did you see this story? after 10 months of hearing about john edwards’ affair, the national media finally got around to doing the story when edwards admitted it! how can the editors at the new york times and the washington post justify this?? the new york times ran a frontpage story roughly 6 months ago claiming to have proof that john mccain was having an affair – and when the story ran – there was no hard evidence but anonymous sources saying it was so. so what gives when there are rumors that john edwards was having an affair? why not investigate even? could it be that the editors of the new york times are all partisan democrats? you can’t make this stuff up! combine the clear editorial bias with the snooty east coast attitude of looking down on tabloids and you have the reason for 10 months of silence…..read below:
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For most of the 10 months since allegations of former Sen. John Edwards’s extramarital affair appeared in the National Enquirer, the story was marginalized, partly because much of the media has a dismissive attitude toward the publication that broke it.
They ignored the story at their peril, forgetting that amid the unflattering celebrity photos and overblown headlines, the Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid owned by publisher
American Media Inc. has a track record of scoops, including some about politics. And this time it found an unlikely ally: a group of Internet voices driven less by political ideology than by a view of the mainstream press as out of touch. The Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, has a track record of scoops, including some about politics, and has at times forced the mainstream press to play catch-up.
The Enquirer, which has been reporting the story for nearly a year and which first published it last October, was vindicated Friday when Mr. Edwards admitted to the affair to
Walt Disney Co.’s ABC News. (Mr. Edwards has denied other elements of the Enquirer’s reports, including that he is the father of the woman’s child.) News of the former Democratic senator’s admission subsequently was splashed across most major newspapers. It was the first time many of those publications, including The Wall Street Journal, had weighed in on the topic.
Not so in the blogosphere, where a stable of voices on sites such as
Washington Post Co.’s Slate, Huffington Post and Drudge Report had recognized the possibility that the story might be true and questioned the old guard’s inaction. Unlike previous scandals fueled by partisan politics, this one blurred political lines. It was the left-leaning Huffington Post that began investigating the relationship between Mr. Edwards and the woman, Rielle Hunter, around the time the first Enquirer story was published last year.
“New media really helped keep this story alive,” the Enquirer’s Editor in Chief David Perel said. He added that the online voices that propagated the story aren’t as willing to dismiss the Enquirer’s story as “tabloid trash,” as Mr. Edwards is.
Traditional media’s late arrival to the Edwards story stemmed in part from skepticism about the Enquirer, which isn’t taken seriously as a Washington opinion-maker. Indeed, the Edwards news didn’t even get top placement on the cover of the latest issue.
Still, the Enquirer has at times forced the mainstream press to play catch-up, even in the political field typically dominated by more established media outlets. It was the first publication to unearth a photo of Donna Rice sitting on the lap of then-presidential candidate Gary Hart, who was forced to drop out of the 1988 presidential race.
Of course, the paper pays for many of its headline-grabbing interviews and it has had to settle numerous lawsuits, two factors that often have cast doubt on its credibility. In 2004 American Media settled a lawsuit with former U.S. Congressman Gary Condit over stories linking him to the disappearance and death of Chandra Levy.
John Drescher, executive editor of the News & Observer, said the Enquirer’s mixed track record gave him pause. The Raleigh paper had reporters tracking the Edwards story for months, but it and fellow
McClatchy Co. paper the Charlotte Observer only began publishing their accounts ten days ago, when editors were satisfied they had confirmed the events to their satisfaction. “The way we treated it was as a tip, but there’s no question that we treated it differently because it was in the Enquirer,” Mr. Drescher said. “I think that’s appropriate.”
The Enquirer makes no apologies for its tactics, including the practice of paying sources, even splashing “We’ll pay big for your celebrity gossip” across its pages every week. It paid a source in reporting the John Edwards story, said David Pecker, American Media’s chairman and chief executive.
The Enquirer’s weekly circulation of just more than one million, while robust, is a long fall from its 1970s peak of more than five-million copies, reflecting the challenge of staying relevant at a time when celebrity coverage has gone mainstream.
And while ad pages are up at many of its publications, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based publisher faces a tough road financially. It said in its latest securities filing in June that if it doesn’t refinance at least $389.5 million of debt by Feb. 1, “we may have to liquidate assets, seek protection from creditors or may be unable to continue as a going concern.”
