Disdain for Enquirer kept media out of picture

For almost 10 months, the story of John Edwards' affair remained the nearly exclusive province of The National Enquirer — through reports, denials, news of a pregnancy, questions about paternity and, finally, a slapstick chase through a hotel in Los Angeles.

Political blogs, some cable networks and a few newspapers reported on it — or, more accurately, reported on The Enquirer reporting on it. Jay Leno and David Letterman made Edwards the butt of jokes on their late-night shows, but their own networks declined to report on the rumors surrounding him on the evening news. Why?

A number of news organizations with resources far greater than the Enquirer's, like The New York Times, say they looked into the Edwards matter and found nothing solid enough to report, while others did not look at all.

Some of their comments point to a lack of interest in a story about the private conduct of an also-ran presidential candidate, and a distaste for following the lead of a publication they hold in low esteem. Only in Edwards' home state, North Carolina, did newspapers aggressively chase the story in the last few weeks.

On Friday, Phil Bronstein, the former editor of The San Francisco Chronicle, in his blog on that paper's Web site, poked fun at the reticence of the mainstream media, "picking at it with their noses held, as if looking for something valuable in a moldy Dumpster."

"On journalism sites, the finger-pointing, self-loathing, self-righteousness and tut-tutting was massive," he wrote. "Does anyone really think that a story splashed in the tabs and debated on blogs like a powerful fire backdraft is somehow not part of the public discourse?"

David Perel, editor of the Enquirer, said he felt vindicated.

"It's good to see public acknowledgment that our story was accurate all along," he said.

The Enquirer first reported the affair in October, and it reported in December that the woman, Rielle Hunter, who had done video production work for the campaign, was pregnant and that Edwards was the father.

At the time, Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was still very much a presidential candidate, though polls showed him running a distant third for the Democratic nomination. He denied the allegations, and a campaign aide said he, not the candidate, was the father — and Hunter agreed.

The Los Angeles Times published one brief item in October, focusing on Edwards' denial of an affair. The Daily News in New York wrote about it a few times over the months. But the three broadcast network newscasts, the three cable news networks, and most of the major newspapers and magazines did not say a word.

"We began pursuing the story soon after it first appeared. But the standard for proof in this kind of intimate behavior is and should be very high," said Michael Oreskes, Associated Press managing editor for U.S. news. "Better to get it right even if we couldn't get it first."

On July 22, the Enquirer said one of its reporters had caught Edwards visiting the mother and child at the Beverly Hilton, and chased him through the hotel. The general media's resistance started to crack then, and it began crumbling after the Enquirer, on Wednesday, published what it said were pictures of that hotel rendezvous, including a grainy photo showing what looked to be Edwards holding a baby.

Fox News Channel, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald and the Web site of New York Magazine were among those that first mentioned the Enquirer reports in late July. MSNBC did so only backhandedly, by showing a clip of Letterman joking about it.

The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., have each written about the matter several times over the last nine days, and a Los Angeles Times blog took it up.

But many news organizations — including The New York Times — weighed in only after ABC News announced on Friday that it had an interview with Edwards, in which he admitted the affair but denied paternity.

The Seattle Times ran a story on Thursday saying Edwards was being urged to confront the Enquirer story or risk losing an opportunity to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

"These kinds of allegations fly around about just about every candidate," said Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, which had not written about the affair until Friday. "We checked them out and we asked questions, and at no time did we have any facts to report."

After Edwards dropped out of the race last winter, it was not clear that there was any relevance to the story, Downie said. The Post began looking into it more seriously in the last few weeks, in light of a possible Edwards role at the Democratic convention or in a Barack Obama administration.

CNN, which first mentioned the affair on Friday, "had been working the story since it first broke in the Enquirer late last year," said Sam Feist, the political director. "We sent people to Chapel Hill; we sent people to California."

But, he said, "Edwards denied it, the woman denied it," and "you have to have some sort of evidence before you put something on the air."

Paul Friedman, senior vice president of CBS News, said the network did not actively pursue the story when it broke last fall. Asked if that was because it had first appeared in The National Enquirer, he said, "Exactly."

In the months since then, Friedman said, CBS kept track of the story but did not actively pursue it. "We saw no reason to make his life or the life of his family any worse, until it became well-documented or he admitted it, which is what happened today," he said.

The New York Times looked into the Enquirer reports last fall, though none too aggressively, editors said.

Bill Keller, the executive editor, said in an e-mail message that Edwards' dark-horse status and the "added hold-your-nose quality about the Enquirer" contributed to the lack of interest by The Times and the mainstream media generally.

Seattle Times archives, the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press contributed to this report.