Ten O'Clock News

[Applause] [von Mehren]: This morning's edition of the Geraldo Show was called "X-Rated Washington." [Geraldo Rivera]; You know if you keep up with the news, it seems as if our nation's capital is getting hit by a new sex scandal every month. [von Mehren]: After a 15 minute recapitulation of Capitol Hill sex scandal history, Geraldo introduced the Barney Frank story. [Rivera]: You'll meet Steve Goby, a guy who is single handedly destroying the career of Barney Frank, the congressman from Massachusetts. He'll tell us why. [von Mehren]: In clips released a week ago the producers of Geraldo gave away most of the newsy items. No, Barney Frank didn't use drugs, said Gobie. Yes, he insisted, Frank did know an escort service was being operated out of the Congressman's apartment. [Gobie]: The service, the service was named "A Touch of Class." [von Mehren]: Here's a quick tour of some of the other nuances of Geraldo's hour long exposé, a bit of outrage from the audience. [Rivera]: What do you think about the fact he's destroying

Barney Frank's life? [Woman]: Terrible. [von Mehren]: A bit of disdain from host Geraldo. [Rivera]: Are you pleading the Fifth Amendment? [Gobie]: No, I'm not. I'm, I've been advised against -- [Rivera]: Self-incrimination? [Gobie]: I think money is a tacky subject to discuss. [Rivera]: Oh yeah, especially if you're gonna go down on a tax racket. [von Mehren]: And lots of titillation. [Rivera]: What was he, Stevie? Desperate? Lonely? Did he fall in love with you? [Gobie]: He was fairly enthralled with me, I guess. I don't know what you, if you call it love or not. [von Mehren]: When Geraldo suggested his guest was a pimp, Gobie said no, he preferred to think of himself as sort of a reservations clerk. In one instance Gobie took the high ground and urged restraint upon the media. [Gobie]: The media in reporting the story has focused on the gay aspect of it. I think there's a little bit of pandering by the media to the homophobic --" [von Mehren]: The question looming throughout the show is what makes Stephen Goby tick? What made him decide to divulge all the secrets anyway? [Rivera]: Do you understand, sir, that if this runs the ordinary course you

have destroyed this man's life? [Gobie]: Well, that wasn't my intention. My motives have been, have been in question and confused. [Rivera]: I tell you what. Save your motives for two minutes. We have to take a break. [von Mehren]: TV hosts can be such teases. Finally though, the Gobie defense. He says an investigation was in the works. [Gobie]: What I wanted to do was, I knew the story was going to come out anyway and I knew that my name was going to be on, be in the papers, and if it was going to come out, I want to come out under it with some semblance of control by me. [Reporter]: Geraldo, of course, has not been the only fourm for the Barney Frank story. On every newsstand in the country, Frank's face is prominent. The congressman may have dreamed of making the cover of Newsweek magazine in his political life, but not like this. The Barney Frank story has crossed over into that area where intense public curiosity about a private life has overwhelmed questions of legality and propriety. The question looming is whether Frank can ever hope to be seen as more than the Congressman who invited a prostitute into his home for a long and ultimately disastrous

stay. Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan asked the question in her column this morning: what does the public gain by all this? How are we better? [Eagan]: We don't want people that are routinely flouting and breaking the laws but on the other hand, do we want to have people who feigned these perfect family lives with a wife and two children then? Is that the crucial thing for our leaders, that they have this so-called American perfect family? We spend so much time on the personal details of people's lives and we're not looking at the issues that are going to matter to us as a country. --ok. [von Mehren]: For the 10 O'clock News, I'm Jan von Mehren.