GAIL COLLINS

On the "new culture of indiscretion:" 267k WAV audio file 900k QuickTime movie On reactions to the media: 217k WAV audio file 760k QuickTime movie

Collin's book Scorpion tongues

EXCERPT

Gail Collins explores the serious effects of gossip, noting that it can be unpredictable -- flattening one person's reputation while passing over another's with hardly a rustle. Read an excerpt.

Gail Collins

The gossip politic

March 30, 1998
Web posted at: 2:27 p.m. EDT (1427 GMT)

(CNN) -- An ancient Greek poet once said: "Gossip is mischievous, light, and easy to raise, but grievous to bear and hard to get rid of."

Gail Collins, a member of "The New York Times" Editorial Board and author of "Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics" recently joined CNN anchor Bernard Shaw to discuss gossip in the political realm.

BERNARD SHAW:Gail, what is so attractive, so compelling, about gossip?

GAIL COLLINS: We have been doing it since we invented privacy, so I presume it's going to continue to be done. People are interested in other people, and they learn things when they talk about or speculate about what other people are doing in private.

SHAW: Speaking of people, which presidents made love in the Oval Office?

COLLINS: Well, we all know about Warren Harding -- if we don't, we will before this is all over. Warren Harding is probably our best documented actual sex in the White House closet, Oval Office closet.

And of course, Kennedy. We've heard a lot now about what happened with Kennedy, and Woodrow Wilson did make love to his fiance in the White House, if that counts.

SHAW: You call it the "new culture of indiscretion." How was it born? What keeps it alive?

COLLINS: Well, there is -- we're not in any particularly overwhelmingly different period that we've never had before, but every once in a while in America we hit a point at which there's a lot of media that are very kind of yappy, and small and under financed, that are all running around trying to get attention. That tends to create a culture in which there's a lot of gossip presented and indiscretion of what we say about public officials.

SHAW: (Former White House lawyer) Vincent Foster's name is in the news again. There are lots of rumors, lots of allegations about him, (what with) the Whitewater files turning up in his widow's attic.

COLLINS: There were -- there was gossip during the -- well, before Bill Clinton ran for president, when he and Hillary Clinton were both still in Arkansas. There was gossip about whether or not there was any kind of an affair going on between Vince Foster and Hillary Clinton. That was sort of a natural kind of gossip that grew out of the fact that the two of them were very close friends, and there were rumors about Bill Clinton, whether or not he was being faithful.

So it was not the kind of gossip that wouldn't naturally arise from the situation that was going on right down then.

SHAW: Among many observations in your book you noted candidate Clinton appearing on the MTV forum and answering a question about underwear. What did that symbolize to you?

COLLINS: Well, we had hit a point in which, because the parties have died ... they can no longer protect or really even promote candidates. It's every man and woman for themselves when people are running for office. And because of that, they have to really cater the media. They have to be available, they have to answer questions, or at least they perceive they do, that they never would have agreed to talk about years ago.

The idea that Don Imus can run around on the air and make fun of them, and major senators, presidents even, stand in line to get on his program -- things like that wouldn't happen before because politicians didn't need to do that kind of stuff to get attention before.

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