I was going to write about other stuff, but a persistent theme that I see in the comments at Attytood and elsewhere in the sphere o' blogs and other media hangouts is that because the John Edwards sex scandal broke in the National Enquirer and because some of the facts or allegations about Edwards and his GF Rielle Hunter were out there when he was still running for president (i.e., relevant) that the mainstream media -- out of its liberal bias or whatever -- covered up for the liberal Edwards.
I don't think it's unreasonable to raise that issue, but I don't think too many of people making that argument have really thought the whole thing through -- including how a story like that is exposed in the real world.
Remember, some facts about John Edwards and Rielle Hunter were out there in late 2007 and earlier this year, and were reported in various mainstream media outlets, including the fact that the Edwards campaign has paid more than $100,000 to this woman that Edwards had met in a hotel bar - that would be Hunter -- and even that a supermarket tabloid -- that would be the Enquirer -- was alleging the two of them were doing the dirty deed. These facts were out there -- most politically engaged people all seemed to know all about them this winter.
What was unreported -- or "covered up," as some say -- was that the two really were having an affair and that Edwards had lied when asked about it. So if you wanted a mainstream news org to expose that story -- instead of the Enquirer, which ultimately did -- how would that happen?
The only sources that the mainstream media could truly use to confirm such a story would be people with direct knowledge of the affair, which would be a small circle of people that included Edwards, his wife, Hunter, and close friends of either of the two star-crossed lovers. With Edwards still dreaming of the White House and with Hunter drawing financial suupport, apparently, from the Edwards team, what motivation would there be for any of those people to freely confirm or volunteer the information about the Edwards/Hunter affair?
None, quite frankly -- certainly not in the short term, before time creates new wounds, as it usually does.
OK, but the National Enquirer was still able to get the story, so why couldn't the New York Times?
The answer is money, time, and manpower. Money doesn't seem to be a direct factor here, as I haven't seen any allegations that the Enquirer paid sources on this particular story, although supermarket tabloids have done that in the past. That's one of the few ways that people in the small closed circle who can confirm a sexual affair would ever talk about it -- but the traditional media doesn't pay for stories, period.
In this case, the Enquirer seems to have relied more on the time and manpower factor. In other words, it means a) assigning reporters and photographers to stake out the key players, mainly Edwards and Hunter, for months upon end, hoping to capture some kind of secret meeting -- which is what they finally did. It also means b) reporters spending months getting to know every possible friend and acquaintance of Hunter and Edwards who might somehow know something about the affair and -- probably after weeks of wooing -- might divulge something.
So for the Washington Post or the LA Times or whoever to have published the story before the Enquirer, they would have had to do what the Enquirer did -- assigned a team of full-time reporters to do nothing else but probe the sex life of John Edwards, even long after he left the center stage of the presidential race. (Because remember, the Enquirer had to keep dogging Edwards for six or so more months after he left the race to get this story.)
As you may have heard, most large American newspapers have been reducing their staffs and cutting back on the very expensive job of covering a 50-state election in 2008. They have already been criticized -- and rightfully so -- for focusing too much on the horserace and not so much on where the candidates stand on issues ranging from health care to education to foreign policy. To be clear, anyone making the argument that the media "covered up" for John Edwards is really saying that big papers or news orgs like the New York Times or ABC or Newsweek should take more reporters away from covering these issues that voters care about, and instead have them hanging around hotel lobbies to look for a failed candidate with an oversized sex drive.
There's a question of priorities. How is it that the Enquirer can assign a team of people to expose a presidential sex scandal, and a big newspaper or TV network can't? You probably know this, but when it comes to American politics, sex scandals are the ONLY story that the Enquirer and its rivals ever cover. It doesn't have to worry that it's ignoring how the candidates would respond to the crisis in Georgia, for example, because it doesn't care! Traditional news orgs do, however.
In fact, every campaign has had some tawdry sex-related allegation reported about it this year. Vanity Fair reported that aides to Bill Clinton were worried about his extracurricular activities; an underground network of sleazeballs urged mainstream reporters for months to report a sex-and-drugs allegation about Barack Obama from a totally unreliable source, and the New York Times reported that John McCain was so close to an attractive young lobbyist named Vicki Iseman that aides were worried it looked like the two were having an affair.
So, if you believe that the media "covered up" for John Edwards, then you also believe that major American news organizations should take reporters away from the campaign trail or pull them off stories about where the candidates stand on the gasoline crisis or Afghanistan so they can spend months -- and that's how long it takes -- to definitively prove whether McCain was having sex with Vicki Iseman, or to look again into the discredited charges made against Obama, or -- even though Hillary Clinton has dropped out of the race (I think) -- prove that Bill is still having sexual relations with those women.
If you think the media is covering up for Edwards but should not aggressively be probing these stories, including the sex life of John McCain, then you are being a hypocrite.
What's the solution? Maybe there should be a news organization that makes the sex life of politicians its No. 1 priority, so that other reporters can be left alone to do real journalism. Oh, wait, there already is such a publication! It's called the National Enquirer. They spend thousands on their tawdry probes, and when they're done, the traditional media can judge whether the findings are actually newsworthy (as they were with Edwards) or not. In other words, for better or worse, that is exactly the system we have in place now.
In a bizarre and often uncomfortable way, that system seems to actually work.
Can we stop talking about John Edwards? He is gone and we are all better for it.— bon
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- "OK, but the National Enquirer was still able to get the story, so why couldn't the New York Times? The answer is money, time, and manpower." And, I would add, a willingness to take the risk that they might get the story, or part of the story, wrong. Judy Miller has left the NYT once-bitten-twice-shy.As someone who lived in New York in the mid-1990's as Rudy and his young press secretary cavorted all over town and grew up in Villanova as Nelson and Happy dined and cooed together publicly, the idea that the media covers up for only Democrats is laughable. My opinion is every single sector of the media is chomping at the bit to run with a good sex story, but only after someone has done it first.— GreyHippie
- Yikes, hit the wrong button earlier -- the entire post should be up now.— will
- Will, was there more to your last sentence than we see? I assume that the folks here want the NYT et al to devote their resources to the cover story that I keep seeing on the tabloids about Bush drinking again and Laura living apart and planning to leave him after the term is over? Personally, I don't, they are almost as over as Edwards. If Edwards had gotten closer to the nomination, I suspect that this would have come out much sooner.— ivb
- John Edwards is yesterday's old news. So is Larry Craig. So is Gary Hart. What was "other stuff" Will was going to write about? More about blood and ants? More about the use of knee pads and Senator Obama? More about the awful state of journalism in Philadelphia? Sending Ryan Howard down to Lakewood?— shoeshineboy
- Comment removed.
- Selective reporting is one of the places where bias in the media is most apparent. By way of example, I haven't seen an article on Philly.com yet about how McCain has surged above Obama in the polls and has a five point lead.— jfar86
Will, I suspect most folks living in the 21st century don't find it particularly fascinating that a dynamic middle-aged man with good looks has been having a hetero affair. Many might even be surprised if he didn't. Even the MSM knows when something is too mundane for wall-to-wall coverage.- Will, I suspect most folks living in the 21st century don't find it particularly fascinating that a dynamic middle-aged man with good looks has been having a hetero affair. Many might even be surprised if he didn't. Even the MSM knows when something is too mundane for wall-to-wall coverage.
- Comment removed.
- "I bet if the Enquirer had stories about Saddam Hussein NOT having WMD BEFORE the war, the MSM would have jumped at those." . . . . . . I agree. It would've been shocking to see the NE publish real news.
- Funny isn't it? When democrats have scandals like this (Edwards Spitzer) the liberals say no big deal, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. But it front page news for months if it's a republican. How's the taste of your own medicine liberals?— thelastRepublicaninPhilly
- Hey last Repub- The reason why it's a bigger story when it's a Repub is because they are usually with men or boys, and besides, it's your party that vilified(s) sex!!! gay or straight.— pagoda
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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