Story the Bangor Daily News doesn't want you to read
By Robert W. Norris
Op-Ed page, A-11
Bangor (Maine) Daily News
Weekend Edition, October 23-24, 1999

The Bangor Daily News has agreed to allow me to present to you my version of the events of the 1996 Maine Senate campaign between Susan Collins and Joe Brennan, particularly as they involved my role as a consultant to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. In return for this, and as part of an overall settlement, I have agreed to drop my defamation case against the News in the U.S. District Court.

My lawsuit grew out of a series of stories written by John S. Day for the Bangor Daily News in October 1996, shortly before the election of Susan Collins to the U.S. Senate. The stories focused on my work for the Democratic Party. The Bangor Daily News reported, contrary to the truth, that I was a "private detective" with a "checkered past" who was "shadowing" Susan Collins. They printed much more about me that was completely false and they did so despite having plenty of evidence that they were printing lies.

I have worked in the political arena both in the U.S. and in emerging democracies around the world for 27 years. I know that there are unscrupulous consultants just as there are self-serving politicians. There are good and bad people everywhere. We know that generalizations are unfair and dangerous when speaking about race, creed, gender and other categories. I would argue that it is equally dangerous to make broad generalizations about all individuals working in the political arena. If it is true that all politicians are to be considered crooks, liars or charlatans, then honest, sincere, thoughtful people motivated by the idea of public service for the sake of the community will not enter the political arena. If we have reached this point, the democratic experiment has failed.

Fortunately, there are still good people who run for office and there are good people who work for them. I am a Democrat, and even if you disagree with my opinions, it is a fact that I work for candidates who, I believe, represent the best interests of working-class American families. Throughout my career, I have advised my clients to present themselves honestly and conduct themselves honorably.

All candidates have an obligation to tell the truth about themselves and their opponents. Not only is it good political strategy, it is a moral imperative. When candidates make unfounded charges against their opponents, most of the time they will get caught in a lie. The danger that a lie might backfire is a good way to keep many candidates honest. The knowledge that an opponent will look closely at the public record is a great deterrent against misrepresentation. Only when candidates neglect to do the research necessary to know themselves and their opponents well can some of them get away with lying to the voters.

Research into the public records of candidates allows voters to make informed choices at the voting booth. As political research becomes more professional and ubiquitous, voters can feel more confident that they will have the accurate and complete information necessary to make democracy work. This is the type of research that I do as a consultant to Democratic candidates. I am proud of what I do, and I think I have helped elect honorable men and women to office throughout the nation.

The research I do involves only the public records of candidates for elective office. I am not a detective. I do not investigate the private lives of candidates, and I do no research on private individuals not running for office. I do not follow people, dig through their trash, engage in surveillance or investigate any matters that are irrelevant to how one might behave as a public official. The vast majority of my projects involve examining voting records of elected legislators, as well as their public campaign finance and ethics disclosures. When my analysis is complete, my client can say with confidence and honesty that he or she supports the Clean Water Act or Head Start or stronger Civil Rights laws while his or her opponent has voted against or advocated against these and other issues that voters care about. On issues where they agree, my client knows that stating otherwise is both false and dangerous. The end result is that my clients are more likely to tell the truth. Surely they emphasize differences that matter most to voters at the moment, but they will hesitate to mischaracterize an opponent when they know that there is evidence to the contrary that might make them appear to be a liar.

In October of 1996, John Day and the Bangor Daily News were aware that I was not a private detective. They also knew that their characterization of me as having a "checkered past," as engaging in "shadowing," or "digging for dirt" and as being a "trash for hire" artist were unfounded. They knew that all candidates were engaged in researching the records of all other candidates. They knew that such practices are common, acceptable and important parts of democratic elections. That they reported otherwise is deeply disturbing.

Susan Collins had won the Republican nomination for the Senate in the June Primary amidst a controversy involving one Republican who reportedly did hire a private detective to investigate personal sexual activities of another. Each of these two candidates was damaged and Susan Collins was handed the nomination.

John Day created a similar controversy in the final weeks of the campaign. In his first story attacking me, John Day explained "(t)he way Brennan defuses, and Collins exploits, the private detective issue will likely shape the final three weeks of the race."

Over three years I have gone through depositions, interrogatories and all of the tools of discovery. We endured an eight-day trial which ended in a divided jury. In order for the trial to be concluded, however, the jury must be unanimous, either for or against the Bangor Daily News or me. Hence we were confronted with the need to conduct the trial all over again. Only at this point was the Bangor Daily News interested in a settlement.

Since the Bangor Daily News stories ran in October of 1996, it has been difficult and dangerous for me to work on other campaigns. When my name appears connected to a candidate, any opponent can find the Bangor Daily News stories on various computer databases and accuse my client of hiring a "trash for hire" "private detective." I am seen as a liability. Partly as a result of this I accepted a job last year working in Slovakia with citizens concerned that their autocratic Prime Minister would try to prevent free and fair elections for Parliament in the fall of 1998. I found myself in a country where the major television and radio station were controlled by the state and the Prime Minister's party. The ruling powers used the media to spread propaganda and lies about their opponents and to advance their own political agenda. Many Slovaks had no way to get the truth, but I worked with average citizens who sought to expose this problem. Despite all odds, they succeeded. They attracted the attention of other citizen groups, of international observers and of the independent press. But in areas of Slovakia where the only television station was state controlled, the ruling party's candidates won.

It is a mistake to believe such problems exist only in new democratic nations. In central Maine, the Bangor Daily News is the only newspaper that reaches thousands of readers and voters in this region. With only one daily newspaper that cannot be trusted, where are these citizens to turn for the truth about candidates seeking to represent them?

The right to vote and security at the polling stations are only the first steps necessary to build a working democracy. Who you vote for depends on the information available to you. If you can't rely on the press to give you this information accurately and completely, it may be impossible for you to have the information you need to vote intelligently.

I refused to settle this case based solely on a calculation of personal financial loss. I needed to rehabilitate a reputation ruined by The Bangor Daily News, so I refused to settle without the opportunity to print this story. But this is not only about my reputation, this is also about democracy and this is about the role and responsibility of the press in a free country. Democracy only works if voters have access to accurate information about political contestants. A free and responsible press is the best means to get this information to voters. The Bangor Daily News failed to meet its responsibility in this regard in 1996. Readers of this paper, therefore, should make an extra effort to seek the truth from other sources.

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