UPDATE 2!!
Here is a link to John Edwards' admission to the affair: click here.
Congratulations to the National Enquirer reporters for sticking to their guns when almost no one else gave them any credit.
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UPDATE!!
While this was originally posted on Friday, July 25, 2008, I would like to tell readers about an update today. Check out the News and Observer article about the Hunter baby's birth certificate.
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As a North Carolinian, John Edwards has both represented me in Congress and ran for president using North Carolina as his home base.
His every move seems to fill our local papers and newscasts, but his recent potential activity reported by the National Enquirer remains absent in both state and most national news outlets. It’s not in the News and Observer, The Charlotte Observer or the Greensboro News-Record. I want to know why.
In fact, only Fox News has provided any investigative reports on the National Enquirer's claims. Fox News said earlier today that they heard confirmation of Edwards’ whereabouts directly from the security guard that escorted him out of the Beverly Hilton bathroom. However, during the same day, the LA Times banned its bloggers from mentioning the scandal.
Since when does an LA newspaper censor its journalists from “talking” about a subject in fear that a rumor might spread? That’s right. The LA Times bloggers were not even supposed to mention the potential affair and love child, even to say that they disagreed with the Enquirer.
In general, when new information surfaces, real journalists investigate the claims and report them. If someone would have ignored the claims on Senator Trent Lott’s racial comment, he might still be in office today. If someone would have ignored the Washington Post’s reports on Watergate, former President Richard Nixon might have never resigned and his administration would never have been exposed for the sneaky deeds they completed under the cover of night.
The media source of a particular story (in this insance, the National Enquirer) should not hinder investigation of information. Breaking news comes from all areas of the media: bloggers, tabloids, Internet investigative sites, and even student journalists.
Slate Magazine reporter Jack Schafer blames the media’s art of ignoring the situation on it’s bias against homosexual scandals. When Senator Larry Craig’s (R-Idaho) bathroom sex scandal came out last August, almost every political media outlet reported it immediately. The reasoning? Not only was a police report filed, but Craig—a Senator who supported bans on same-sex marriage and had openly spoken out about the gay lobby Human Rights Campaign—was a “hypocrite.” “He’s caught in the act,” they said.
However, it doesn’t take a homosexual encounter to make a politician a hypocrite.
For example, the Rev. Jesse Jackson admitted to fathering a child outside of his marriage in 2001 only after the National Enquirer planned to do a story about the little girl. This is the same reverend that is known for preaching about integrity and values.
Like Craig’s outspokenness about gays and Jackson’s preaching about values, Edwards has used his “Southern values” to portray himself as a hard-working family man. His decision to stay in the race as his cancer-stricken wife stood bravely beside him inspired media members as he talked about how much it meant to have his wife supporting him. If we now find out that he indeed had an affair, lied about it, and then lied again after getting caught, that’s hypocrisy. Voters, especially North Carolinians, have a right to know whether he is being truthful. It is therefore the media’s duty to seek out the truth. Instead of censoring and ignoring claims, the media should make more investigations.
Mainstream media members, where are the Gary Hart connections? Where are the days when presidential candidates where challenged when their silver tongues looked tarnished?
As for Edwards and his campaign staffers, the only information released was from Edwards himself. “That’s tabloid trash. They’re full of lies” he said Wednesday. The next day he added, “I have no idea what you're asking about…I don’t respond to these lies.”
It’s interesting to note that Edwards called the story “lies” but never out rightly stated that he did not have an affair. His response really gave no response. In fact, the message sounds just as hollow as, “This is silly. We love all reporters. The problem is the feeling isn’t always mutual.”
Where have I heard that before?