Legal Commentary

Police Release Audio of Al Gore Masseuse Interview

By Jeralyn

The Portland Police Department has put the audio of the Massuese's interview online. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here. Again, she's reading from a statement prepared by her lawyer which he sent her for editing, but she does ad-lib and there is some q and a during and afterwards.

So far no one has taken her up on her $1 million offer for the story, but a source tells Page Six she's preparing to come forward and identify herself.

A source told us, "She's ready to come forward and sell the story with even more salacious details. But she wants $1 million. Her attorney is shopping for a deal, and while there are many media outlets interested, there are negotiations going on because the price tag is way too high."

Meanwhile, the Portland Oregonian's editor explains why they didn't print the story when the accuser first contacted her. [More....]

Along the way, we uncovered information that created significant questions in the minds of the four editors and the investigative reporter who were involved with this story. We still are not yet in a position to publish the information that helped dissuade us from the story.

Also factoring into our decision were conditions the therapist attempted to set forth concerning how the story would be written. She attempted to make her cooperation contingent upon her having a degree of editorial control that we couldn't allow.

In 2007, our choice was either to publish the existence of a third-hand accusation, with little corroborating evidence, or to hold publication until we had more evidence to support it. In 2008, after further reporting by Budnick, our choice was to either publish an ethically compromised story that omitted key facts or not to publish at all.

The paper's investigation occurred in 2007 and 2008 before her January, 2009 statement. As to what it did to investigate the allegations before then, the paper says, in answer to a reader's suggestion that it would have printed it had the subject been Bush or Cheney or a Republican:

If we hadn’t wanted to publish a story, we wouldn’t have spent much of a year looking into it. We wouldn’t have made public-records requests for documents that hadn’t previously been released. We wouldn’t have spent hours calling various massage therapists until we identified the correct one. We wouldn't have interviewed hotel employees and numerous people who know the woman. We wouldn’t have contacted Gore for a response to the allegation. We wouldn’t have placed carefully worded ads in cities around the country trying to find other massage therapists who might have had a similar experience with Gore.

The department's original press release is here and the transcript of the report and interview is here.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 26, 2010 (boomark / email).