NYT Quickly Fronts Vague Cain Charges, Ignored John Edwards Adultery Allegations Almost a Year
There’s a clear double standard on sex allegations for presidential candidates in the New York Times.
The Times put 15-year-old anonymous accusations of sexual harassment against GOP candidate Herman Cain on the front page Tuesday morning, in an off-lead story by Jim Rutenberg and Michael Shear written with help from five other reporters: “Cain Confronts Claim From 90s Of Harassment – He Denies Wrongdoing – Account of Settlement Changes – Reports Rock Campaign.”
The prominent story comes just one full day after the allegations first surfaced on Politico Sunday evening. The Times was also eager during Campaign 2008 to advance sex rumors against Republican John McCain, who was on his way to clinching the GOP nomination.
By contrast, the paper’s treatment of better-substantiated allegations of adultery against Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards were ignored until the candidate himself was compelled to confess.
On February 21, 2008 the Times attempted to take down the McCain campaign with a front-page story focused on McCain's alleged affair with a lobbyist, which promptly fizzled out among conservatives and liberals alike, who dismissed it as a strained mix of sex innuendo and old news. For its affair innuendo, the Times relied on two anonymous former staffers who admit "they had become disillusioned with the senator."
By contrast, more substantiated and damaging allegations about 2008 Democratic presidential candidate (and 2004 Democratic Party choice for vice president) John Edwards were ignored for ten months by the paper until the candidate himself confessed to adultery on ABC News in August 2008.
Clark Hoyt, the paper’s Public Editor at the time, chided his paper for its reluctance to investigate allegations of Edwards's affair, initially raised by the National Enquirer: “The Times did not want to regurgitate the Enquirer's reporting without verifying it, which is responsible. But The Times did not try to verify it, beyond a few perfunctory efforts, which I think was wrong.”
Hoyt forwarded excuses from the Times for not running with (or even checking out) the Edwards's affair story: "Editors said that when the first Enquirer story appeared [in October 2007] and they could not verify it after fairly cursory inquiries, they left it alone. 'I'm not going to recycle a supermarket tabloid's anonymously sourced story,' said Bill Keller, the executive editor."
Yet the paper’s own 2008 McCain affair story was sourced from two anonymous former staffers. Bill Keller may have been too proud to run with a tabloid's anonymous story, but he's more than happy for his paper to do it itself.
Today's Herman Cain allegations are similarly anonymous, although the paper doesn't use that word until paragraph eight. From Tuesday’s front-page story:
Herman Cain, a surprise leader in the Republican race for the presidency, acknowledged Monday that he was accused of sexual harassment while chief of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, but he denied wrongdoing in an episode that has consumed his rising candidacy.
Facing the biggest test of his campaign just as it was demanding notice from a political world that had not seen him coming, Mr. Cain spent the day in a whirlwind of television interviews and news briefings that were originally supposed to highlight his economic plans but became an exercise in damage control.
He maintained that he had been falsely accused and that internal investigations at the association had corroborated that. But his explanations evolved during a day in which conservative supporters rallied against what they called an unfair attack from the news media, while others expressed fresh doubts about a campaign that has yet to prove it has the mettle to survive a national nominating battle.
Mr. Cain’s shifting explanations and the gaps in the story made it hard to determine the impact of the revelations on his long-term prospects in states like Iowa, whose crucial caucuses are just two months away.
- Clay Waters's blog
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Comments
They did more than ignore it.
Submitted by NeoKong on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 2:11pm.
They purposely covered it up.
There is a big difference between not reporting on a story that can't be verified and not reporting it because they favor the candidate and do not want his campaign to suffer.
They stepped on that story just like NBC stepped on the Juanita Broderick story when Clinton was being impeached. After all the facts finally came out it was revealed that some in the media were talking about the Edwards thing for almost a year. There were even eye witnesses to Edwards and his wife having horrible domestic disputes.
To say they merely ignored it is to give them a pass on their blatant media collusion and manipulation of a genuine news story only to protect their guy.
The mainstream media has no
Submitted by jkwtrading on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 3:06pm.
The mainstream media has no credibility left. they are scum, we know it, and they don't like being the known commodity.
And let's not forget John McCain...
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 4:40pm.
They played fast and loose with the John McCain "allegations."
How's this going to work?
Submitted by jon_torlin on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 3:47pm.
Allegations notwithstanding, how's Cain going to survive this? If the public got duped into voting for a faux black man(child), wouldn't they get duped by this as well?
-Jon
Look jon*
Submitted by cajun2 on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 4:14pm.
Someone else has also asked that question
LATimes didn't cover Edwards affair, either; in fact blocked it
Submitted by Gary Hall on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 4:36pm.
Interestingly, in today's feature front page top headlined story, Harassment allegations trip up Herman Cain, the Los Angeles Times has 5 named journalists contributing to the story. One might wonder, who else making calls was not named? How many editors - honchos were at this staff meeting?
Contrast that to the no-coverage of the John Edwards affair during the sprint - summer Democrat Party primary season (not until after he went public, on ABC News in August.
Right smack in the heat of the Democratic Presidential primary race - here's how the Los Angeles Times was dealing with it.
This, in July '08, is Los Angeles Times' blog editor, Tony Pierce, telling the paper's bloggers not to go there on the John Edwards-tryst-in-Beverly Hills story - see LA Observed:
In a longer and more detailed email, LAT's Executive editor Meredith Artley, goes further in explaining the paper's reasons, while offering cover for the low key outrage caused by Tony Pierce's email.
This whole disgrace didn't even get past the former LAT's liberal columnist, Timothy Rutten (I believe that NB covered this, as well), who laid it out fairly well in Old Media Dethroned. A few excerpts:
In the eyes of the MSM, Republicans are onions, and Democrats are lotus petals.
(;~/ gary
Good everloving grief!
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 4:49pm.
I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified. If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask.
IOW, don't write about this; just ask and we'll tell you what to write about.
Unbelievable!
MB - just keep on rocking
Submitted by Gary Hall on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 8:13pm.
MB - just keep on rocking . . but no news, ya hear!
);~> gary
SUPERB post, Gary..
Submitted by greggy on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 12:38am.
Thanks!
delete
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 4:46pm.
delete
It worries me that the
Submitted by buddyc on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 5:31pm.
It worries me that the liberal media is so vicious in attacking all Romney's opponents. It is like they are driving us to Romney. I like Romney. I think he would make a good President but the media's efforts cause me to believe they have a home run hit piece ready to go on Romeny either after he gets the nomination or in October 2012.
May as well stick a fork in Cain
Submitted by creekrat on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 6:12pm.
He has now regrettably been caught trying to cover up. They will never let this go now....very sad, I really like the guy. Yes, it would be nice to see some tiny bit of fairness in the media, but we all know that will not happen.
Why?
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 6:43pm.
Aren't all candidates eligible for the proverbial fork?
Why do you want to single out Cain
The major media deception..
Submitted by greggy on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 11:13pm.
and mendacity, and double standards, and propagandizing, and playing for Democrats and liberals - is not just morally reprehensible. It's morally criminal, ethically bankrupt, and presents a clear and present danger to our nation's future.
There is no limit to the amount of slanted reporting, deception, concealment, collaborating, and propagandizing that these people are willing to do in order to program a largely unwitting public into sharing their political views.
It has reached such a serious state that a major effort to not only expose, but to also actively confront and challenge not only the media organizations but also individual reporters on their mendacity, is absolutely essential.