By Bill Torpy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published: 2/10/06
Excerpt:
In the summer of 1997,
former state Attorney General Mike Bowers’ high-flying gubernatorial
campaign crashed when a longtime extramarital affair came to light.Soon afterward, several TV newsrooms, including WSB-TV’s, received
an anonymous fax about another brewing sex scandal — this time
involving one of their own.
“The fax said, ‘How dare
Marion Brooks sit there holier than thou when she is having a long-term
affair with the married mayor?’ ” recalled Lynn Harasin, who at the
time was a WSB reporter.Brooks was a young reporter and noon anchor, a rising star apparently being groomed for bigger things…
Kelly McBride, ethics group
leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism education center, said
“it’s reasonable to conclude [the affair] could cloud your judgment.
It’s very hard to do critical reporting on someone you’re sleeping with.”
“The public was best
served by skeptical watchdog journalism. As an anchor, you’ve got a
pretty big role in the newsroom. You have a lot of influence over what
gets covered, how it gets covered, where it appears in newscasts.”McBride said WSB owes the public an explanation…
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