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During the Watergate affair, news coverage became so overheated at times that even Democrats like U.S. Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin complained that the press was hounding Richard Nixon and his cronies. Today's omnipresent communications make the situation even worse.

Last week, on Oct. 11, the Associated Press carried a story by John Solomon and Kathleen Hennessey that reported some circuitous maneuvers by which U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada sold a piece of land, earning $1.1 million. It was not clear exactly what was wrong with this, but the accusatory tone was unmistakable. The money was a "windfall," not "earnings," for instance. The use of such emotionally loaded terms speaks volumes. The only thing that clearly alleged anything improper was a statement that Reid failed to report the land sale on his congressional financial disclosure form.

As best I can tell, the story was on the Associated Press wire shortly after two in the afternoon. By a quarter after the hour it was posted on the New York Times page and by 2:46 it was on the Washington Post page.

At 2:21, the Nevada Republican Party emailed the story to newsrooms around the state. The subject line was "Reid Got $1M in Land Sale Hidden from Congress." The next day the anti-Reid Web site, "The Reid World" (operated by the Nevada Republican Party) also emailed the story to Nevada newsrooms, this time with the subject line "1.1 Million Reasons to Call Reid Corrupt." Thus in less than 24 hours Reid's critics had gone from a "hidden" land sale to declaring the senator corrupt.

Meanwhile, the press was running off the end of the earth with the AP story. The National Review, a conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr., managed to get the word "resign" into the same sentence with Reid's name.

In the Arizona Republic, a Scottsdale resident named Joe Doermire wrote a letter to the editor: "Shame, shame, shame! I demand that he resign immediately! We Americans deserve honest representatives in Congress, and Harry Reid is not in that category."

In the Detroit Free Press there were at least two letters like this: "Nowhere in the Free Press could I find an article about Reid's financial dealings."

Many such comments linked the Mark Foley story with the Reid story. In the Houston Chronicle, editor James Campbell wrote, "On Thursday, we published a Page One story by Chronicle Austin Bureau reporter Peggy Fikac regarding how the fallout from the Foley scandal might affect some Texas races. The same day, we placed the AP story about Reid on A7. For some readers, placing the Reid story inside and the Foley story on Page One was a sin of bias." He quoted a fellow editor response: "I should point out...that on the first day of the [Mark] Foley story we did not run a full story on the front page, only a one-paragraph refer. It wasn't on the front page on the second day either."

A blogger on the Chicago Tribune site wrote, "Such [land] transfers are very common and exceedingly legal. Indeed, many lawyers recommend the step to investors and small business people as a way to shield their personal wealth from liability, as in the event someone is injured or killed on the real estate."

All this fuss was the result of one report by the Associated Press wire service. Here's a thought: Maybe the Associated Press doesn't have the whole story.

For one thing, the John Solomon who co-wrote the Reid story has a history of concocting lurid-sound stories about Reid from insubstantial material. As noted in this space last Feb. 15, Solomon wrote a February 2006 story that concluded that because records showed that lobbyist Jack Abramoff's associates had made contact with Reid, Reid had aided Abramoff's clients.

Then in May 2006, Solomon incorrectly reported that Reid had accepted free tickets valued at hundreds of dollars each for three boxing matches from the Nevada Athletic Commission, an error now immortalized in the online Wikipedia entry on Reid.

Perhaps in this inflamed world of instant communications, restraint is impossible, but it would be nice if the evidence were presented before the sentence is imposed. And one AP story is not evidence.