Mainstream Media Notes Enquirer Scoop

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Mainstream Media Notes Enquirer Scoop
By RUSSELL ADAMS and SHIRA OVIDE
August 11, 2008; Page B7

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, 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.

(snip)

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... 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.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121841411983828503.html (subscription)

[DJ13]

1. Theres something sleazy about one Murdoch owned paper saying nice job

....about another Murdoch owned paper.

[movonne]

2. how long can we make this story stay in the media...