August 7th 2008
Heat Builds For NYT, Networks To Cover Edwards Affair
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cClatchy News Service is going where most others fear to tread: Actually writing a story about a leading VEEP prospect who has cuckolded his cancer-suffering wife, fathering a love child with his hot mistress. The MCClatchy story, emanating from the home-town paper of Mr. Happy Zipper, aka John Edwards, shows how easy it is to cover the story:
RALEIGH, N.C. — Former Sen. John Edwards has a deadline to save his spot on the national stage.
With two weeks to go before their national convention, a number of Democrats are saying that Edwards needs to publicly address National Enquirer stories that have alleged he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby.
If Edwards fails to clear up the story in short order, he risks party officials deciding not to have him speak or, if they do, creating a distraction from a week focused on Barack Obama accepting the nomination.
See? McClatchy didn’t have to buy in to the Enquirer story; it only had to state the obvious: Edwards has a problem that may well doom his VEEP hopes. This is not tough stuff.
But it’s apparently too tough for the NY Times, which has run nothing on the story, presumably using the Enquirer’s credibility as its excuse. Yet in another scandalous story twelve years ago, it proclaimed, The Enquirer: Required Reading in Simpson Case. Nothing has happened since then that would make the tabloid’s reputation any worse, so the NYT is using a moving, selective criteria to protect one of the Dems’ golden boys. (Is it OK to use “boys” if the guy’s white?)
At the Washington Post, which sees itself as the torch-bearer for the coverage of national politics, it’s the same thing: Not one single story. Ditto ABC, NBC, and PBS. (CBS ran a brief blog entry – nothing on camera – that said “I can’t really tell if [the photos] are genuine.”)
How can these “news outlets” justify their silence when even the left-leaning LA Times, which earlier mandated that its staff under no circumstances would cover the story (even though Edwards was busted by the Enquirer in LA), now covers it marginally well, with two recent stories on the scandal.
Dem strategist Gary Pearce (no relation) who ran Edwards’ 1998 senatorial campaign, has an interesting comment on the mess:
“The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it’s clearly getting ready to bust out. If it’s not true, he’s got to stand up and say, ‘This is not true. That is not my child and I’m going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.’ It’s not enough to say, ‘That’s tabloid trash.’ “
The LA Times’ coverage, and now McClatchy’s, certainly indicates that the story is “about to burst out.” But I wonder if Pearce would use the term “kid gloves” if the Enquirer had busted Mitt Romney coming out of a pretty blond’s hotel room at 2:30 in the morning. He’d be howling like a banshee.
As for the quote Pearce suggests, it is not enough. Edwards’ word is not enough. He needs DNA proof that he’s not the love child’s father if he wants to project a shred of believability. And yes, I know I’m talking about the Dems here; I still think it’s true.
Posted in 2008, John Edwards, Media bias, MSM | 3 Comments » | |
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August 8th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
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August 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Mainstream newspapers have a competition and image problem when the National Enquirer behaves as a mainstream newspaper and does their job. Obama knew about this problem much earlier, for example when he got Edwards to “support” him. He was desperate for an endorsement from him then, now it’s payback time. Obama can use one of his lines: … is not the one I knew. Like many others, Edwards is looking for 2012.