Readers rarely get a chance to see the re-writing of history, but they’re seeing an attempt in the recent reporting by the Legacy Media of the John Edwards Scandal.
Several recently-published books (Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Game Change and Edwards’ ex-aide, Andrew Young’s The Politician) examine the John Edwards scandal and Edwards’ elaborate cover-up of his affair and love child with campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter.
Halperin and Heilemann would have readers believe that they were on the trail of the story from the start–and perhaps they were. It’s just that they didn’t bother to inform the readers of their employers, TIME and New York, while the scandal and cover-up were occurring.
Both books have prompted reports and discussions of the Edwards Scandal, particularly on ABC, which scored a series of exclusive interviews of Young, intent on publicizing his book. The interviews along with other information is featured prominently on ABC’s website under John Edwards Scandal:
Yet, despite all the coverage by ABC News and others during 2010, nothing of the scandal was reported while it was taking place. During the 2008 presidential campaign, ABC revealed not one word about the scandal to its viewers.
From December 18, 2007–when the National Enquirer informed America that John Edwards had impregnated Hunter, was financing a cover-up and that Andrew Young was the fall-guy–until August 8, 2008, when Edwards appeared on ABC’s own Nightline to “confess,” ABC News didn’t ask John Edwards one question about his relationship with Rielle Hunter.
Not one word–despite the National Enquirer providing photos of a very pregnant Hunter, and a number of easily-verifiable facts: Hunter was staying within five miles of the Edwards campaign headquarters, in a house owned by an Edwards campaign donor and was driving around in a BMW registered to Andrew Young, who was Edwards’ director of finance.
Not one question–despite Edwards being a former vice-presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, candidate for president in 2008 and later, a serious candidate for a position as vice-president or attorney general in a Barack Obama administration.
Not one word in 2010 from these same media organizations about their dereliction of duty during those eight long months during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Hard to believe? Here’s a Media Dis-Honor Roll: the results of a search through various news archives.
CBS News: From November 17, 2007 until August 7, 2008: Not one word reported.
New York Times: not one word.
ABC News: not one word.
Washington Post: Nothing.
NBC News and MSNBC: not one word.
Time: Nothing.
New York: This one article in July 2008, about the Enquirer’s “claim” that Edwards was caught visiting Hunter at the Beverly Hilton.
The last two on the list, Time and New York magazines are of particular note because the publications employ the co-authors of Game Change: Mark Halperin, editor-at-large and senior political analyst for TIME; and, John Heilemann, a “contributing editor at New York Magazine, where he writes The Power Grid column on national politics, business, and their intersection.”
Halperin and Heilemann devoted a considerable portion of Game Change to revelations about the Edwards scandal that they learned during the campaign. But neither published a word while Edwards was one of the Democrat front-runners in the race. Their readers were kept in the dark.
Those revelations only came out in 2010, after the co-authors split a six-figure publishing deal. Why didn’t the authors inform their readers during the 2008 presidential campaign–when it would have mattered?
Don Campbell posed just that question in a recent USA Today Op-Ed.
A gossipy, behind-the-scenes presidential campaign book once again illustrates how the public is poorly served by some in the political press corps.
Game Change, by John Heilemann, a writer for New York magazine, and Mark Halperin, a reporter for Time, raises the question for non-political junkies of why so much about candidates remains hidden from public view until after the vote.
The answer, based on my nearly 40 years of covering politics, directing coverage and teaching college students who aspire to the craft, points to the too-cozy relationship between reporters and the political class.
Some of the information attributed to anonymous sources suggest nothing more than a poor choice of words or blatant hypocrisy — hardly surprising. But the reporters present intimate and detailed portraits of the candidates that would have painted a very different picture for voters. Two years later, now we know.
This isn’t to say that the contents of Game Change would have been a game-changer in 2008. But at a time when distrust of politicians and of the news media are both high, this type of reporting isn’t helpful. A fair question: Just what would the authors withhold from the public in order to sell a book at a later date?
Campbell, who is co-author of Inside the Beltway: A Guide to Washington Reporting, covered six presidential campaigns and is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors, makes another critical point:
Some mainstream publications are too willing to let political reporters or columnists gather exclusive information on their dime and then withhold it until after the election. The authors of Game Change, for example, did much of their interviewing in the heat of the campaign when, they say, events were fresh in the minds of the participants.
“When events were fresh in the minds of the participants” is just another way of saying “when Halperin and Heilemann were being paid by TIME and New York respectively to report what they had discovered to the readers of those publications.”
Halperin and Heilemann short-changed the readers they were paid to inform–as well as their employers. They traded some of that information for their own, more profitable use at a later date. The Game Change authors can justify the practice however they might; one justification they cannot use is “journalism.”
Heilemann explained to Huffington Post , at the time of the book deal, how it all came to be. Both had written extensively on political campaigns but it wasn’t until they were both covering a McCain rally in Annapolis, Md., in early April that they began seriously toying with the idea of writing a book together. Recalled Heilemann:
We were both finding that we had a mind meld on what we thought was important.
Not one word written on one of the most important political scandals of the decade until a six-figure book deal loosened their pens? That alone might indicate, more than they would care to admit, what was really important to the authors of Game Change.
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