Eliot Spitzer's Prostitution Ring Story Kept New York Times Metro Desk Working Late

The New York times has just broken the news of Eliot Spitzer's involvement in the prostitution ring Emperors Club VIP. The New York Observer reports on the late night editors and reporters put in at the NYT Metro desk last night. An excerpt:

A team of New York Times metro and investigation reporters and editors have been working since yesterday afternoon to break the story of Eliot Spitzer's alleged involvement with a prostitution ring, according to a newsroom source.

According to our source, editors and reporters, led mostly by Mr. Sexton and Ms. Giordano, were shuffling in and out of conference rooms and repeatedly calling field reporters deep into the night. It was especially rare for Mr. Sexton and Ms. Giordano to be in the office on a weekend night, with Mr. Sexton only "rarely" making appearences on Sunday nights, the source said.

This memo, sent by metro editor, Peter Khoury, was just sent out as well: "Obviously, we're going to have much late news, thanks to the governor. So we really need you to file all nonrelated stories as early as possible. It's going to be a long night...."

Read the entire story, or read more on HuffPost about the Spitzer scandal:

• Spitzer Prostitution Scandal: NY Gov Admits Links To Sex Ring
• Emperors Club: All About Eliot Spitzer's Prostitution Ring
• David Paterson: New York's Next Governor?

Comments

[larry278]

WTF? The NYT is having a temporary remission of the conditions which led to the NYT's rapid spiral into the oblivion of failing newspapers which are destined to cease publication. Some would say that the NYT is again behaving like a newspaper of record. Others would say that the NYT is showing that many, if not all, of its writers have learned & mastered the tabloid style of scandal mongering. Nice try, but no cigar. The NY POST & NY DAILY NEWS still have NY's best scandal mongering writers. They will rewrite the NYT's scandal stories, add juicy, lurid details & expose all of Gov Spitzer's trysts with paid companions. The NYT's tabloid competition will relentlessly press Gov Spitzer to resign. We can be sure that the NYT will have a massive recurrence of the always fatal conditions which caused the NYT's terminal, rapid spiral into oblivion. The NYT will be remembered as another failed NY daily if Mr Murdoch has his way. The demise of the NYT isn't an iffy thing, it's a matter of when.

[KennyFox]

That damn liberal media!

[sammy333]

why "prostitution ring"? why "links with ..". What is all that nonsense?
When I read the first titles, I thought he was pimping. Have the journalists lost their ability to speak straight? Why not: "paid for sex", or "used the services of a prostitute".

[OliverTwist]

What Spitzer did was wrong but it was also stupid.

You would think that Spitzer would consider whether his phone calls and credit card transactions were being gathered up and monitored by somebody in the federal government seeing as how this is the time of federal data mining and that's what data mining is all about.

It is entirely possible that someone at the FBI or some other federal organization already knew they had a good chance of nabbing Spitzer when they went and got whatever warrant they obtained for whatever reasons they gave.

It would be interesting if news folks got some info on the reasons given for the warrant that was used to nab Spitzer.

[NicoleAnonymous]

I don't think he should resign.

[NicoleAnonymous]

Here is the best part of this story:

"Client 9 paid $4,300 in cash to the service, with some being used for the encounter and the rest apparently to be used for credit."

Can you imagine making your next appointment and telling the prostitute that "I have some credit that I want to use!"

[1849]

They report and they decide. Fox Noise, even though Spitzer has yet to decide whether to stay or go, is already attacking Lt. Gov. David Patterson. During today's broadcast ,Shepard Smith and his kneecappers started in on Patterson. Fox Noise is so foul!

[Durango]

Anything to distract the "narrative" away from an illegal war, destruction of our Constitution, the bankrupting of our country.

It's a shame they didn't investigate the bogus claims of Weapons of Mass destruction or al Qaida being in league with Saddam.

Oh no wait. those are important issues of life and death. They take backseat to a sex scandal.

Good Work New York Times

[RobertHewson]

Re: Spitzer

From today's "Head of State"
http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/03/client-9.html

"Monday, March 10, 2008
Client 9

Or, as is likely to be said in the coming media Schadenfreude, Emperor's Club R. I. P.

The question will be asked repeatedly: How could someone of such seeming moral recititude, who seemed not only to base his career on such rectitude but to be driven to it, commit such an act?

In such a question, people make a simple but understandable error--they look at the fact that someone has embraced the mantle of morality--rather than the reasons for it.

There are many reasons why people adopt a particularly moral stance. For some, morality is method of controlling an otherwise fearful world, allowing one to keep a sense of predictability and control over what would otherwise be a rush of panic in the face of life's unpredictability and chaos. For others, morality serves a kind of tribal purpose, a tie to family and origins, maintaining a sense of stability and permanence through clansmanship. For others, it is a weapon of sheer opportunism, a way, among the human weapons seen across millenia, to evince power and dominion over others.

None of these are, of course, mutually exclusive, and people will often display several of these forms and bases for morality.

For Spitzer, however, morality appears to have had a particular been powerfully yoked to twin and inextricably tied purposes: competition and ambition.

Driven from an early age, morality seems to have been inextricably yoked to Spritzers remarkable drive to indicate that he was stronger, better than his competitors. Spitzer went after morality with a relish--and a tendency, which he struggled to fight down over the years, to rub victories in the face of those he had vanquished --that suggests a drive to morality as a form of competitive victory and evidence of personal superiority--the relish of a perfect score against those who would do lesser--of winning.

This is not to say that Spitzer did not see his targets as morally wrong--indeed, their moral flaws provided the spark and impetus for battle-- nor that he did not wish to correct moral wrongs. However, it is to say that the most powerful and persistent motivation driving this each day, was Spizters drive to compete, to emerge perfectly victorious over those who were thus proven as lesser, and the division of people into rather simplistic and binary forms of good and evil to serve the sense ones own victorious perfection.

Such a moral stance--of victory and defeat, of good (Spitzer) and bad (his vanquished enemies)-- can lead to a particular (and likely rapid) form of inner moral accounting and comparison: One can feel that they are so far "ahead" in moral victories as compared to the vastly less moral and vanquished others, that they are allowed a structured, narrow, and quiet deviation. After all--they are still far ahead in the moral contest, with so many victories, as compared to those that they have turned out as far less moral. Given such a margin, one can be allowed a flaw--and still be winning. It is no wonder that many of Spitzer's enemies viewed him as, at times, embracing a double standard.

Regardless of how one may view such a standard, it is different than a morality that views moral failure as human flaw; where one recognizes that there are not good people who win (Spitzer) and bad people (others) who, in a rush of competitive self-enhancement, must be defeated, but that all people must fight against human flaw. In such a moral scheme, one includes themselves. As a reformer embracing this moral approach, one would work to expose immorality for its social harms, rather than as a route to personal and professional competition and victory--and would also recognize the tendency to such flaw within themselves.

This will burn like a brushfire. Spitzer, despite the desire to fight to the last, will, in the crush of revelations, and in the unending march of human hubris, irony, and folly, likely have to resign."

Cite:
Head of State
http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/03/client-9.html

[cobblepot]

Well, i think it's sad. All this cresting on a day when spitzeris about to speak at a conference about his bill to protect doctors who provide safe, legal abortions. Yes, he has prosecuted other sex rings, it is hypocrisy. How many sex -addicted politicians exist, anyway? Perhaps it's part of the power paradigm, but too many men (we don't know how many women) in government act out sexually. There are twelve-step programs for sex addicts; maybe washington should initiate some chapters.

[danceswithyids]

I always thought he was against the free market.
I just had no idea he was actually up against it.

[sebocd]

Didn't he pimp I mean pledge for Hillary? Good thing he has the Clintons on his side
. Hillary got the call from Spitzer at 3a.m. "Don't worry" Hillary told him, "I'll get you through this. Don't forget I have more experience in these kind of things than John McCain and Barack Obama put together. I'm vetted and besides I need that pledge ypu promised. Now, did you say "The Emperor"s Club"? Good. I'll tell Bill we've got another good lead for him . Sorry Eliot, I have a call waiting with an Iranian exchage number, gotta go""

[jessiep]

I hope he ends up in jail with all the other "thugs" he busted.

[darker]

Yikes. Who cares?
Why is the FBI, CIA looking into everybody's UNDERPANTS and UP THEIR SKIRTS??

Get those gov't agencies the hell OUT OF THERE!

They make our "terrorism" effort is BIG BOGUS BULLSH*T, if they're so busy looking for madams and johns. YIKES.

Why are taxpayers paying for GARBAGE INVESTIGATIONS like this one?

[gfm975]

Check the Gov's political status... surely he's a Republican... no wait, it isn't gay sex, never mind.

[SameOldSameOld]

Hilarious.