Bronstein at Large : Did the MSM drop the ball on John Edwards? — This is an interesting article where Phil Bronstein finds all sorts or reasons, mostly the institutionalized rationale that it would be embarrassing to let it be known that you were scooped by a tabloid, so you just shut up about it. He then goes on and on about how these sort of things might happen. Or how things might evolve whereby a story is dropped.
The problem I’m having is that Bronstein was the Ed-in-Chief of a major metro daily in Oct. 2007 and HE was in the meetings where the decisions were made to ignore the story. We get no insight as to what was actually said in those meetings. This story is just a smokescreen.
I guess it’s too late to be dramatic, now that Edwards has talked to a MSM outlet (ABC) about his affair. I really meant to say something earlier, when almost every daily newspaper, including The Chronicle, was not touching a story broken by, gasp, the National Enquirer, but I was tied up…Will the MSM ever figure out the journalistic etiquette following a big tabloid scoop? Does anyone really think that a story splashed in the tabs and debated on blogs like a powerful fire back draft is somehow not part of the public discourse? And if it’s true – except, according to Edwards, the baby part – and the Enquirer first reported it in October of 2007, then apparently caught the guy at the Hilton with Hunter last month, how come it took everyone else so long to get there?
related link:
And here’s some real “insight” I ran into. Har.
Found by Ben Smith.
The MSM ran a blackout of this story since October. The leaked email from the LA Time to its staff bloggers was revealing. The LA Times NEVER investigated the Hotel incident even though it was only a few miles away. It was an attempted cover up, aided by the major press…
…, how come it took everyone else so long to get there?
Because it isn’t news.
So much of the news today is manufactured and force fed to readers/audience. Just because this and the endless loops FOX SPEWS is showing make it on the TV will not change the fact that this is not what we, the public are interested in.
This was made quite clear during the Clinton / Lewinsky bullshit that Americans did not care and considered the affair a private matter between the two consenting adults and their families. Later with Terry Schaivo the same thing happened, a very small group tried to tell us this was important and the public said it was private.
Where are all the reporters and camera crews to report on my ingrown toenail?
#2, “Because it isn’t news.”
I think it’s newsworthy that he was cheating on the woman while he paraded her around for sympathy on the campaign trail.
#2
It may not be news in your world, but voters are entitled to evaluate the ethics and morals of people who want to run our country.
Let’s see, the man is a contender for VP. He was on the ticket before. He’s important. And he’s doing this. This is indeed NEWS unless you are some sort of idiot not to see it.
And after the media hounded McCain for his non-existent “black baby” in 2000, how does this get ignored completely?
And the bigger story is the fact that it isn’t covered here but covered in depth in England, making it look as if our media is rigged.
Mark me down as an idiot==but there are several “interesting” disconnects to go along here.
During the Clinton debacle, the newscoverage in Europe was about how pathetic the American Public was that they cared so much about a private matter. That hasn’t changed.
While this is indeed “NEWS” it is news for the tabloids. It is tabloid or gutter news for the gutter press.
I’m sad that given his position and options that Edwards FROM THE START simply didn’t say “Its private and none of your business.” Lying is wrong and THAT is the news here===not the affair, not the baby unless it is left unsupported.
Anybody that thinks this is news simply enjoys being treated like an idiot which is why the voting public gets played like a republican dildo.
Can’t we stay on issues that matter? And the “NEWS” is: “Why, no, we can’t!”
It’s news alright. While I have been known to have my own moral deviations over the years, I am not a contender for the most important job on the planet. Edwards is, Clinton was. Quite frankly, the person with their finger on the nuclear button needs to be of a higher moral character than regular folks.
Of course the very fact that one must spend millions and millions to take a job that pays $400,000 a year with an eight year maximum gig makes pretty much anyone who seeks the office suspect from the get go.
As for Clinton, I’m sure a lot of people don’t care or consider it a private matter. (It helps if your wife is a butch dyke!) And it was certainly used by the Republicans as an excuse to go after him even if other crimes were far, far greater. (Remember, they got Al Capone for income tax evasion.) But a substantial portion of the American people did care, even if they did not consider it an impeachable offense.
I myself am still waiting for a president that does not commit an impeachable offense within the first 100 days. So far, I think that leaves George Washington and perhaps William Harrison.
#7, under normal circumstances I would agree, except in this case, his wife was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently used as a sympathy prop for his presidential campaign, all while he was apparently banging this other woman.
Well, let’s not forget this Repuke “Paragon of Virtue” who is STILL TRYING TO GAIN SOME TRACTION IN NATIONAL POLITICS, AFTER GETTING BOOTED BY HIS OWN PARTY !!!
“Gingrich Puts a Price on His Family Values
By Robert Scheer
Published December 25, 1994 in the Los Angeles Times
The news that Newt Gingrich will receive $4 million from Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house must have been greeted with dismay by his former wife, Jacqueline, down in Carroll County, Ga. Newt had pulled a fast one. It was only nine months ago that she consented to the congressman’s request for an amendment to their divorce decree that bars her from claiming additional funds due to an increase in his earnings.
Not to be too harsh on Newt, it must be terribly difficult balancing pro-family values with a commitment to a Darwinian survival of the fittest in the marketplace. Newt the congressman-author is a winner in life’s sweepstakes, Jacqueline the schoolteacher-mother is a loser, and that must be the way God and/or Adam Smith intended it.
She had free will. Nobody forced her to marry someone eight years younger. The man is supposed to marry someone younger, and Newt corrected that the second time around after divorcing Jacqueline in 1980 for “irreconcilable differences,” which he said had been the case through the 1970s, despite counseling.
But did he have to be so mean about it? As reported by L.H. Carter, his campaign treasurer, Newt said of Jacqueline: “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.” Hard to believe, although according to the New Yorker, his wife did tell the congregation of her Baptist church: “The devil has taken his heart.” Maybe she was referring to his being so miserly in the matter of child support and alimony, but as Newt points out, we do have a safety net of private charity, and the congregants chipped in to help pay the utility bills.
The man has chutzpah. In his 1974 campaign, he ran on the slogan, “Newt’s family is like your family.” A sad but perhaps accurate commentary on life in suburban Georgia. In 1978, he ran an ad blasting his opponent, Virginia Shapard, saying, “If elected, Virginia will move to Washington, but her husband and her children will remain in Griffin.” Under Gingrich’s photo, it said: “When elected, Newt will keep his family together.”
And he did, until he filed for divorce 16 months later. His wife told the court she wanted to stay married although she had “ample grounds” for divorce herself. But she complained bitterly that he failed to support the family. As her petition stated:
“Despite repeated notices . . . plaintiff has failed and refused to voluntarily provide reasonable support sufficient to include payment of usual and normal living expenses, including drugs, water, sewage, garbage, gas, electric and telephone service for defendant and the minor children. As a result, many of such accounts are two or three months past due with notices of intent to cut off service . . . . ”
Picky, picky. True, Newt was not broke, he was a sitting congressman with a substantial salary, but he had to maintain another residence in Washington and was about to remarry. How many garbage bills could he be expected to pay?
Newt argued that the mother of his two children could always go back to teaching, demonstrating his respect for women in the workforce. But the judge disagreed and ordered Newt to pay the utility bills, as well as $400 a month in child support and $1,300 in alimony. He also ordered that if Newt’s income ever rose over $100,000 a year, the court could modify payment.
Fast-forward 12 years to 1993 and back to court, where Jacqueline Gingrich pleaded that Newt had failed to obey the divorce decree from the day it was issued. She asked that “this court issue an order directing the sheriff of Carroll County, state of Georgia, to arrest and seize the defendant and incarcerate him in the common jail until said individual complies fully and completely with this court’s final judgment.”
That got the congressman’s attention. Accounts were quickly brought to order. But then Newt made a move that, in light of the $4 million book deal, would put Donald Trump to shame. He negotiated a new settlement last March in which he conceded that his income had increased and offered to pay his ex-wife an additional $350 a month. But there was a big catch. She had to give up her right to ask for an increase in alimony no matter what happened to his income. She naively accepted.
Marianne and Newt Gingrich have acknowledged pain in their marriage before. But the apparent end of their 18-year union came as a series of shocks nonetheless to the woman who had stood by her man during his stormy tenure as speaker of the House of Representatives.
Marianne Ginther Gingrich was visiting her childhood home in Ohio in early May to celebrate her mother’s 84th birthday when her husband phoned. After offering birthday wishes to his mother-in-law, Gingrich asked to speak to his wife. Virginia Ginther soon found her daughter in tears.
“I said, ‘Marianne, what’s wrong?’ ” Ginther recalled yesterday. She said Marianne replied: “He doesn’t want me as his wife anymore.”
There was a second jolt soon after. Newt Gingrich, now 56, informed his wife that he was having an affair with a congressional aide, a woman 23 years his junior, Ginther said.
“I was totally shocked,” Marianne Gingrich, 48, said yesterday in an interview from her home in Marietta, Ga. “I had no idea.” “
#9–SL==Really? Of course, NO ONE knows what is going on between the Edward’s for the good or bad of either one. I could very easily imagine (and that is all it would be) that having a wife on chemotherapy and too sick for good sex would be quite a nudge to go look for it elsewhere. Too many unknowns which is why this is not news–instead it is just an ambiguous Rorschach for us to project our bloviating ignorance on.
My issue remains his lying about it and thereby creating the continuing false morality that makes this type of issue politically relevant.
All politicians should refuse to talk about private issues and let the media report on it as they may, but once you start to pander, it becomes hard to draw a line.
Me thinks you would feel differently if it was Bush, Cheney, McCain, O’Rielly or anybody else on the other side of the ideological fence.
Couldn’t have said better myself, John
I agree with fusion and bobbo. It’s tabloid news. It could have been left a secret and the world would not have changed. I would feel this way about anyone in this position. The only parties that matter are the mother, father and child.
#11, yes really. I honestly don’t care who he’s nailing. But when his presidential campaign turns into “look how brave John Edwards is, that he cares so much about America that he’s willing to continue his campaign while his wife is fighting cancer,” is when I start to care about seeing what a slick talking dirtbag this guy really was.
That’s because it is.
#4, SL,
OK, you have a point.
#5, montana,
It may not be news in your world, but voters are entitled to evaluate the ethics and morals of people who want to run our country.
Where do you draw the line? Is it important to know how much toilet paper he uses to wipe his butt? By your standard it sure is if you want to judge a candidate’s economic policy.
#6, JCD,
Let’s see, the man is a contender for VP. He was on the ticket before.
He is a contender only in the minds of the political gossipers that need something to talk about. At best he might have been considered for Attorney General or maybe an Ambassadorship.
He is no longer on the ticket. He is as much an influence as Alan Keyes.
And after the media hounded McCain for his non-existent “black baby” in 2000, how does this get ignored completely?
Lesson learned. But that was more a case of Karl Rove’s operatives suggesting that he had fathered a black baby when they made a purported “survey”.
#7, Bobbo,
A well written post.
Anybody that thinks this is news simply enjoys being treated like an idiot which is why the voting public gets played like a republican dildo.
I loved that so much I just had to post it again.
#10, JimD,
While that is very true, it is irrelevant. Gingrich is NOT the Presidential contender here. Nor is Henry Hyde’s extra marital affair while heading the committee investigating Clinton relevant.
Deflecting criticism by telling the world “hey the other guys do it” merely stoops to their hypocritical level.
#14–SL==you really are demonstrating the incompetency of the American Electorate and why we have reached the nadir that we have. (I assume you are pulling my chain, but I’ll go along with it for the true red type values voters who peruse this blog.)
If you think Edwards deserved any points at all for continuing his campaign when his wife had cancer, then of course, the fact that he cheated on her (and lied about it?) would be relevant to you. Would it make any difference if he had her permission?
BUT–if you don’t care about his sacrifice in running for Presnit of the Free World and only care about what policies he would bring to the political process, then likewise you wouldn’t have your head up your ass when he cheats on his wife either.
I see it as relevant issues versus irrelevant issues, or perhaps I just get grumpy seeing important issues not addressed while quite unimportant issues do get coverage.
It might be argued that the affair itself wasn’t news. In theory it was a personal issue that was nobody’s business except between Edwards and his wife.
What is news – and what should be covered, is Edwards non-stop lying about the affair.
Oh for Christ’s sake. Who cares if John Edwards was fucking some horse-faced self-deluded “videographer”. If every politician got a headline each time he/she fucked someone other than his/her husband/wife, there wouldn’t be room in the paper for the weather report.
It’s of minor interest when some right-wing holy roller who’s spent his life railing against the evils of adultry and homosexuality ends up “wide-stancing” another man in the MSP men’s room. One-night stands between consenting adults are good for nothing but the Enquirer. ZZZZZZZZZ……
As far as I can tell, Dumbya never banged anybody but his wife (at least not since he got sober and married), but I don’t trust him as far as I can throw a cast-iron bath tub filled with obese Americans. On the other hand, presidents who were notable philanderers (JFK, Clinton) turned out in retrospect to have been good for the country.
Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.
In any case, it’s good to know that the Edwards Pecker-Gate case stayed only on the pages of trash papers where it belongs. Just like Bill’s blow jobs and cigar capers, it has no bearing on their ability to serve their country effectively.
#20, Mustard,
Good point. You also missed FDR’s alleged dalliances while President. Often considered one of the greatest Presidents.
Stop with the gratuitous cursing already. It’s unnecessary and will put the blog on a “blocked list” by some automated system.
I think we all get what we deserve. Elizabeth Edwards knew about her husband’s affairs back in 2006. Had Ms. Edwards told John the fact that the affair would come out sometime (as Rielle Hunter had told many people plus she was pregnant later)? What about the 1/3 of Iowa voters who were duped by John Edwards would have helped put Hillary on top? Seems like Elizabeth has some moral issues of her own. Elizabeth Edwards drank the koolaid (like Hillary Clinton did when Bill dated Jennifer Flowers as governor for 12 years!) and refused to call her husband on his infidelities. Now, Elizabeth is stuck in the lies of John and all the after-effects. Elizabeth’s power-drunk quest for power with John left out the later feelings of three innocent victims who will forever be scarred by this enabled betrayal: the Edwards’ young chidren. God help Elizabeth’s soul!
It was news because of the office he was running for and the fact that it wasn’t covered by news people that knew about it tants them just as his actions tant him.
That doesn’t mean it needs to stay a head line for the next 4 or 5 months the way Clinton did. That story got way, way to much air time.
The Edwards story should have been a lead story for a day or so with some fairly in depth coverage.
If you are nobody this sort of crap isn’t news. If you are running for or hold a high elected office it is news for a least a day or so. After that it’s welfare for the press.
To all who claim “not news,” and “Who cares?”, you are correct. The one missing piece is that those who make a living, and politicians, sadly make a fine living, going around telling thew world how to live and that they know what’s best for us should be plastered all of the headlines when they do this. I’m sick and tired of being told I need their version of healthcare, and I use too much energy, and I should be more tolerant of 3rd world nutbags who want to kill me and anyone who looks like me. Screw all of them! Why? Because they are usually as bad or worse than they tell us lowly plebs we are.
I knew Edwards was a lying sack o’ crap from the moment his ambulance chasing lips started flapping. He got what he deserves and kudos to the Enquirer (of all people) for forcing the MSM to report the truth of it all.
Why are they crucifying a guy who is NOT RUNNING anymore?
McCain who IS RUNNING gets a free ride for cheating on his first wife while she was seriously ill. He was in the S&L scandal up to his eyeballs. He gets away with saying the stupidest things, and changing his position on issues hour-by hour, depending on the audience.
And nobody calls him on it. Is it because he call us his “friends”?
Enough with McCain getting a free ride regardless of what he says or does.
This shows, once again, the double standard that all of the media applies. The Dems are fried crispy, while the Repubs get away with anything.
And they say that the media is liberal controlled. What a joke!
#25
Right On!
Edwards is a total scumbag. He made millions suing doctors for Cerebral Palsy and bad outcomes from deliveries, all junk science. These junk lawsuits cost us, the patients, money in the end. Can I say it again? He’s a pretty hair, lying, cheating scumbag.
Anybody want clarification?
You would think the USA has grown up and has decided to ignore sex scandals and concentrate on more important things.
Who am I kidding. Heck, Newt Gingrich was boffing his mistress during the Clinton impeachment trials, the “MSM” dropped the ball on that one too.
What bothered me more about Newt than his penile proclivities was his horrid contract with america.
#22 – Mr. C. Dvorak
“Stop with the gratuitous cursing already. It’s unnecessary and will put the blog on a “blocked list” by some automated system”
Who’s cursing gratuitously? If you’re referring to me, with my use of the “F word”, that’s the way I talk in real life. Just expressing myself.
Are blog hits really THAT important to your financial portfolio, that having “some automated system” put the blog on the “blocked list” is really an issue?
I would recommend that you change the name of the blog to Dvorak CENSORED, if you don’t like the gratuitous cursing.
Yer either uncensored, or yer playing by the rules of the Nanny State. Which is it?
I don’t understand why I should care. I don’t live in Edwards state. He already lost running as VP once and was a failure trying to get the Dem nomination. Why would anyone seriously consider him as a VP candidate this time? I don’t care about anything Edwards does any more than I care anything about any celebrity does. Sex sells. End of story. This has nothing to do with anything else.
#20
So, you are ok with a politician espousing “family values” and using his supposed dedication to his own wife as a campaign prop while at the same time doing just the opposite? It matters because he is ran for President and has been shown to be a hypocritical douche. Basically, this is will end his political career or certainly any aspirations of the Presidency in 2012.