April 8, 1999 -- St. Paul, Minnesota -- If you're reading these words, chances are that you already know by now that you can't believe everything you read, see or hear, even if it emanates from prestigious and/or well-financed media outlets. It seems that no figure who is in opposition, either real or imagined, to the powers that control either the political or the media landscapes can escape being smeared and slandered.

What you may not realize is just how long ago Big Media got this nearly unlimited power to slander those weaker than itself or its allies. Back in 1964, the year of my birth - and I am a matronly woman with rapidly graying hair - the Supreme Court's decision in New York Times v. Sullivan made it all but impossible for any public figure (except of course for those, such as General William Westmoreland, with rich and powerful friends in the Republican Party) to successfully sue any media organ for slander.

So, if the media has carte blanche to print damned near anything they want to about anyone (except, of course, for Republicans and the very rich, who in most cases are one and the same) and get away with it, how can you separate the wheat from the chaff, the truth from the lies, the Maui Wowie from the ditchweed?

Here's a short primer on how to do just that.

Let's examine two stories from the March 16, 1999 issue of the National Enquirer. The NE is a well-known tabloid that has over the last few years been printing an increasing number of genuinely-sourced quality-journalism stories in an effort to create "truth by association." This the idea that "if we're telling the truth on THIS story, we MUST be credible on every other story we tell -- right?"

The first of our stories was featured on the front page. The headline screamed of Chelsea Clinton tearfully confronting her father over the latest sexual allegations: a reference to the Hickey-Broaddrick dog-and-pony show (which I discussed in my March 5, 1999 APJ piece "Dredging Up Old Stories"), saying "Daddy, Get Help."

The second story, buried on the very last inside page, told of how a voice-stress analysis expert ran the tape recording of Juanita Hickey-Broaddrick's voice, as captured in the Dateline interview, and found that she was lying when she said that Bill Clinton raped her.

Here are the rules we'll to use to dissect each of these stories:

Rule #1: What is the bias/background of the author or the paper/magazine/network/etc. publishing the article?

A heavy bias in a certain direction isn't by itself an indicator of an article's truth or falsity. But if the author's bias is consistent over time, and the author has a habit of misstating or ignoring certain facts, the chance that this author can be trusted in any given situation in which his or her bias comes directly into play is not very good. (William Safire is a case in point.... but I've already dealt with him in a previous column.)

In the case of the National Enquirer, the bias is hard to determine. Unlike the Star tabloid, which has been working hand-in-glove with the right wing throughout the 1990s in promoting anti-Clinton rumors, the Enquirer shows a historical trend of beating up equally on politicians of all parties, exhibiting a scrupulous neutrality that many "elite" newspapers such as the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal would do well to emulate. It was in fact the Enquirer which, in its November 5, 1996 issue, scooped every other US paper with the news of Bob Dole's longtime affair with Meredith Roberts.

Slate's Timothy Noah recently tried to imply that the presence of the voice-stress analysis story in the Enquirer's pages, so soon after former Clinton White House staffer Robert Altman became associated with the NE, meant that the Enquirer was becoming a Friend of Bill. If that were indeed the case, then why has the Enquirer been running "Hillary Dumps Bill" headlines recently? Besides, if the presence of a former Clinton associate on the masthead of a media organ automatically indicated a hopelessly pro-Clinton bias, then Vanity Fair - which employs Dee Dee Myers - wouldn't have spiked the Russ Baker expose of Clinton foe Dan Burton, and it would have fired Christopher Hitchens ages ago. (Speaking of bias: Mr. Noah admitted in the 03/30/99 edition of Slate's "Chatterbox" column that he is a friend and admirer of Newsweek's lead get-Clinton guy, Michael Isikoff. If one applied Timothy's own bias-detecting procedure to this relationship, one could say that Mr. Noah is himself predisposed to an anti-Clinton bias.)

Rule #2: Does the author and/or the publisher have a good track record when it comes to truthfulness?

While the Enquirer's political bias is not clear, its reputation as a journalistically-suspect tabloid is lit up in neon lights, and has been for decades.

Ironically, even as it is in the midst of trying to improve its reputation by actually throwing honest-to-God no-fooling pieces of real journalism in among the stories of anorexic sitcom stars and philandering celebrities, its circulation, as well as the circulation of the other tabloids, is declining because the "legitimate" press has itself been poaching on the tabloids' own scandal domain: and not always, or even often, beating the tabs where accuracy is concerned.

Rule #3: Does any "source" in the article actually have a name attached to it?

This is where we really begin to separate the truth from the rumors.

In the Chelsea Clinton piece, not a single source was shown as being willing to come forward openly to attest to the truth of the article's allegations. In fact, the quotes attributed to various "White House sources" have a feel and sound similar to that of all the other anonymously-"sourced" articles published by the NE: In other words, the likelihood is quite strong that they were made up by the piece's author, but since they aren't attributed to anyone, the NE can get away with it.

In the voice-stress analysis piece, not only do we have a name, Jack Harwood, attached to the quote source (Mr. Harwood being the Palm Beach investigator the Enquirer hired to analyze the Hickey-Broaddrick Dateline interview), the quotes attributed to Mr. Harwood vary enough from the generic NE made-up weepy-weepy quote pattern to sound quite genuine.

Here's a brief sample from the article of a quote attributed to Jack Harwood:

"During her telling of the sexual encounter, she has low stress in her voice, which shows she is being truthful. But she's lying when she couches it as an unwanted assault or attack by Clinton."

The naming of the story's source up the ante: the NE had better be telling the truth about Mr. Harwood's statements, or he could sue the NE into oblivion. (Being that Mr. Harwood is not a "public figure" as defined in The New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), he has a much better chance of winning his suit that President Clinton would, should the NE decide to misquote him.)

Rule #4: Are there several modifier words used to tweak folks' emotions? Once those words are sifted out, are there any actual statements that have a factual basis?

The Chelsea Clinton story is filled with luridly-described scenes of a teary-eyed, wailing First Daughter (all allegedly witnessed by the same alleged White House sources that always speak anonymously), but when it comes down to something with a basis in fact, the story quickly boils away.

There is just one "allegation" that, since it was witnessed by both the press (tabloid and "respectable") and the public, not just a conveniently unnamed "source", has anything resembling a factual basis - namely, the multiple sightings of a happy, laughing Chelsea and her mom having fun on the slopes in Colorado. Of course, this contradicts the entire tenor of the piece, which is probably why it was buried at the very end thereof.

The voice-stress analysis piece, on the other hand, would not need much alteration to fit comfortably in the pages of an idealized version of The New York Times. Aside from the headline and its exclamation point, the entire article is blessedly free of any emotional additives or flavorings. The article's author does not cheerlead for either Broaddrick or the President, but lets Mr. Harwood's own words tell the story, which is as it should be for an non-editorial article in a paper that aspires to the basic standards of journalistic ethics.

Rule #5: Does evidence exist that contradicts or rules out the article's claims?

I'm sure we are all by now familiar with how Jeff Gerth and Stephen Labaton of The New York Times, and Susan Schmidt of The Washington Post, because of bias, sloppy reporting or a combination of the two, have totally misrepresented the facts of the faux-scandal known as "Whitewater". (If you're not, I direct your attention to Gene Lyons' wonderful book Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. Back issues of the journalistic watchdogs Nieman Reports, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Consortium, and Brill's Content will also prove helpful and enlightening.)

Virtually every piece that the NYT or the WP - and the papers that followed after them like loyal lapdogs - has left out evidence that blows apart the whole Whitewater myth. (One important Whitewater fact that the "respectable" press always gets wrong: The Clintons were NOT partners, but passive investors, in the Whitewater projects. Even the partisan $3 million GOP Pillsbury probe admitted that. But it's hard to push the idea that Hill and Bill are evil co-conspirators out to defraud their fellow Whitewater investors if you don't consistently misrepresent the Clintons as "active partners" with the McDougals in that project.)

Going back to the National Enquirer, we find that the Chelsea Clinton story is so messed up that, as mentioned earlier, the only item that comes close to resembling fact is they very item that blows the whole story apart. (This is where you can truly tell the elite character assassins from the declasse poseurs at the NE: Gerth and Co. generally know enough, most of the time, not to include in a story any information that sabotages it.)

Rule #6: Is this piece an editorial piece or a full-fledged news story?

This is actually more important for the elite papers than it is for the Enquirer, as the Enquirer couches (there's that word again!) all its pieces as alleged bits of real journalism, as opposed to mere unsupported opinion. (Full disclosure here: The very article you're reading is an opinion piece, not a news article. You can tell by the emotion-laden words I'm using, for one thing.) One could, perhaps, say that most of the Enquirer's pieces read more like opinion than news articles (kinda like if Maureen Dowd were writing them, IMHO), in terms of the sensationalistic emotion-tugging language and the relaxed standards of truthfullness, but then, one could say the same about most network TV news. In addition, the "hurry-up" nature of modern news gathering, coupled with the desire to find and/or create splashy, sensational stories, often plays hob with the judgement of news rooms.

The standard of proof for opinion articles is generally lower than that for news articles, although most reputable papers will insist that you provide some factual basis for your opinions - unless, of course, your statements tend to buttress the views and goals expressed, implicitly or explicitly, by those who help run the paper's editorial pages, in which case you can get away with murder. (See William Safire.)

Most news rooms, none the less, do try to a)keep a reasonably sturdy (albeit often breached, consciously or otherwise) wall between themselves and their brethren over in the opinion section, and b) insist that the opinion folks don't say anything too off-the-wall. This can cause friction when the editorialists are possessed with a desire to cause mischief. The Wall Street Journal's hard-right editorial-page crew literally smuggled the interview with Juanita Broaddrick onto its pages, keeping the news boys in the dark to such an extent that at least one of them, the Washington Bureau chief, didn't find out what was up until he read the Drudge Report. Needless to say, the folks in the news section were NOT pleased: Mrs. Hickey-Broaddrick's tale had more holes than Swiss cheese, which is why they'd avoided running it for years. But the editorial section, apparently peeved as hell that Bill Clinton survived the impeachment process, flung out Mrs. H-B's murky story for all the world to see... and got their hineys deservedly kicked for it.

As I write this, I am forcibly reminded of a recent story out of - where else? - Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, wherein a couple was recently arrested for mass torture and murder. It was a very gory story: the male partner, according to his female partner who turned on him, liked to play doctor, except without benefit of anesthetic, and buried the remains of his victims (female, of course) on the property. The police department members fell over each other getting in front of camera lenses, insisting strongly and emotively that the alleged crimes did indeed happen - even though they had no evidence now of any murders, and the only remains turned up at the time the story aired turned out to be animal, not human. I kept waiting to hear if any other evidence turned up: apparently none has. Yet the accused man was virtually tried and convicted in under three minutes on national TV. He may be clear legally, but his reputation will be forever damaged.

And if you think this poor gent's an isolated case, I've got two words for you: Bill Clinton.