Mainstream Media Curiosity Killing No Cats- - -DEVELOPING!- - -
11:05 am 11-28
DBKP is still working on details of this tip we were given. We thought we might have more details now, but we're still working.
In the meantime, we'll point you to this story over at Doug Ross@Journal. We're probably a little remiss in not pointing this story out sooner, but we thought we'd have another story out sooner.
The John Edwards Love Child Saga, the NBA and the MSM
Doug is also asking questions.
And that's what we're doing: asking questions.
As always, our main question is: "Why Doesn't the MSM ask any?"
We'll update later.
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Question: What former NBA player's latest charity outreach involves providing housing for unwed, pregnant women?
Hint #1: The player and various family members have each contributed the allowable limit each to the John Edwards campaign, for a total of over $15,000.
Hint #2: The unwed, pregnant woman is actually just one: Rielle Hunter, the former producer of videos for the Edwards campaign that traveled around the country last year with the presidential candidate.
DBKP received a tip that Hunter is now living in the house of a former NBA player who is also an Edwards backer.
Again, this caused us to ask questions.
Was Rielle Hunter a professional basketball fan?
What is the connection between Hunter and the NBA player/Edwards contributor?
Will this cause any curiosity in a Mainstream Media that seems determined not to exhibit any?
How long until one reporter is curious enough to ask the one question that no one has asked presidential candidate, John Edwards, "Do you deny that you have been in phone contact with Rielle Hunter since she discovered she was pregnant?"
Of course, if it had been the New York Times or CNN that had broken the details and provided the legwork for the curious connections between John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, the Edwards campaign and Hunter's moving near Edwards campaign headquarters--instead of tabloid The National Enquirer--we suspect that Mainstream Media curiosity might have been a little more forthcoming.
Regardless, this seems to be a singular instance of when the famous "public's right to know" doesn't count for much.
It was a week ago today that "Rielle Hunter" was a number one search term on Google. That means that more people searched for information on "Rielle Hunter" than on any other topic, at least for part of that day.
91 million searches are performed on Google per day, according to Search Engine Watch. A week ago, more of those searchers wanted information about "Rielle Hunter" than about any other topic.
Unfortunately, if they were looking for that information in the Mainstream Media, they would have been disappointed.
Outside of a few mentions of the Enquirer story and, in most cases, an earlier Enquirer story on the same subject, no information on the subject could be found in the Mainstream Media.
Curiously--again--most media outlets printed the denials from Edwards which the
first Enquirer story had prompted. Since no one, outside of two unnamed reporters, even asked the candidate about it at all, no one knew about how the Edwards campaign reacted to the latest details released by the Enquirer.
While the MSM was short of information on Edwards/Hunter, they were not short of information on their "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Since the Edwards campaign didn't have a reason to address the news, Face the Nation's Bob Schieffer, while on Imus, supplied his own Journalism Standard: The famous "Two-Denial Rule.
I believe that -- I believe that's a story that we will be avoiding, because it appears to me that there's absolutely nothing to it. I'm told that another -- a man says that the child is his. I'm told that the woman who seems to be pregnant says it's not his. So I guess -- I guess we're going to pass on that.
Schieffer was positing why he wasn't interested; meanwhile, erstwhile FTN viewers with Internet access were searching for the very info that Schieffer was passing on.
The Mainstream press was busy supplying information last week: the information they felt readers should know.
That is a good illustration of the term "media gatekeepers".
Mickey Kaus at Slate remarked on this division of knowledge: those who have access to Mainstream Media "news" and others, more informed, who have access to "undernews".
Kaus's works his latest analysis of this "undernews" and the lack of Mainstream Media coverage into the following theory.
Undernews Underanalysis: Still impressive, near-total lack of MSM pickup of the National Enquirer's Edwards scandal allegations.** My guess regarding MSM thinking is 1) Nobody wants to hurt Elizabeth Edwards and 2) Everybody figures that if John Edwards loses in Iowa, there's no reason to mention the story. It will go away and nobody will have to cover it. ... If Edwards wins Iowa, however, that calculus would presumably change.
P.S..: Were the story to break out in the MSM before Iowa, the Edwards camp might react by allowing his popular wife make an impassioned plea for her husband, against sleaze, etc., which would generate considerable sympathy. His support in the caucuses could well go up in the short run. If you don't want Edwards to win--as I don't--it may be best at this point if the story stays undernews until January 4. Which puts me in the same page as the MSM, I think.
In other words, under this theory the worst outcome for Edwards is if the Enquirer account slowly seeps into voter consciousness, but doesn't become known enough for Edwards to be able to profit by making a big deal of it in public (which would have the downside of bringing it to more or less every voter's attention). ... That assumes Edwards remains in contention. Should he fall significantly behind in the polls, then making a big deal out of it becomes a plausible Hail Mary gambit. ...
Back in October, Kaus made a telling observation--with much less information than is available now.
Yglesias' suggestion that if there was anything to the story then somebody in the "legitimate" press would have come up with the evidence "by now" is a little premature, I think.
The Mainstream press continues to make decisions about what "the little people" should or ought to know. Rielle Hunter and John Edwards are the latest example of why that hubris is contributing to a decline in ratings and circulation at Media outlets where that attitude can be found.
With the latest information about who is providing housing for Rielle Hunter, perhaps some Mainstream reporter will, at last, become interested.
After all, it's been rumored that the Mainstream Media are certain that Joe Six-Pack likes sports.
by Mondoreb[image:zz-helps]
Source:
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Federal Election Commission*
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