Posted on 10/30/2007 6:09:13 PM PDT by jimboster
So I was down in DC this past weekend and happened to run into a well-connected media person, who told me flatly, unequivocally that “everyone knows” The LA Times was sitting on a story, all wrapped up and ready to go about what is a potentially devastating sexual scandal involving a leading Presidential candidate. “Everyone knows” meaning everyone in the DC mainstream media political reporting world. “Sitting on it” because the paper couldn’t decide the complex ethics of whether and when to run it. The way I heard it they’d had it for a while but don’t know what to do. The person who told me )not an LAT person) knows I write and didn’t say “don’t write about this”.
If it’s true, I don’t envy the LAT. I respect their hesitation, their dilemma, deciding to run or not to run it raises a lot of difficult journalism ethics questions and they’re likely to be attacked, when it comes out—the story or their suppression of the story—whatever they do.
I’ve been sensing hints that something’s going on, something’s going unspoken in certain insider coverage of the campaign (and by the way this rumor the LA Times is supposedly sitting on is one I never heard in this specific form before. By the way, t’s not the Edwards rumor, it’s something else.
And when my source said “everyone in Washington”, knows about it he means everyone in the elite Mainstream media, not just the LA Times, but everyone regularly writing about the Presdidential campaign knows about it and doesn’t know what to do with it. And I must admit it really is was juicy if true. But I don’t know if it’s true and I can’t decide if I think it’s relevant. But the fact that “everyone” in the elite media knew about it and was keeping silent about it, is, itself, news. But you can’t report the “news” without reporting the thing itself. Troubling!
It raises all sorts of ethical questions. What about private sexual behavior is relevant? What about a marriage belongs in the coverage of a presidential campaign? Does it go to the judgment of the candidate in question? Didn’t we all have a national nervous breakdown over these questions nearly a decade ago?
Now, as I say it’s a rumor; I haven’t seen the supporting evidence. But the person who told me said it offhandedly as if everyone in his world knew about it. And if you look close enough you can find hints of something impending, something potentially derailing to this candidate in the reporting of the campaign. Which could mean that something unspoken, unwritten about is influencing what is written, what we read.
Why are well wired media elite keeping silent about it? Because they think we can’t handle the truth? Because they think it’s substantively irrelevant? What standards of judgment are they using? Are they afraid that to print it will bring on opprobrium. Are they afraid not printing it will bring on opprobrium? Or both?
But alas if it leaks out from less “responsible” sources. then all their contextual protectiveness of us will have been wasted.
And what about timing? They, meaning the DC elite media, must know if it comes out before the parties select their primary winners and eventual nominees, voters would have the ability to decide how important they felt it to the narrative of the candidate in question. Aren’t they, in delaying and not letting the pieces fall where they potentially may, not refusing to act but acting in a different way—taking it upon themselves to decide the Presidential election by their silence?
If they waited until the nominees were chosen wouldn’t that be unfair because, arguably, it could sink the candidacy of one of the potential nominees after the nomination was finalized? And doesn’t the fact that they “all” know something’s there but can’t say affect their campaign coverage in a subterranean, subconscious way that their readers are excluded from?
I just don’t know the answer. I’m glad in a situation like this, if there is in fact truth to it, that I wouldn’t have to be the “decider”. I wouldn’t want to be in a position of having to make that choice. But it’s a choice that may well decide a crucial turning point in history. Or maybe not: Maybe voters will decide they don’t think it’s important, however juicy. But should it be their choice or the choice of the media elites? It illustrates the fact that there are still two cultures at war within our political culture, insiders and outsiders. As a relative outsider I have to admit I was shocked not just by this but by several other things “everyone” down there knows.
There seem to be two conflicting imperatives here. The new media, Web 2.0 anti-elitist preference for transparency and immediacy and the traditional elitist preference for reflection, judgment and standards—their reflection, their small-group judgment and standards. Their civic duty to “protect” us from knowing too much.
I feel a little uneasy reporting this. No matter how well “nailed” they think they have it, it may turn out to be untrue. What I’m really reporting on is the unreported persistence of a schism between the DC media elites and their inside knowlede and the public that is kept in the dark. For their own good? Maybe they’d dismiss it as irrelevant, but shouldn’t they know?
I don’t know.
“I’d always taken it that Bill Clinton liked to watch two women engaged in sex.”
I pray to God that Hillary has never been one of those women!
I have listened to Glen Beck too much.
I am Iraned out.
I good scandal would be nice!
I am Iraned out.
A good scandal would be nice!
Yep, that’s the one. So, it seems that the slimeball named Flynt is talking about Senator McConnell.
Flynt is such a pig. I wish someone would forcefeed him to the jihadists. Get a two-fer that way.
I never understood Flynt. He's a fat rich white guy who likes to smoke cigars and publish dirty magazines. Is he unaware that Hillary and her liberal feminist buddies are doing their best to forbid everything he enjoys doing?
Let’s see..an ethical dilemma for the LA Times...what could it be?
1. The only real ethical dilemma would be if it were actually something damaging to Hillary, and they were trying to figure out what South American prison they would wind up in if the information actually got out.
2. If the information were damaging to Osama Obama or some other Democrat, the dilemma would be how to sure that it did not look like it somehow came from Hillary.
3. If the information were damaging to a Republican, the dilemma would be how to time the release to inflict the most damage.
Remember W’s first election? They waited until just a few days before the polls to release the story about his DWI that had happened 20 or 30 years previous. It was deliberately timed to effect the outcome of the election.
...unless she is having an affair with BOTH of them. Think open marriage...threeway...
Now THAT would be juicy by journalistic standards, and they would be worried about the public getting a hold of that. Most democrats I know would even be repulsed by that.
(I think I read too many Jackie Collins novels in my 20s. LOL)
I think it is a democrat, though, because of the question of “relevancy”. That would NOT be a question if it were a republican.
Don’t worry about it. If everyone knows about it that means Drudge does too. In all likelihood it also means it is not a Republican.
Nonsense.
This whole thing is a trick, designed to get Freepers and Bloggers discussing a non-issue while the debates go on.
I have figured it out!
Follow me here, the MSM has been harping about how Obama says he is going to get tough with Hillary. Yet he never does.
They want him to take her out so they don’t have too.
He wants the media to take her out so he doesn’t have to!
Solved by Inspector JRochelle!
There’s absolutely no correlation between the media and ethics! The MSM has no ethics; they’re self-serving traitors and cowards along with their allies the Liberal/Marxist in the US Congress, IMO.
Wow, I could not have imagined that twist. But you make it sound plausible, in a ‘pawsy’ sort of way. Mercy, the clintons are degenerate, and Dem voters love them for it. That is the sad part for this nation. On a less serious note, the scandal is not a Pubby because it would have been more widely whispered in the open press this far in advance of the general election. I guess Obama to be the culprit. In what manifestation I wouldn’t guess, but the reason it has been lingering without press is because Barack is not a serious threat to her lowness, the Rodham-rodent.
If it is true that there is a thin line between love and hate—and if love is blind—it would follow that hate would be blind as well.
The man obviously can’t see through his hatred.
“Media Ethics”
...a contradiction in terms.
...breakdancing to "Copacabana."
There have been conflicting rumors about her nationality. As far as i can tell, the leading one is: Age 32. Father Indian, mother Pakistani, both professors. Born in the US (Kalamazoo, Michigan), lived in Saudi from the age of 2 until she returned to the US to go to college.(GWU).
Actually, I think YOU are right. I was going on my memory which at my age is..ahem..patchy.
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