The Post scored a controversial scoop on Aug. 31, leading its Metro section with the disclosure that Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening, 59, “is involved in a relationship with his deputy chief of staff,” 34-year-old Jennifer Crawford.
The paper said it knew this because, “during a month-long period, Post reporters, watching from a shopping center parking lot across the street from Crawford’s town house, saw Glendening there without his security detail, and on several occasions he spent the night.” Post reporters, the story said, “also observed Glendening and Crawford vacationing together” at a beach house in Delaware.
The Post said these observations took place in June but that it withheld publication until late August after former governor William Donald Schaefer, now the state’s comptroller, made some public comments referring to Crawford as “the big boss,” which drew attention to her growing influence with Glendening.
The story pointed out that the governor has been separated from his wife for a year and that the state has no written policies that prohibit a relationship between an employee and a supervisor. In the story, Schaefer said he had heard only rumors of a personal relationship, and he added that he saw nothing wrong with that. A former state official, who some Post sources suggested was forced out by Crawford, said she didn’t think Crawford forced her out nor did she think Crawford had more power than the previous deputy.
So this was a smelly kind of scoop, one where you hold your nose and argue that the ends — more openness in government, even on touchy subjects — justify the journalistic means. Crawford has had big advances in position and salary. Taxpayer money is used for official trips she and the governor take together. Relationships of this type are frowned upon in management handbooks and in most organizations. Neither party will discuss it, so legitimate questions remain about whether their relationship affects state policy or funding.
But many readers said they were appalled at The Post’s “stalking” tactics. “I can’t help but wonder how many other area residents The Post has under surveillance. Maybe The Post should publish a list every Sunday of newsmakers and other citizens that its reporters are following that week,” said one reader. “Two consenting single adults. What is the matter with you?” another asks.
Fortunately, Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Olesker, on Sept. 2, shed more light on how this story finally might have made it into print, and that isn’t pretty either. Olesker reports that Schaefer has been furious for months at fellow Democrat Glendening for turning the water off at the famous State House fountain designed by Hilda Mae Snoops, Schaefer’s late “lady friend.” So, Olesker wrote, Schaefer’s response was: “If you’re going to hurt the memory of my lady, I’m going to talk about yours in public.” Schaefer “knew exactly what he was doing: pushing open a door for area news organizations that had been digging into Glendening’s post-marital life for months, but had held back from writing about it.”
Meanwhile, as this paper was readying its scoop, the Washington Times was administering the water-torture treatment to The Post, dropping three local news scoops on Aug. 23, 29 and 30, all by reporter John Drake. One disclosed a scheme in which police officers and towing companies allegedly collaborate to illegally confiscate cars and then charge victims exorbitant storage fees. A second reported the D.C. fire department’s emergency radio system cannot properly broadcast to firefighters in dozens of city locations, and another told of a D.C. medical worker aborting her pregnancy for fear of losing her job after threats to her and other new workers by a supervisor.
Every newspaper, even one as big as The Post, gets beat from time to time on local stories. But three pops in one week ought to flash yellow lights here.
