The unraveling of Pastor Ted Haggard, replete with allegations of gay sex and meth use, may have contributed to last week’s Democratic sweep in Congress. Karl Rove recently admitted as much. “The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I’d expected,” said Rove. “Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass.”

But the tale of how this latest clerical fall from grace nearly failed to make headlines before the vote is a cautionary one for every journalist who has ever wondered when she has enough to go with a story. Paula Woodward, an investigative reporter at KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver, lost her chance to break one of the biggest stories to come out of Colorado since the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey — in part because of the Jon Benet story.

When Woodward was first contacted by Mike Jones, the Denver callboy who ultimately outed Haggard, via e-mail on August 15, she knew that a major national story lay in her inbox. “I am a 49 yo gay man,” Jones’ e-mail began. “I have lived in Denver all my life. I was a gay escort for many years. I have been with pro athletics, politicians, movie stars, and lots of clergy.”

Woodward was excited, but cautious. “I needed more people involved — more brain power so that we treated it with caution and care…The key was to be able to approach Haggard.”

The next day Jones met with Woodward and news director Patti Dennis. Jones brought a Ziploc bag containing voice mail tapes, money and envelopes which he clamed were sent by Haggard. “The voicemails were quite convincing,” says Dennis, “but I don’t think they could stand alone as evidence of impropriety. And the visits at his apartment were not documented. At that point I was nervous … pastors make home visits all the time. Who’s to say what those visits were about?”

Jones’ evidence would not stand up to the double independent sourcing policy KUSA has enforced since the Jon Benet Ramsey story broke in December 1996. The idea was to counter some of the sloppiness that often accompanies a media feeding frenzy. According to Dennis, as the Jon Benet story played out, “Media were using media as sources and I think two days into it we had a staff-wide meeting about double sourcing, independent sourcing and that the media are not a source as a policy.”

KUSA was unwilling to air the story with just the evidence presented, and for the next ten weeks Woodward and Dennis tried to get what they needed while a national blockbuster sat restlessly in their laps.

The station referred Jones to an attorney for his own protection because, Woodward says, “he was allegedly involved in illegal acts.” It was agreed that he and his lawyer would decide on a burden of proof. When Jones returned with the proposition that the station could capture Haggard’s next visit with hidden cameras, Woodward replied, “If you get that we’ll approve the story.”

KUSA put a camera team essentially on call, ready to descend on Jones’ apartment at a moment’s notice. The interior of the apartment would be off limits. Ted Haggard was only to be taped while entering and leaving Jones’ building.

This plan remained in place through September and October as Woodward says she worked to nail down various aspects of the story. All they needed to approach Haggard was the video, but he never appeared.

For Jones, the timing of the story was crucial. It was his discovery, after all, that the customer he knew as “Art” was actually a prominent evangelical preacher who was leading the fight against gay rights in Colorado, which made him decide to out Haggard. On November 6 Colorado would vote on Amendment 43 and Initiative I. Amendment 43 (it passed) would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Initiative I (it failed) would allow for same-sex civil unions. The question of whether or not to expose Haggard’s hypocrisy before or after voters went to the polls was one that apparently weighed heavily on Jones.

As KUSA’s secret video crew lay in wait, Jones adjusted his press plan for the possibility that a Haggard visit might not happen in time. In late September, Jones sent an anonymous email detailing the allegations against Haggard to Patricia Calhoun, a reporter for Westword, a Denver alt-weekly. At their meeting the next day, Calhoun was hesitant. “He gave me the audiotapes,” she says, “They’re from ‘Art’ his customer and they’re referring to meth. They’re not referring to sex, and I thought, ‘Well okay, if we go a lot further on this maybe we’ll be able to match the voice but it still isn’t saying what he really wanted this for.’ I told Mike if we did it, he couldn’t be anonymous. He’d have to be completely up front about it, and he agreed. But again, it was with the caveat that it was if the station didn’t do it.”

After their meeting, Calhoun searched for evidence of Haggard’s secret lifestyle. “I asked a lot of people I knew in the gay community if they ever knew anything about Ted Haggard,” she said. No one Calhoun spoke with in Colorado Springs could confirm anything more than rumors, with one exception— an adult toy clerk who claimed to have waited on Haggard.

In the end, neither Calhoun nor Woodward broke the story. As KUSA film crews waited in vain for Haggard’s visit and Calhoun waited for Jones to go on record, they all were scooped by talk radio.

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