[Update] 8/6/08- National Enquirer produces photos.
Fox News has confirmed a portion of the National Enquirer story about John Edwards meeting his mistress at the Beverly Hilton hotel.
The original National Enquirer story claimed that the John Edwards visited a hotel that a woman that the National Enquirer has maintained was his mistress was staying at.
The National Enquirer had claimed that they met John Edwards at the hotel that Rielle Hunter was staying at ad that they chased him throughout the hotel and that he hid in the restroom until hotel security escorted him out, preventing National Enquirer reporters from following to photograph and as questions of Jon Edwards.
Fox News has gotten one of those hotel security guards to speak on the record and he confirms that John Edwards was at the hotel and in the restroom while John Edwards was allegedly hiding from reporters.
According to the hotel security guard, he did not immediately recognize John Edwards but he confirm Edwards was there by saying that he intervened between a man he identified as John Edwards and National Enquirer reporters.
The Beverly Hilton Hotel guard said he encountered a shaken and ashen-faced Edwards — whom he did not immediately recognize — in a hotel men's room early Tuesday morning in a literal tug-of-war with reporters on the other side of the door.
"What are they saying about me?" the guard said Edwards asked.
"His face just went totally white," the guard said, when Edwards was told the reporters were shouting out questions about Edwards and Rielle Hunter, a woman the National Enquirer says is the mother of his child.
The security guard goes on to say that the reporters were "rough" on Edwards by sticking cameras in his face and shouting questions at him.
The guard later identified Edwards as the man they helped escort from the restroom by a photo shown to him of Edwards.
In related news, Slate has produced an email sent by editor on LATimes.com in charge of blogs, Tony Pierce, requesting that LA times bloggers not address the National Enquirer story about Edwards:
Subject: john edwards
Hey bloggers,
There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So 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
Keep rockin,
Tony
After reading that piece from Slate I immediately emailed a LA Times blogger, Andrew Malcolm, that writes for the Top of the Ticket Blog who I often quote in my blog and who quotes me in his, and asked him about the request reported by Slate and the supposed "gag order" from LA Times and his answer was "The short answer is No. As you'll see below, several days ago our site did in fact blog on the Enq story and has been ranked high on Google News much of the time since. So that doesn't look like a gag order to me."
Here was Top of the Ticket's piece about the Edwards story.
The email that Slate quotes has either not been widely distributed or was only sent to specific blogs, because Malcolm's answer to my email shows evidence that there is at least one LA Times blog that no one has attempted to "gag".
Further related news shows that according to the National Enquirer, two reporters from that magazine, Alan Butterfield and Alexander Hitchen, are filing criminal complaints with the with the Beverly Hills Police Department, charging that "hotel security acted unlawfully while the reporters were trying to question the former senator."
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