US: The final days of the California recall election were marked by a storm over the Los Angeles Times's disclosure that Arnold Schwarzenegger had groped and humiliated several women during his career as body-builder and movie star, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor
For many Californians the LA Times became the issue, not the sexual behaviour of the man who is now their governor-elect. The newspaper's editor, Mr John Carroll, has written a robust defence of the story and its timing, but controversy continues about the role of the media in the aftermath of Schwarzenegger's victory.
Opponents of the victorious Republican candidate claimed that he got disproportionate coverage from US and international media, and that large uncritical crowds that turned up at rallies because of his box-office fame gave him an unbeatable momentum.
Schwarzenegger also got soft prime time interviews, and when the sex abuse stories appeared, seemed to benefit from the widespread perception in the celebrity culture of America that ordinary rules do not apply to stars.
The same process can be seen at work in the current rape trial of America's most famous basketball player, Koby Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. On Thursday his lawyer was allowed six times to name the 19-year-old plaintiff and accuse her of having multiple sex partners before a jury in a Colorado court, behaviour that has been criticised by law experts as illegal and immoral.
Many of the women who said they were assaulted by Schwarzenegger did not complain publicly before the recall election because of the sense that his Hollywood status gave him immunity.
Schwarzenegger called the Los Angeles Times articles "puke politics" inspired by the Davis campaign, and conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh told his 20 million listeners on election day that the newspaper's journalists were "dastardly political assassins who use ink instead of bullets to hit candidates under the cover of objective journalism".
The LA Times editor has been careful to avoid political bias in the newspaper in the past. He was hailed as a hero of the right not long ago when an e-mail he sent staff was leaked in which he complained about a reporter who had referred to "so-called counselling" against abortions in Texas, and warned about how serious he was "about purging all political bias from our coverage".
Mr Carroll said many false stories had been circulated about his paper after the Schwarzenegger expose. In a swipe at conservative talk shows he blamed "rotten journalism - journalistic pornography, actually - in which ratings are everything and truth is nothing". It was not true, he wrote, that Governor Gray Davis was behind the allegations that Schwarzenegger groped and humiliated women.
None of the information came from the Democratic camp. Nor was it true that the LA Times had failed to investigate reports that Davis had mistreated women in his office. It had done so twice and found they did not stand up.
He said that for years Schwarzenegger had a reputation in Hollywood as a man who treated women crassly and when he declared for governor on August 6th the paper had to establish whether this reputation was warranted.
The task was assigned to three experienced reporters, including a Pulitzer prizewinner. "The undertaking was not easy," he said.
"How do you find women who say they have been mistreated? How do you persuade them to talk? How do you determine whether they're telling the truth?"
They found that women who had been abused by Schwarzenegger were suspicious, faced humiliation, and feared losing their jobs.
The accounts of those who agreed to talk had to be verified. requiring database searches, phone calls, home visits and discussions. As the Schwarzenegger story came into focus, he stated, they had the choice of publishing it late in the campaign, waiting until after the election or killing it.
"We, of course, chose the first option. Regrets? Not one." By election day 16 women had come forward and Schwarzenegger had admitted that he had "behaved badly" in the past and apologised to any women he had offended.