The National Enquirer and the future of journalism

When the story broke last week that Sen. John Edwards admitted an affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, the effects were more far-reaching than just his own political career. This case study proved once and for all that traditional media had lost their hold over other forms of media.

From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it -- reporting that turns out to be largely correct -- and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion.

There was a time when tabloids could run stories about illegitimate children, naughty affairs, etc. and we would all just giggle and flip through them while waiting at a grocery checkout counter. But what happens when they report the news that a biased media is unwilling to report? I have speculated that in an age where blossoming reporters don't want to simply report, they want to opine, we're returning to the pre-penny press days where media was largely funded by political parties. To get the truth you had to read several newspapers. Are we looking at a future age where people will need to read a New York Post, New York Daily News...and the National Enquirer?

You know it's bad when only the tabloid paper is willing to look pass their own bias to report on something worthy of report.
I rarely find myself siding with Bill O'Reilly, but I think he had a legitimate point when he said last Monday: "I do know it were Mitt Romney instead of John Edwards, this would be on the front page of the New York Times."

Howard Kurtz, at the Washington Post, disagrees with me:

I don't think the party favoritism charge holds up. Yes, the media went hard after two Republican senators, Larry Craig (who pleaded guilty in that bathroom incident) and David Vitter (who admitted calling an escort service). But they also pounced on New York's Democratic then-governor, Eliot Spitzer (whose taste in prostitutes was revealed by the New York Times), and, famously, Bill Clinton (whose Monica Lewinsky mess was disclosed by The Post and hotly pursued by Newsweek).

The Elizabeth Edwards factor cannot be underestimated. The enormous public sympathy for a woman who campaigned for her husband, even as she battled an incurable form of cancer, extended to many of the reporters who followed and interviewed her on the trail. The emotional high point of the Edwards campaign came last year, when he and Elizabeth held a news conference to announce that her cancer had returned, but that he would not leave the race.

But as Tim Rutten at the Los Angeles Times noted, there were reasons to look past our sympathy for Elizabeth Edwards:

First, it was less than unlikely that Elizabeth Edwards was unaware of the allegations. (She says now she knew of the affair in 2006.) Second, Edwards' name has surfaced as a possible running mate for Barack Obama and as a possible attorney general or Supreme Court nominee -- posts in which character and candor matter. Finally, throughout his political career, Edwards has made his marriage a centerpiece of his campaigns.

Rutten goes on to describe Edwards' campaign reporters as "sheep...who meekly accepted Edwards' categorical dismissal of the Enquirer's allegations." There I disagree with Rutten. Several sources have told me they knew about the story but were disuaded by editors. It's easy to forget that reporters are people too. They have bills to pay, mouths to feed and bosses to answer to if they want to do the manage the first two.

Question raised: Does this place America in a position where the only news source willing to go after a sensitive story is the organization that usually handles Britney Spear's latest outburst of crazy?