[Update] 8/6/08- National Enquirer produces photos.
Quick rundown..
The National Enquirer claimed that it had caught John Edwards in a secret meeting with his Mistress, Fox News confirmed a portion of the story which said that John Edwards hid from National Enquirer reporters in the restroom at the Beverly Hilton and that security escorted him out. Fox confirmed it by speaking with hotel security.
Then a story came out about the LA Times blog editor requesting, via email, that bloggers do not write about the story.
One LA Times blogger told me at that time that he hadn't been asked to refrain from reporting about it and offered a report that was done on the topic as evidence.
Now we are caught up...
Today, Simon from Bloggasm, reports that he spoke with Tony Pierce, the LA Times blog editor to ask him about that email.
I spoke to Pierce for a few minutes on the phone today. He said the decision to send the email came after several senior editors at the Times met that day.
“The Opinion LA blog had already written about the rumors from the National Enquirer,” he explained. “We knew some of the other blogs wanted to write about it or were thinking about writing about it. And at that point we were like, ‘you know, we already have our metro desk working on a story and before we just kind of write a whole bunch of stuff about the National Enquirer article, why don’t we give our metro desk a chance to see what they can find.’ That’s when they said, ‘OK Tony, why don’t you write this letter to your bloggers.”
When I brought up the argument made by many that they were trying to bury the story, Pierce pointed out that one of the blogs had already written about it. The editors simply wanted to give the metro reporters a chance to dig into it and see if they could find any new information, he said, rather than just having the Times website create a bunch of noise.
Read the rest over at Bloggasm, but one specific paragraph following the excerpts I show, caught my attention:
I asked Pierce if the metro desk had the chance to follow up on the story, and if so, would he send out another post allowing his bloggers to write about it. He said that to his knowledge the LA Times reporters hadn’t found any additional information and expressed some skepticism of the National Enquirer story’s authenticity.
Considering Fox managed to get a hotel security guard to speak to them and confirm a portion of the story, does this mean the LA Times research crew didn't really try or were incapable of doing what Fox had no problem doing?
Pierce did admit he could have phrased his email better, but it still doesn't explain how as new information comes up, that doesn't mean that LA Times bloggers shouldn't be able to follow up on it.
Next is today's story which again many expect the MSM to continue to ignore, about the National Enquirer now claiming that John Edwards has been paying $15,000 a month in a coverup scheme to over the Rielle Hunter/Love child mess.
The money is being funneled to Hunter by a wealthy colleague who was closely tied to the Edwards’ campaign. This same man is also shoveling cash to Edwards’ pal and former aide Andrew Young – who tried to take the heat off the ex-Senator by claiming he is the father of Rielle’s baby.
I guess we will see if the MSM continues to enforce their news blackout on these allegations or if they will actually try to do their job and research, question and report on their findings.
Thanks to DBKP for the link!!!! Also go read the piece over there, it is good, clear, concise and has a couple surprises.
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