What Edwards v. Enquirer means for journalism

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: July 28, 2008

In my humble opinion (I refuse to use annoying blogger language like IMHO), I think it’s clear that the Edwards story and the coverage – and lack of coverage – of it is one of the foremost examples we have of modern journalism losing its footing.

Less clear is why reporters and editors are losing their footing.

Is it bias, or is it incompetence? Is it lack of resources, or lack of will?

Or some awful combination of all of the above?

Over at Slate, Mickey Kaus offers “a rundown of media performance on the John Edwards front:”

The New York Times doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

The print edition of the Washington Post doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

Newsweek doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

Time doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

Katie Couric didn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

Brian Williams didn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

Charlie Gibson didn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

RealClearPolitics doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

HuffingtonPost doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday (and it’s their story!). I blame the commenters.

Mark Halperin doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

Mark Ambinder doesn’t tell you what happened yesterday.

One Roger Simon tells you what happened yesterday—but the other Roger Simon doesn’t!

Then, the kicker:

Has the gap between what the MSM lets you know and what happened—and what you can easily find out happened—ever been greater?

Need more? How about this interview with Enquirer editor-in-chief David Perel over at Death by 1000 Papercuts.com?

After talking with Perel for an hour, DBKP concludes that “it was easy” for “supermarket checkout staple” The National Enquirer to “scoop the combined forces of CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA TToday, New York Times and the rest of the mainstream press in the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Love Child affair:”

The steadfast “cone of silence” placed on the story by the Mainstream Media (MSM) made it easy for anyone willing to do the legwork to grab the story from a decidedly-uninterested “respectable” press.

How telling is this:

What was the Enquirer doing in the last seven months that the major press organizations could have been doing, but didn’t, that allowed you scoop them?

DP: We stayed on the story. We did it the old-fashioned way, with lots of legwork. We did what the major news organizations used to do: we knocked on doors, ran down leads and talked to people.

Mondo: Why do you think the “major news organizations” didn’t do this?

DP: I think it was a matter of interest. We knew – even though we couldn’t reveal them – that our sources were credible. We fact-checked their stories and they checked out. It was a giant puzzle and we started fitting the pieces together. But, we were interested in fitting them together; in doing the checking, the groundwork.

I think with all of the cut-backs the other news organizations has suffered, many of them may not have had the man-power or the resources to do what we did. It was a major commitment on our part to continue and stay on the story.

I think that’s what will end up making the John Edwards-Beverly Hilton story remarkable in the end: It reveals the extent to which the credibility of mainstream journalism, and mainstream journalists, is fallible.