How did the media miss the Swalwell story? The world may never know.

If you get the sense that restoring credibility is not high on the list of the news media’s priorities, you’re not alone — especially after the recent business about Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

This industry once tried to sell the country on the paper-thin farce that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a teen gang-rapist. Now, the same industry claims to have known about Swalwell’s alleged history of sexual predation — it’s just that it couldn’t report the story out due to a lack of evidence.

Just try not to notice the part where these short bursts of hyper-cautious journalism tend to benefit only one party, while the other party must contend with the media parroting unfounded and completely ridiculous allegations about teen gang-rapes and Russian prostitutes.

I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation for all of this — something not so ignoble as raw partisan loyalties.

Swalwell, who is married, dropped his gubernatorial bid and abruptly resigned from Congress after multiple women came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment and assault — in one case involving the alleged drugging of a woman’s drink.

Nearly as shocking as the accusations themselves is how many journalists and media insiders now claim to have known about Swalwell’s impropriety. They describe it as an open secret: Swalwell was known to be a creep and a predator in the legislative bodies where he served.

“Rumors about Eric Swalwell’s sexual misconduct have swirled in D.C. for years,” said former Axios reporter Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian. “I first heard these rumors in 2020, in the course of my other reporting about Swalwell. I was neither a politics reporter nor a women’s issues reporter, so I could not chase them down.”

She added, “I very much wanted to report it out myself. But #MeToo stories on the Hill aren’t related to my beat, as much as I personally wish I could report them out. I passed the tip along to colleagues on the Hill beat.”

Of course, this doesn’t make any sense at all. There is no journalism standard that says a reporter may not pursue a tip simply because it diverges slightly from his or her assigned beat.

Even if such a rule existed, it still wouldn’t hold water in this case. Allen-Ebrahimian was one of the Axios reporters who broke the story of Swalwell’s potentially compromising romantic relationship with a Chinese spy. If she knew about that, and about an alleged pattern of sexual misconduct, there really isn’t any excuse for not at least trying to pursue the story beyond referring it to a coworker.

Elsewhere, California politics insider Steven Tavares remarked, “I’ve covered Eric [Swalwell] since he was a member of the Dublin City Council. Shortly after being elected to Congress in 2013, his behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party.”

Think back also to CNN’s reporting from 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, in which it claimed that “more than half a dozen interviewees independently named one California congressman for pursuing female staffers.” CNN declined to name the lawmaker or pursue the allegations further, explaining that “the stories are unverified.”

Five women have now accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct, including one who alleges he drugged, strangled and raped her. Three of the five specifically described “blackout” experiences: “I blacked out and he had sex with me” and “little memory of what occurred.” It sounds an awful lot like there was a Bill Cosby on the Hill, and somehow no one in the press could manage to get the story to print.

Seven terms in Congress. A 2020 presidential campaign. Rumors “swirling” for years. And we’re asked to believe the media just couldn’t lock it down.

In a vacuum, maybe. But in the broader context of how the political press corps have behaved in the Trump era, that explanation is impossible to accept.

Compare the extreme caution newsrooms now claim to have exercised with Swalwell to the recklessness with which they covered the spurious, uncorroborated and often ridiculous allegations against Kavanaugh.

There was no similar urge toward caution or responsibility in Kavanaugh’s case. Even the dumbest, most unbelievable allegation found purchase with major media. CNN, which couldn’t get to the bottom of the Swalwell story, was among the worst offenders during the Kavanaugh confirmation battle.

Yet here we are, eight years later, and Swalwell — one of Kavanaugh’s most ardent and frequent tormentors — has resigned from Congress and may face a future in prison. All it took was thirteen years and about a half-dozen victims.

It is so weird how these stories keep slipping through the cracks, even though journalists later insist the scandal was always an “open secret.”

I am reminded of when U.S. Rep. and later San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D-Calif.) was finally drummed out of office amid accusations of sexual misconduct from no less than 17 women. Everyone in Democratic politics and in San Diego media apparently knew about Filner’s behavior for years. Yet somehow, no one said a thing as the list of victims grew longer.

Then there was the case where the Washington Post, which saw fit to print the unfounded allegations against Kavanaugh, initially declined to publish allegations of egregious sexual misconduct by former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D). The allegations of sexual violence were credible at the time. Fairfax, in the midst of a messy divorce, just murdered his wife and killed himself last week.

Or how about the time when the White House press corps collectively pretended not to notice that then-President Joe Biden had turned into a vegetable — until they could no longer sustain that narrative, at which point they started selling books about how they all knew all along.

Here is an idea that seems to have escaped many in today’s mainstream media: Responsible journalism should not be contingent on its subject’s party affiliation.

T. Becket Adams is a journalist and media critic in Washington.

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