The Mark Foley scandal has revealed something deeply troubling about the state of our news media: In the year 2006, most reporters are still either unable or unwilling to distinguish between e-mails and instant messages. And in this story, that’s a crucial difference. The e-mails Mark Foley sent to a former male page give off a creepy old man vibe, but don’t cross the line into sex-offender territory. The instant messages he sent to former pages, on the other hand, ooze slime from the monitor. (Note to reporters: That’s the thing you’re looking at right now.)

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The distinction is important because of the debate that has erupted over Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s awareness of Foley’s conduct. Republican Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Tom Reynolds told reporters that he informed Hastert in 2005 that Foley had sent some e-mails to a former male page that made the page feel uncomfortable. The page had forwarded the e-mails to a congressional staffer, adding that they were “sick sick sick.” 

These e-mails were creepy, but not sexually explicit. In them, Foley asks the page how old he is and requests a picture of him. When brought to his attention, these e-mails should have prompted a more thorough response from Hastert. (Only one of the three members of the congressional-page board was notified, and Foley was told to stop e-mailing the page.) But the e-mails are a far cry from the graphically sexual instant messages that ABC News revealed on September 29.

Nevertheless, almost every major news organization conflated the e-mails and instant messages in its initial reporting on the story, and some continue to get the story wrong. There are too many examples to list — using Nexis and Google, I found instant messages mislabeled as e-mails in stories run by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, The Washington Post, CNN, and USA Today, among others. But for the purposes of illustration, I’ll pick on the October 2 edition of FNC’s Special Report, when correspondent Major Garrett reported:

 

GARRETT: Hastert acknowledged that no formal investigation occurred and that no professionals were brought in to evaluate the potential seriousness of Foley's overly friendly e-mails to a 16-year-old boy employed by the House.

 

So far, so good. Garrett describes the e-mails as “overly friendly,” which they were, and describes the steps Hastert should have taken when they were brought to his attention. But then he said:

 

The sexually explicit e-mails that have surfaced so far dealt with contacts Foley had with a page who had graduated from the program. Hastert called them vile. Many cannot be broadcast.

 

There were no “sexually explicit e-mails” that we know of — only instant messages. But to make matters worse, Garrett adds:

 

In one, Foley, writing under his personal e-mail address, MAF54, said, “How my favorite young stud doing?” The boy says he starts lacrosse soon. Foley writes, “Love to watch that, those great legs running.”

 

MAF54 isn’t a “personal e-mail address.” It’s a screen name, as anyone who has used AOL Instant Messenger since it came out in 1997 already knows. I’m obviously not accusing Fox News of being biased against Republicans — laziness can be both fair and balanced. The sad fact of the matter in this case, however, is that the media’s laziness is helping the Democrats disseminate their talking points.

Last Monday the National Journal’s Hotline blog explored these talking points in a post titled, “Foley: The Democratic Playbook.” Tops on the list?

 

1. Pay no heed to the distinction between the e-mails and IMs. There's no evidence (yet) that any Republican leaders knew about Foley's cybersex IMs. There's plenty of evidence that they knew how uncomfortable the "overly friendly" e-mails made at least one page. So the Dems will press the GOP on what they knew about the former and will constantly, in their press releases, refer to the "GOP's knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails."

 

They’ll get away with it too, so long as the “old media” keeps ignoring the difference.

I sympathize with reporters who have to explain complicated stories in a small amount of space or time. But seriously: How hard is it to explain the difference between an e-mail and an IM?

 — Stephen Sprueill reports on the media for National Review Online's Media Blog.