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On August 20, Eichenwald wrote again. This Times story was about Web sites that feature prepubescent children scantily attired in an attempt to get around child porn laws. Five days later freelance writer Debbie Nathan responded on Salon. “The kind of looking [Eichenwald] did can get a journalist arrested,” she wrote, and she was “irked” that during an exchange of e-mails with him he hadn’t taken that danger seriously. “When I stumbled on similar material earlier this year doing my own research,” she explained, “I was terrified I’d be busted simply for doing my job as a member of the media.” Despite laws forbidding the public to even visit child-porn sites, journalists must be able to, Nathan argued, to test “government claims about how prevalent child porn really is. . . . Otherwise the government can use our fear and loathing of kiddie porn to make false political claims. And to terrorize people like me.” If there was no way Nathan could have legally visited child-porn sites — well, of course that meant there was no legal way Eichenwald could have done so either.
Readers and bloggers were outraged. “Salon’s editors only allege that there may be an affirmative defense, not that there is one,” one poster argued. “So Nathan’s article can be disclaimed to express her concern that it could be a violation and it still stands. This is not a legitimate correction. It is overt censorship.”
News of the check came out as a trial got under way in Ann Arbor, Michigan, of a man charged with criminal sexual misconduct involving the youth. On March 7 Eichenwald took the stand, and a tart account of what he had to say promptly showed up on the New York magazine Web site. “It could have been renamed ‘$2,000 Check v. Journalism 101’ — and Eichenwald’s testimony showed he knows he broke the rules,” New York reported. “Fearing [the youth] was under 18, Eichenwald offered to send $2,000 but only if [the youth] provided a full name and a mailing address,” New York went on. “He got both and sent the check but opted not to turn the information over to the police. Instead, [Eichenwald] said today, he made a date to meet [the youth] at Los Angeles International Airport.” That’s where, according to Eichenwald’s testimony, he told the youth he was a straight reporter and explained that “he paid that money to save your soul.”
