John Edwards Might be a Philanderer, but the Media is a Shameless Whore
After a week or so of below-the-radar furor on the blogs (Mikey Kaus, take a bow), possible future Attorney General and Vice-Presidential contender John Edwards has finally come clean over allegations that he lied about having an extramarital affair. Okay, so Edwards is a lying scumbag. We all knew that. Big deal.
The real story, I think, is that most major media outlets kept a lid on this story — despite the fact that they were well aware of it — and even going so far as to discourage people from writing about it.
Without taking this into “Team Red vs. Team Blue” territory, the media’s handling of this case should be instructive, at the very least. If the writing of bloggers like Michael Yon and Michael Totten, among others, has brought into question the accuracy of the media’s often-hysterical coverage of Iraq, then the non-coverage of the Edwards story should make consumers even warier about taking what they read in the paper or see on the nightly news at its word.
Until today, if you never read the Enquirer and never looked at blogs, just about the only inkling you might have had that this was even happening at all would’ve been a quip or two during Jay Leno’s monologue, and you probably wouldn’t have gotten the joke.
The Economist isn’t MSM?
I was mystified about this since the matter was being covered by mainstream English and Irish news sites, but not by the U.S. MSM. And then once they were forced to acknowledge it, they gave lame apologies for Edwards, implying that we should be ashamed if we care that the future Attorney General of the United States was banging a crack whore (which is what she appears to be if you read her bio) and paying her from campaign funds.
I have no trust at all in the U.S. MSM. I get most of my news from alternative sources in the U.S. or foreign sources (I subscribe to the Economist, for example). The astounding thing is that the MSM boneheads are scratching their heads over why they are losing readership and viewership.
Sorry, I read your earlier commentary as insinuating there is some sort of liberal bias in the US media…which is why Edwards got an early pass and McCain was hammered.
Christ!
If you want to not play the Red vs. Blue game by playing the Red vs. Blue game, I have two words for you:
Abu Ghraib
Uh, dude. Isn’t that my fucking point?
Christ.
Here is Elizabeth Edwards’ take.
On a side note, I can’t believe that the Russia-Georgia thing isn’t getting covered more. Let’s hope that Russian planes don’t manage to kill any of the US military stationed there…
This has been stewing for quite some time, and the interesting thing is that if you look at the way things normally transpire in the world, the Abkhazians and S. Ossetians actually have legit claims to independence. Especially the Abkhazians seeing as they beat the Georgian military when it mattered (after the fall of the USSR).
The other thing that isn’t being mentioned is that Georgia is essentially a Cold War battleground with the US-backed government of Georgia versus the Russian-backed ‘rebels’ in Abkhazia and S. Ossetia.
If you want to not play the Red vs. Blue game by playing the Red vs. Blue game, I have two words for you:
Abu Ghraib
The press sat on that for quite a while, at the behest of the Pentagon via the White House.
I’m not saying that discouraging this news isn’t questionable, but I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you do. It’s news about someone who we don’t hear from much anymore and about someone who has already dealt with it privately. How do Americans benefit from this news? I know that these sorts of things get a lot of attention, but on the scale of things not covered…I would not place this at or near the top.
All of that being said, I like the influence that some forms of internet blogs have. It’s a healthy check on stuff like this, regardless of where one thinks it fits on the scale of important stories.
More like, Edwards knew it was inevitable and decided to drop the news on a Friday, the day the Olympics started, and, luckily for him, the day Russia invaded Georgia.
Sounds to me that somebody wanted this out, right now. You don’t suppose it was to influence the speaking arrangements of the convention?
In any case, this is far from the first time. So what is the point?
I think it’s fairly significant that this particular story was basically blacklisted for weeks, even though tons of bloggers and even Jay Leno were talking about it. I mean, this isn’t “just one example”, it’s “just one example… that happens to be about one of the potential front-runners for the Vice-Presidency”, and therefore a major news story… that was simply ignored outright.
If I were playing the “Red vs. Blue” game, I’d note that similar “restraint” was not shown when John McCain was alleged to have had an affair with Vicki Iseman nearly a decade ago.
But it’s not like a couple of news organizations here and there found other, more important stuff to cover instead. They all actively ignored it and in some cases discouraged employees from writing about it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s malfeasance.
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The media doesn’t cover a lot of stuff…this is just one example.
It’s infotainment.
In any case, this is far from the first time. So what is the point? The media sucks?
Yeah.