By BILL STEINBACHER-KEMP

Healthy debate

When candidates enter the operating room, how do reporters decide what's news and what's an invasion of privacy?

AP Photo/Illinois Information Service/Matthew Ferguson
From his hospital room July 13, Gov. Jim Edgar signed the state's $33 billion spending plan for fiscal year 1995. At the time, Edgar was recuperating from heart surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove. With him for the signing were Senate President James "Pate" Philip (left), House Minority Leader Lee Daniels and Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra.

"In what amounts to perhaps the most amazing development of this campaign season, it may not be education funding or tax increases, the Medicaid debacle or crime that dominates political discussion this fall, but rather the health of the candidates at the top of the tickets."

Peoria Journal Star editorial, August 4, 1994

With Republican Gov. Jim Edgar and three other statewide candidates confronting ill health this campaign season, it seemed that reporters spent more time talking to doctors and hospital officials than pollsters and pundits. During a campaign that one Statehouse observer quips was scripted by the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, some tough questions surfaced about the rights and responsibilities of the press. Reporters and voters asked: "When should a politician's health become news?" And politicians wanted to know: "When does media coverage cross the line from our private business to the public's right and need to know?"

The governor's ongoing health problems guaranteed that these questions lasted throughout the summer and fall. Edgar underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in early July to unclog main arteries that were 80 percent to 95 percent blocked. Surgeons stopped Edgar's heart for one hour and kept him alive via a heart-lung machine. Facing re-election, the governor rebounded quickly and was back on the campaign trail in less than a month. This was not the first time the 48- year-old governor was hospitalized while in office. His clogged arteries first required angioplasty surgery in October 1992, and he had his gall bladder removed last year.

Recent health problems also plagued other candidates for statewide office. In late July, state Sen. Penny Severns of Decatur, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, had a lumpectomy to remove a small malignant breast tumor. The cancer had spread to three lymph nodes, but prognosis for recovery is excellent, according to her doctor. Also in late July, Nancy Drew Sheehan, Democratic candidate for treasurer, underwent a hysterectomy. To the chagrin of her campaign, her decision to have this common elective procedure became news throughout the state. The press even reported Al Hofeld's recent bout with uncooperative kidney stones. The Democratic candidate for attorney general spent a night in an Effingham hospital and was forced to cancel several campaign stops.

Until recently, the private lives of politicians used to be truly private. Photographers never dared to snap pictures of a weakened Franklin Delano Roosevelt being carried by body-

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guards to the presidential limousine. There was, in fact, an unwritten rule within the White House press corps to ignore his debilitating struggle with polio. During the past five decades though, the press has stripped away that thin veneer of privacy. Current coverage can be summed up with the detailed newspaper diagrams of Ronald Reagan's colon before his mid- 1980s surgery to remove non-cancerous polyps.

For their part, the politicians of today seem resigned that their personal health problems can surface on the nightly news or the front page of the local newspaper. "One of the things

Is there a legitimate right for district voters to know that their aging senator is puffing and wheezing away in the back halls of the Senate chamber?

you give up to some extent going into the public arena is your private life," Severns says. Others agree. "I think it's important for voters to know as much as possible about candidates for statewide office," says Mike Lawrence, chief spokesperson for Gov. Edgar. "Health is part of the information that ought to be conveyed to the public. As long as the candidate is seeking a public office, it's pretty difficult to say a health problem ought to be kept private." Nonetheless, the loss of privacy can be unsettling. Says Severns: "I think the most disconcerting thing was standing up in front of the Statehouse press corps and talking about a personal health problem as intimate as breast cancer."

Initial media reports on Edgar and the others centered on the effect the hospital stays would have on the respective campaigns. For example, Edgar's heart surgery and extended bed stay forced Dawn dark Netsch to delay her first advertising blitz. Many questions about the future stability of the Netsch campaign arose after Severns' unexpected announcement, but both candidates insist they never discussed the possibility of Severns' stepping down. She now undergoes a daily 20-minute regimen of radiation therapy, making an already hectic campaign schedule even more difficult.

The spate of media reports also injected an element of fear into the campaigns of even healthy politicians. No one running for office wants his or her candidacy hampered by voter perceptions of failing health or lack of vitality. Netsch is 67 years old, and her campaign insists Republican leaders have subtly promoted the age issue to weaken her campaign. Netsch passed a "rigorous" physical examination in July hoping to dispel lingering perceptions that she is too old to be governor. Even younger candidates are careful to stress their vigor. "First of all, Al Hofeld is in perfect health," says Marco Morales, spokesperson for the 48-year-old candidate, before answering questions about kidney stones. "He works out regularly. He runs, and he eats healthy."

To most voters, though, a candidate's ability to administer the office once elected is more important than missed campaign stops, shortened advertising campaigns or low-fat diets. Consequently, there is a consensus between politicians and journalists that a candidate's health should be "news" only if it could affect one's job performance once in office. "As long as my health doesn't stand in the way of doing my job," Severns says, "it shouldn't be an issue."

John Dowling, Illinois editor for The Associated Press, says it's a "common-sense rule of thumb" to report on a candidate or office-holder's health problems when it might interfere with the person's ability to govern. Edgar's July surgery interrupted the day-to-day operations of the governor's office. For instance, as Edgar recovered in a west suburban hospital, Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra represented the governor in the legislative session's final round of budget negotiations. "When the chief executive has very serious surgery, when he is incapacitated, the public has a right to know," says Netsch campaign spokesperson Gail Handleman.

Clearly, the public does have a right to know if the governor has a serious heart condition, especially if he is up for re-election. But this past summer the media also reported Sheehan's hysterectomy, a common medical procedure that has no apparent impact on her ability to manage the treasurer's office. "I'm not really sure that's called for," says Tom Littlewood, professor of journalism at the University of Illinois. "A heart condition, a malignancy, that's something voters ought to know about. But by and large the health of a candidate, including governor, is really not all that relevant." Littlewood says it's understandable that the governor warrants increased media scrutiny. But why report on a state treasurer candidate's hysterectomy? "I don't see the point," he says.

Barbara Mantz Drake, editorial page editor of the Peoria Journal Star, disagrees. She says a hysterectomy is "fairly major surgery for a candidate," and thus a "legitimate news story." She follows the "old tried-and-true journalism school idea" by which "anything that happens to important people, prominent people, is news." The AP's John Dowling splits the difference between Littlewood and Drake and says the debate is really a matter of emphasis. He says Sheehan's surgery was "not a front-page story by any standard," yet warranted a brief story nonetheless.

One reason for these disagreements is that there are no universally accepted criteria to guide newsrooms throughout Illinois. Should a politician's two-pack-a- day cigarette habit become a campaign issue? Is it a legitimate right for district voters to know that their aging senator is puffing and wheezing away in the back halls of the Senate chamber? The U of I's Littlewood, who spent almost 25 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, acknowledges that the lack of guidelines is a major reason why each reporter has a different answer for each scenario. "Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast rules. There are no criteria that are not changeable," he says with a laugh. For instance, the AP, which is one of the most influential news outlets in the state, uses "common sense" as its guiding principle, according to Dowling. "We don't have

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any written guidelines," he says. "You really have to look at each issue individually and then decide."

There is general agreement that the governor's heart surgery was an important story. But was the hysterectomy a worthy one? "Once the ball starts rolling, once the practice is accepted, it's hard to stop," Littlewood says. It's an all-too-familiar pattern in the media business, he adds. For instance, Sheehan's staff had no immediate plans to make public her elective surgery until contacted by the AP. Once the AP picked up the story, other news outlets quickly followed.

The widespread coverage of Edgar's surgery also fueled a race to report on similar stories, according to Sheehan campaign spokesperson Marie O'Brien. "Would you even be calling if Gov. Edgar and Penny Severns had not been hospitalized?" she recalls asking after fielding inquiries from other journalists. "They said, 'Probably not.'" Littlewood, who spent much of his newspaper career at the Chicago Sun-Times, says editors of many newspapers find it difficult to ignore a story picked up by either the Chicago dailies or The Associated Press. Likewise, the Severns campaign announced her cancer and subsequent surgery in an attempt to pre-empt the inevitable press reports. "It would have gotten out eventually," says campaign spokesperson Handleman. "We announced it right after she talked to her parents and doctor. If we decided not to issue a statement, the press would have shouted, 'What are they hiding?'"

There is much gray in the debate over what is and isn't news. But the who, what and where of stories are always black and white. To ensure accurate coverage of the complex and technical medical matters surrounding the quadruple bypass, the Edgar administration made physicians readily available to reporters. It worked. Lawrence, a former Statehouse newsman who is not afraid to castigate reporters for journalistic missteps, says the press acted "very responsibly and accurately" in this case.

With or without the help of experts, the larger news outlets are best prepared for this type of coverage. For instance, the AP has a staff medical writer who can speak the necessary jargon and ask the tough follow-up questions. "We're fortunate to have a good medical writer," Dowling says. Unfortunately, many smaller-market newspapers and television stations lack the resources necessary to hire and keep specialized reporters. According to Littlewood, those news outlets must then rely on the ability of general reporters to become quick studies and seek out expert sources.

In the wake of the extensive and sometimes personally probing coverage, opinions about the media vary from anger to indifference. The Sheehan campaign remains troubled that the hysterectomy became news. The "generic, non-life threatening" procedure did not warrant widespread coverage, according to spokesperson O'Brien. "Sheehan was opposed, extremely opposed, to having the information publicized," she says. "We didn't want it reported, but it leaked out and we had to address it." On the other hand, no matter how painful, it's difficult to be outraged about public accounts of your kidney stones. Says Hofeld spokesperson Morales: "He took it in a very humorous way. He said, 'Why would anybody care if I

Nancy Drew Sheehan
Sheehan was opposed, extremely opposed, to having information about her hysterectomy publicized, her spokesperson says

had kidney stones?'"

In Severns' case, she turned private misfortune into a positive public campaign against a cancer that strikes one in eight American women. Hoping to raise awareness about self-examinations and mammograms, Severns talks openly about her battle with breast cancer. "Dawn and I both felt there was an opportunity to increase public awareness," she says. Her identical twin, Patty Severns Love, is in remission after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990. In 1992 her youngest sister, Marsha Severns Hamilton, died after a five-year battle with the cancer. "I'd never thought I'd be discussing my left breast in public," Severns joked several times during the campaign.

But openness about cancer, no matter how admirable, can also be a distraction to the main business at hand — running campaigns and winning elections. Come Election Day, more voters may recall Severns' battle with breast cancer than her stand on vital issues, such as the Democratic plan to couple an income tax increase with property tax relief. In an August 10 editorial, The Pantograph of Bloomington lamented the over exposure given the medical problems of candidates. "Personal health issues should not be allowed to overshadow issues of policy and governance in the gubernatorial race," the editorial concluded.

Severns agrees: "I think most voters would prefer to talk about the health of Illinois, not talk about how I'm doing."

Bill Steinbacher-Kemp, a former staff writer for Illinois Times of Springfield, lives in Bloomington.

16 / November 1994 / Illinois Issues