Molly Ivins April 17

MINNEAPOLIS and AUSTIN, Texas — What a mess. Famous people, divorce, suicide, scandalous allegations of sexual misconduct.

Got your attention, didn't I? And it gets better. After we get through wallowing in the gory details, then we get to self-righteously, and righteously, blame the media for bringing all this to our attention. Delicious, isn't it, Pecksniff, my dear?

Here's the deal. The first thing I need to do is disclose my own bias, since I have one. The late Michael Dorris — a fine and sensitive writer who most recently distinguished himself by tying a plastic bag over his head and snuffing out his life while registered under a false name at a New Hampshire motel — was a semi-friend of mine. By that I mean that we admired one another's work, chortled over one another's stories, had dinner together a few times and had in common a very dear friend.

This is going to be even worse than I thought when I first contemplated writing about it. But following LaMott's dictate that all you can do is be honest, the name of our mutual friend is Doug Foster. He has many other credentials, but so far, he has figured in the public prints on this story only as the "Douglas Foster of Berkeley, Calif.," who telephoned authorities in New Hampshire two weeks ago in time to foil Michael's first attempt at suicide. Said authorities found Dorris where Foster suspected he was hiding, pumped the pills, booze and applesauce out of him, and set him back on life's merry road — for a brief time.

The proximate cause of Dorris' suicide is that he was in the midst of a horribly painful divorce from his wife, Louise Erdrich, also a well-known writer. The couple had lived not only in New Hampshire but also in Minneapolis, where the local paper first printed the news of his death directly underneath the obituary of an elderly woman who had devoted her life to the cause of suicide prevention. I mention this in part because I'm a sucker for irony but also because it reminds me that we, collectively, do know more about the causes of suicide, and even some things about how to prevent it, than was used to be the case.

In Dorris' case, I presume to doubt that much could have been done. The man was not only in misery and despair, but his own father had died a presumed suicide; and that, as they say in the pharmaceutical world, is a contra-indicator. Dorris' friends were fully aware of the danger, calling across the country to warn one another: "He's gonna kill himself, he's gonna kill himself — what can we do?"

After his first attempt, Dorris wound up briefly at a shrink farm. Let us say only that there are varying opinions as to whether that experience was beneficial. They gave him a pass; he killed himself.

OK, so now he's dead — what else is there to say? Nil nisi bonum and all that, right? Nah. You underestimate your friendly media.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, right there in the heart of Minnesota Nice, needed to report that Dorris had been under investigation by local authorities concerning "allegations of criminal sexual misconduct involving children."

"Possible criminal charges," "potential criminal charges." Pretty sensational story, huh?

I mean, after all, as the Strib pointed out on its front page, "Dorris was a nationally renowned advocate for children's welfare." Imagine the hypocrisy of it: This guy who had written whole books, traveled around the country, preached about fetal alcohol syndrome until a girl who's pregnant feels like she can't even have a beer without endangering her child (according to Dorris, she can't) — imagine if this same guy is guilty of "criminal sexual misconduct involving children." No wonder he offed himself, right?

Take a step back. Take two steps back. Let's stipulate, as the lawyers say, that the Star Tribune did a flawless job of reporting. Their reporter did just what they pay him to do: He got the story. Now the question is: Should you print it?

Two questions: (A) Is there any good reason to print this story? (B) Is there any good reason not to print this story?

(A) is easy: It's an incredible story.

(B)? You think we never ask that question? The classic answer to (B) is "troop movements in time of war." A few other examples from recent history: We (the media) knew that seven Americans had escaped from the U.S.

Embassy during the Iranian hostage crisis and were hiding out elsewhere in Tehran, but we didn't print it, for obvious reasons. We knew that an American reporter was in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation but didn't print it, for obvious reasons.

More recently, we have been having a furious debate about whether The Dallas Morning News should have printed Tim McVeigh's alleged "confession" to the Oklahoma City bombing. Our rule is: If it's true and it's important, we go with it. No one pays us to sit on the news.

But we also go to these endless seminars on fair trial vs. free press. We know perfectly well that if we print everything we know about certain criminal cases, the courts will determine that a fair trial is impossible, and the suspect will walk — right out of the courthouse, without even having to go through a trial. This was a real risk in the McVeigh case.

There are other examples of stuff we know but don't tell, but they tend to be local and to involve considerations of privacy. If a family wants the paper to report that their son died "after a lengthy illness" instead of "AIDS complications," most papers won't push it. Don't ever ask us to lie, but we can avoid the full truth for all sorts of reasons.

So was there a good reason not to print allegations of sexual misconduct made against Michael Dorris — especially since he's safely dead? Some nit-pickers might say it's unfair to print such allegations since there is no way to know whether they are true and no forum in which the truth can ever be established. Carpers.

We in the media don't have to prove that such charges are true before we print them; we only have to know that such charges are being made by duly constituted authorities — or at least that they would have been made, that they might have been made or that they were possible or potential charges. So our standard of proof for smearing a dead man on Page One is not real high. We've got the First Amendment, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh.

Dorris' lawyer, Doug Kelly of Minneapolis, used some legal terminology: "Decedents have rights, too." You couldn't prove that by the media.

But even by our own rather less-than-elevated standards, there's another consideration here. One of our odd reticences is that we do not, or at least we try not to, endanger the life of a child. It stems from old kidnapping cases, obviously going back to our miserable performance in the case of the Lindbergh baby. Our unofficial rule (we don't have any Official Rules) is that when the life of a child is at stake, We Should Attempt to Exercise Some Restraint. (As they used to say in East Texas, mighty white of us.) This usually means we shouldn't show up with our cameras at a designated drop-off for ransom or pull some other life-imperiling, deal-messing-up stunt.

In the case of Michael Dorris, now so publicly smeared as an alleged child molester, the problem is the child who made the allegation. Who thought about the kid? So far, the only person I've seen is Dorris' 85-year-old mother, Mary. Her husband is long dead, now her only child is a suicide, and the first break in her composure came when the Minneapolis paper printed the allegation of child abuse. "Don't they understand that Michael killed himself to prevent this from becomin' public?" she said. "Don't they understand that he did what he did so his family wouldn't be hurt? He thought if he did it, there wouldn't be nothin' in the papers, but now they've put it in anyway."

Now here's an odd note about media in our time: After the story about "possible criminal charges" against the defunct Dorris appeared, rumors began spreading via computer — specifically, a flood of e-mail from parties unknown, of unknown reliability — suggesting or even asserting all kinds of wild theories. Based on these reliable sources, reporters from bona fide, certified, legitimate news media began to call friends of Dorris, asking questions.

You take a call from a respectable wire service or news magazine and suddenly find yourself saying: "Yeah, well, I knew him pretty well for 20 years, but I never saw any horns growing out of his head. ... No, actually, never noticed a tail, either. ... Gee, I wish I could help you, but he never tried to rape me. Had him up to my hotel room once, but all he did was talk about his wife and kids. ... No, actually, I didn't try to rape him, either."

I don't know absolutely for sure that the allegations that have been made against Michael Dorris are untrue. But neither does anyone else know that they are true. I suppose it is possible that Dorris, who adored his own children and who fought so hard to help and protect and save other children, might have had some weird sexual kink of which his friends never got an inkling. Almost anything's possible. Sen. Phil Gramm once invested in a porno movie.

All I am saying is that I think we should have thought far more carefully about the consequences of printing these allegations — far more carefully. Even beyond the privacy issue, the life of a child is at stake.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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