National Enquirer Vindicated — And Validated — By MSM Embrace Of Edwards Scoop

For most of the 10 months since allegations of former Sen. John Edwards's extramarital affair appeared in the National Enquirer, the story was marginalized, partly because much of the media has a dismissive attitude toward the publication that broke it.

They ignored the story at their peril, forgetting that amid the unflattering celebrity photos and overblown headlines, the Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid owned by publisher American Media Inc. has a track record of scoops, including some about politics. And this time it found an unlikely ally: a group of Internet voices driven less by political ideology than by a view of the mainstream press as out of touch.

The Enquirer, which has been reporting the story for nearly a year and which first published it last October, was vindicated Friday when Mr. Edwards admitted to the affair to Walt Disney Co.'s ABC News. (Mr. Edwards has denied other elements of the Enquirer's reports, including that he is the father of the woman's child.) News of the former Democratic senator's admission subsequently was splashed across most major newspapers. It was the first time many of those publications, including The Wall Street Journal, had weighed in on the topic.

Not so in the blogosphere, where a stable of voices on sites such as Washington Post Co.'s Slate, Huffington Post and Drudge Report had recognized the possibility that the story might be true and questioned the old guard's inaction. Unlike previous scandals fueled by partisan politics, this one blurred political lines. It was the left-leaning Huffington Post that began investigating the relationship between Mr. Edwards and the woman, Rielle Hunter, around the time the first Enquirer story was published last year.

"New media really helped keep this story alive," the Enquirer's Editor in Chief David Perel said. He added that the online voices that propagated the story aren't as willing to dismiss the Enquirer's story as "tabloid trash," as Mr. Edwards is.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[noamjunior]

too bad the US media is so biased towards the right they are afraid of THIS enquirer
story
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/63426

[Topfeeder]

Check out these photos of a drunk looking Bush at the Olympics!

http://gawker.com/5035885/bush-looking-drunk-at-the-olympics

[bujeeboo]

DAVID CARR, MEDIA COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES" in an interview on CNN Reliable Sources:
I do think that organizations like yours, like mine, tend to pick up stories from "The National Enquirer" with tongs, just because they have been very right about some things -- O.J. they got right, Jesse Jackson's child they got right. But there's been some misses, too, so it's a little scary to follow on those stories, and it's also a little scary for big outfits to step up on a story like this.

[TexasDem0]

It's hysterically easy to pick out the NE fans here.

[brocko]

Now if they would only take the Larry Sinclair story seriously.

[Michale32086]

Maybe there is a reason they don't....

Michale.....

[nanton29]

Rupert Murdoch must be eating his heart out now that the NE has beaten his new WSJ to that salacious piece of news.

[mamacat]

What are the chances that the National Enquirer is now going to try to become a news journal instead of a gossip rag?

[gorideabike]

The news has been cancelled for some time. Entertainment gets them ratings just as well and a few blondies are much cheaper than an actual news staff. The National Enquirer can easily pass for news today.
Sigh,

[genseric13]

Yeah the msm, as usual carrying water for the Dem Party, tried to cover it up. In America, the truth always comes out.

[AdultFilmLegend]

Give me a break.

The National Enquirer did 99% of the work and Drudge kept in on the front page while no one else would touch....including Huffington Post. It seems like HuffPo is trying to take some credit for breaking this story but they didn't do much at all until Friday night, when even Manderson Cooper was forced to talk about it.

[Mort]

Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.

[Michale32086]

The NE "pig" has found MANY an acorn that the MSM then lapped up and tried to claim as their own..

The John Belushi case is one that pops into my head. I am sure there are many others..

Michale.....

[ohiomark]

The National Enquirer not only exposed the fraud this is John "Breck Girl" Edwards, they exposed the so called main stream media as the hacks that they are.

If this story was about a conservative Republican, the Lib media, including hacks like Keith Olbermann would have fallen all over themselves to cite the National Enquirer as a "credible source".

[Michale32086]

Ding, Ding, Ding....

We HAVE a winner!!!!

Michale.....

[TimmySlagle]

What is strange, that it took the Enquirer, to break the story that was right in front of the press corps all along.

Just like it took Drudge to break the Monica story, that Newsweek had spiked.

The Mainstream Media doesn't really seem interested in scandals that involve Democrats (See: William Jefferson D-LA).

And they wonder why they're all going broke...

[Gasparilla]

The Enquirer is actually miles ahead of publications like the Globe. Still gossip, but they do get it right a lot of times.

[singlemalt]

Why can't the National Enquirer go after all the laws broken by the Bush Administration with the same zeal they used to after Edwards?

Edwards is no longer relevant.
Our Constitution is.

[TimmySlagle]

Actually Edwards WAS relevant (before Friday).

There was a good chance he had been promised the position of Attorney General, or worse yet, a seat on the Supreme Court. (Not really appropriate positions for an ambulance chaser like Edwards, but no one seemed to notice).

Now that he has potentially violated election law by supporting his mistress with campaign funds, and AT LEAST violated the trust of his donors; those nominations are off the table.

The Constitution and I, breath a sigh of relief.

[2351]

Anything for a story!!!!! Who cares if it ruins the lives of others. We've all become so pious. Shame on us for delighting in the misfortunes of others.

[WoodyCPM]

You're joking, right? The NE "vindicated"? Vindicated about what? A trashy, salacious story about a politicians sexual picadilloes when it doesn't have any bearing on any citizen's future or life? Except his family,which as far as we know, has been working this out among themselves? HuffPost is just as guilty of this stupid so-called "journalism" as any other miserable, gossip, crazy, lunatic rag in the search of the kind of traffic that builds ad dollars. Oh, America. A nation of hustlers.