Bob Greene Gets Spiked

By Amanda Ripley

The Associated Press fired one of its Washington reporters last Monday after several of his sources turned out not to exist in the real world. Yet the admission generated little more than a collective yawn. It could barely be heard above the buzz of outrage and glee over the simultaneous demise of another journalist--one who had not fabricated, plagiarized or done any of the things for which reporters have historically got in trouble. Bob Greene, 55, a nationally syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune, best-selling author, local institution and married man, had admitted having had a sexual liaison over a decade ago with a teenage girl who was at the age of consent.

The news has rippled out from Chicago across the country to readers of the 100 other papers in which Greene's column ran. To understand the apoplexy it created is to understand what Greene had come to represent. He wrote for people hungry for moral clarity, for nostalgia, for a softer world. And in that respect, he did his job. It's just that he did not personally reside in that world.

In the spring of 1988 a 17-year-old Catholic high school senior working on a class project visited the Chicago Tribune with her parents to interview the much loved columnist. Greene turned the incident into a charming but forgettable column. A while later he asked the girl to dinner and then to a hotel, where they engaged in some kind of sexual activity.

Flash forward 14 years. The girl, now a woman in her 30s, called Greene several times this year for reasons that remain unknown. In June, Greene contacted the FBI and said he felt threatened. The FBI contacted the woman (TIME has decided not to name her because of her youth at the time of the original incident), and she denied threatening him. The FBI found "insufficient evidence" to pursue the case, according to the bureau's Chicago office. Two weeks ago, the Tribune received an e-mail describing the affair but not naming Greene. Tribune executives tracked the woman down and then brought the allegations to Greene. He confessed and offered his resignation. A few days later, the Tribune published a short but stunning note on the front page announcing his resignation.

The reaction was polarized. "Cut this good man some slack. He deserves another chance," wrote one reader. But, says Loren Ghiglione, dean of Northwestern University's journalism school, "here's somebody working for the most powerful news organization in Chicago. What he did was an abuse of personal power and an abuse of the newspaper he worked for." That's the rationale Tribune editors used too: "Staff members are forbidden to use their position at the newspaper to gain advantage in personal activities." They insist her age was irrelevant, which has led to more questions. Does this mean no one can date anyone he has ever quoted--or anyone awed by his job? That policy would purge newsrooms far and wide.

The fact is that being Bob Greene is different from being most people. Greene's franchise was his benign appropriateness, from his defense of abused children to his adoration of Michael Jordan. His colleagues knew that a more complex reality lurked nearby. "Anybody who was close to Bob was saddened by the news," says deputy managing editor James Warren, "but not necessarily surprised." So far, four other women have publicly claimed that they had a sexual encounter with Greene, who has been married for 31 years. Says Neil Steinberg, a rival columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times who has spent his career mocking Greene: "The defender of the purity of America [has] been using the newspaper as chick bait for 25 years."

The woman is not talking, and neither is Greene--aside from a short, contrite e-mail he sent to the A.P., saying "I don't have the words to express the sadness I feel." But there's a decent chance the prolific Greene may find a way to capture an audience again. "Bob's one of the most commercially astute journalists I know," says Warren. "There will be a book and an Oprah appearance a year down the road." --Reported by Marguerite Michaels and Maggie Sieger/Chicago

With reporting by Marguerite Michaels and Maggie Sieger/Chicago