed There are people waiting for the opportunity to replace our Constitution with one written in 1972 It is socialist drivel Other people want to replace it with the United Nations Charter which would put all power and world domination in the hands of a very few We need to urge the Utah Legislature to rescind its call for a constitutional convention Some of our legislators have the idea that the convention could be limited to one or two issues Sen Orrin has tried several Hatch times to get a bill passed in Congress that would limit a convention to one or two issues but he has never been able to get it passed Many of this country's lawyers judges and law school professors say that if a convention were called it could not be limited to anything Once started it would throw out any protective rules that had been put in place to it lb-n- We need to find out who's responsible for calling a constitutional convention and remember not to vote for them on election day BEVERLY CHRISTENSEN Tooele I would like some help understanding the "not a drop" law prohibiting minors from consuming so much as a can of beer Sacramental wine cough syrup and beer contain alcohol and when it is in the human body you cannot tell which product it came from Proponents of the bill said r they could detect if a had consumed even one beer Tell me how a doctor can tell a person who has drunk one beer which is about 32 percent alcohol by volume from a person who has had a dose of cough syrup which is 25 percent alcohol by volume And those who take a wine sacrament are drinking about 12 percent alcohol by volume With a teen-ag- e weight around 5 pounds the belief that the alcohol from medicine or wine is not detectable but the alcohol from one beer is detectable is outright untruthful It is very disheartening that worshippers who consume sacramental wine may well have their lives and driving privileges disrupted for the very fact that they practiced their religious beliefs happened to get pulled over by the police for a broken on the way home from church and the officer smelled wine or cough syrup on their Grade Kindergarten-4t- h i 4: il14 1 Patrick Bagley Editorial Cartoonist p 4Lit 1 first-plac- c4-y- en5 -- 1s7 very?! cOrreklii21 S peede 21)( incory! Qo Grade 5th-6t- h Joseph Walker - 6th Grade Adelaide Elementary School Bountiful Teacher: Jeanette Wilson Knocks Not a Drop' Where to Write it 'Badger Bagley' Wimiers 0 The Public Forum Reorganize Insurance Newspaper in Education Contest I U TA H It1(6 L 07 -- 1 4t t" 441' ' Vil teen-age- Ik W t4 : - t one-oun- o 0 - dp - 110-17- N ANOTHUk LgDitslAI-71h-8t- h non-LD- S tail-lig- ht Grade t Matt Clark - 1 7th Grade :- - ' 4 Sandy Teacher: Lillie Perkins breath KEVIN WAYNE Salt Lake City 111v0: : I am concerned by the Geneva Steel pollution factor Geneva Steel employees work daily in a envihazardous ronment filled with concentrated pollution They may have a job but how long will they live to hold their jobs? When the leader of the company Joe Cannon simply states that Geneva is "winning" the pollution battle and blames autos for the probiems in Utah County I become upset The Salt Lake Tribune's air pollution series bore out the fact that Geneva is responsible for as much as 45 to 60 percent of the particulates in Utah County ANGELA PETERSON Salt Lake City ' 11:iitotliii '' I 0 0 0 0 0 0 ' that Jerry Jensen will be the only Geneva Pollutes : I a I was a little surprised to read in The Salt Lake Tribune Feb 13 announced Republican candidate for the 2nd District congressional seat Jim Bartleson announced his candidacy in January I know that there are a plethora of candidates this year and that it is difficult to keep track of them but I certainly hepe that the people are aware of a candidate as qualified and dedicated as Jim Bartleson Jerry Jensen certainly is aware JOHN JARVIS Sandy VeN - y-- 7 Not Only Candidate 4v I taliIIii 4 ' ell v 4 Wri I Albion Middle School 9-- fuak 18 TING 1AEE - - 0- E ) ' : v 4 :4 t t 4 A t ' Il ' e 9th-12t- h Grade 00E- Bryan Beach 9th Grade oT - 44 4: it "" — 119111:40110H "- ' l 1- 44 H7 i - Kaymille Junior High School Teacher: Karen Accord All irt 710709 '' BEMtMgit ' :143 - ti 011 lir WI 414 44 )T: A t? ) - ) '41:4rtt4mil 4 WPM i N 1- Li fAimitaLLtYlittlx411111:: 4 4111 - t? 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