MSM Shuns Additional Reporting on Edwards Scandal

Despite the many mea culpas by the mainstream media about their failure to report on the John Edwards scandal in the wake of Edwards' admission of an affair with his mistress last Friday, they continue to make the same errors as before. Following an initial flurry of reporting about what Edwards said on ABC's Nightline and some analysis of the scandal, the MSM still continues to leave the bulk of the investigative reporting to both the National Enquirer and the blogosphere.

One area they have yet to do any basic footwork is in determining just how many meetings Edwards had with Rielle Hunter at the Beverly Hilton and when they occurred. In this case it is Lee Stranahan who was banned from the Daily Kos for daring to bring up the subject of the Edwards scandal who is once again leading the way in his Huffington Post blog:

Last night on the Larry King show, National Enquirer Editor David Perel dropped another bombshell -- that John Edwards has had three meeting with Rielle Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton. Perel has previously claimed that there were two meetings with Hunter, the one that Edwards has confirmed happened in July and one around the beginning of June.

So when did Edwards see Hunter aside from June and July? I think the date might be March 20th, 2008. Looking into Edward's schedule, he appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on that date. The Tonight Show tapes at the NBC studios in Burbank, California and usually wraps taping a little after five o'clock. Burbank is about a half hour from the Beverly Hilton hotel.

These meetings all took place in the Los Angeles area but don't hold your breath waiting for the L.A. Times investigating this matter. They are still in the midst of patting themselves on the back for supposedly pursuing this story even though they published exactly nothing about this scandal until the Edwards admission on Nightline (emphasis mine):

Several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, had been pursuing the story prior to Friday. But the sudden burst of attention after he confirmed a romantic relationship with Rielle Hunter, who produced video documentaries for his campaign website, was in marked contrast to the way those news organizations had tiptoed around the original reports.

Yeah, great way to "pursue" this story...by totally ignoring it until last Friday. And now the L.A. Times and other newspapers are acting as if this story is finally over so they continue to decline to investigate further. That task, in addition to the National Enquirer's reporting, is being left to the blogosphere. One blog in particular, DBKP, is doing the investigation into areas that the MSM still fears to tread. The large payments to Edwards' mistress and former aide, Andrew Young, is one area where the best information currently comes from DBKP, not the MSM:

Who in the John Edwards’ campaign started the cover up of Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter? It was an operation that costs millions and involved a web of schemes that are still unraveling. It’s a question the Mainstream Media hasn’t asked yet, but it has to be on the agenda, now that they’re finally covering the story.

The cover up began with erasing information about Hunter from the Internet; progressed later to moving Hunter from the NYC area to North Carolina within five miles of the Edwards campaign headquarters and setting her up in houses owned by Edwards’ backers; and, at one point involved millionaire trial lawyer, Fred Baron, and the revelations that millions were spent jetting Hunter and Edwards’ campaign operative–and fall guy–across the country to reside in multi-million dollar houses.

Hunter and Young, according to reports, have also been receiving hush money payments to keep their mouths shut.

Who initiated all of this? Where did that money come from?

Sorry, DBKP, but the MSM remains uninterested in exposing the coverup. One big reason is that they wish the whole John Edwards scandal would just go away before the Democrat convention begins in a couple of weeks. They can't have that ugly reminder of a major Democrat candidate scandal hanging around to suck the air out of the Barack Obama coronation at the convention. So while the MSM continue to analyze their own navels with a flurry of shallow mea culpas, don't expect them to do much more footwork on this scandal. For that the public will continue to rely on the National Enquirer and the blogosphere.