Was it really the media's fault?

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's contention this week that his hometown newspaper was on a "witch hunt" against him -- after word leaked out that he had pleaded guilty to lewd public behavior in an airport men's room -- was met with nearly universal skepticism across the political spectrum.

Then again, the death Wednesday of former security guard Richard Jewell, who was wrongly linked to the deadly bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics, was a sobering reminder of another reality: Sometimes, it really is the media's fault.

"The Jewell case was a reminder that we need to be more skeptical about the information given us by public officials," said Geneva Overholser, the Curtis B. Hurley chair in public affairs reporting at the Missouri School of Journalism, "although it was also a reminder to law-enforcement officials to be more careful about what they said prematurely."

Still, she added, the Craig case is a classic example of "blaming the messenger," a reaction by people in trouble that's "as old as the hills and will never go away."

Mr. Craig's claim of a witch hunt was prompted by the Idaho Statesman's decision Tuesday to publish the results of a five-month investigation into rumors that the married senator, a strong family values conservative, had sexual encounters with other men, including an incident in a Washington, D.C., train station bathroom.

Rumors about the senator's sexual preferences have circulated for years, but the Statesman didn't publish anything -- even after it had on-the-record comments -- until Mr. Craig pleaded guilty, noted Steve Benen, a liberal blogger at Carpetbagger.com.

"The Idaho Statesman showed real restraint and met every standard for professional and ethical journalism," he said. "This is a sad and desperate man lashing out at the so-called 'liberal media' in the hopes of rallying the far-right base to his cause. As far as I can tell, it's not working; his story is just too ridiculous for even die-hard Republicans."

Certainly the GOP stampede of calls for Mr. Craig's resignation intensified yesterday, but as recently as Thursday some were still forcefully arguing that the senator was victim of a double standard in the media.

"The feeding frenzy, the sharks in the water that's going on right now because of a Republican ... Where is the frenzy on Alan Mollohan from West Virginia or William Jefferson from Louisiana?" asked former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on NBC's "Today" show (former U.S. Rep. Jefferson is under indictment for corruption and the finances of Mr. Mollohan are under investigation).

The program's host, Matt Lauer, said Mr. Jefferson's troubles were heavily covered in the press.

"Yeah, for just a couple of days and then we went on," Mr. DeLay responded.

Mr. DeLay made the same point that night on the MSNBC talk show "Hardball," prompting host Chris Matthews to say, "You have a case to make. Sometimes."

Examples of press mischief and malfeasance date to the dawn of the mass media and "yellow journalism," whose practitioners today must surely be the paparazzi, as we were reminded on Thursday, the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana's death in a Paris car crash with the media in full-blooded pursuit.

In the late 19th and early 20th century -- along with breathless reports of lovers' hideaways, speakeasies and other scandals -- there were ruthless efforts by media moguls to manipulate public opinion in serious matters of foreign policy and national security.

William Randolph Hearst used his newspapers to beat the drum for the Spanish-American War, and Henry Luce did the same with Time magazine to boost Chiang Kai-shek's war against China's communists from 1945 onward.

More recently, individual reporters have taken the heat for overkill or overzealousness on a story, most notably The New York Times' Judith Miller for her reporting on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Times was also widely faulted for its coverage of Wen Ho Lee, an American scientist accused of leaking U.S. nuclear secrets to China. The physicist sued, leading The Times, Washington Post, ABC News and other news organizations to contribute $750,000 toward a $1.6 million settlement deal between Mr. Lee and the government over allegations that government leaks violated his privacy.

Then there was Mr. Jewell, 44, who died Wednesday from heart failure and complications from diabetes. In 1996, the security guard was praised as a hero for sounding an alarm before a bomb went off during the Olympics in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, killing one and injuring more than 100.

But two days later, the FBI made him its chief suspect, prompting a wild media frenzy that only ended 88 days later when U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander cleared him, saying the "unusual and intense publicity" surrounding him was "neither designed nor desired by the FBI, and in fact interfered with the investigation."

But for every Jayson Blair -- fired by The Times for making up stories -- there's a Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post reporting duo whose Watergate investigation brought down a president, noted Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

"Once you've got a press that is communicating information about the world to people, of course they're going to have an enormous influence on how those things go down, although occasionally, as in the case of Jewell or Paris Hilton's release from jail, you'll see an abuse of the franchise."

For the most part, though, ideology motivates the media less than a simple desire to provoke those in power.

One case in point: On the eve of the crucial 1992 New Hampshire primary, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton went on television, biting his lip, complaining about being beaten up in the press over reports he had an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

Of course, it would get a lot worse in the later years of his presidency.

Karl Rove, one of the media's favorite targets and for years President Bush's closest political adviser, believes that while the press is generally liberal, "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional.

"Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat," he said during an appearance at Washington College in 2005.

Exactly, said Dr. Thompson.

"The media is just out to get the president, and that is exactly what the media is supposed to do. Their job is to be out to get anybody in power, as long as they're telling the truth. I don't want my press people to be wimps. I want good, old-fashioned Hollywood versions of obnoxious, dogged people trying to get anybody who is trying to get away with something."