Spitzer v. Fallon: Tales of a Prostituted Press

"The revelation of Mr. Spitzer's involvement with the high-end prostitution ring gripped the nation, and more than 70 reporters and photographers clustered outside the governor's Upper East Side high-rise, separated from the building by a metal barricade erected by the police" ("Spitzer Wrestles over Response," NYT)

Let me begin with a confession. I have for a number of years been involved with the Giant Supermarket near my home. I have also been involved with a barber near my home and I am currently involved with a dentist, an internist and an ophthalmologist. My involvement with these purveyors of services is on-going an unrepentant. I have needs--for groceries, grooming, dental work, periodic medical exams and eye-glasses--and they will be met.

Apparently, Eliot Spitzer has other, and perhaps less savory, perceived needs that have involved him in a "high-end prostitution ring" (even the puns I can't think of are intended!). Mr. Spitzer has now resigned from his office as Governor of New York; perhaps he should go into rehab. These things happen, but what irks me most is that Spitzer's peccadillo pushed the real news right off the front page:

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Wednesday rejected charges that it quashes dissenting views in the military, an accusation brought to light by the resignation of Navy Adm. William J. Fallon as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East" ("White House Denies Friction with Fallon" )

The top military commander in a theater in which two controversial wars are underway leaves office because he either cannot in good conscience pursue his commander's objectives, or because his commander feels his subordinate is not perceived to be sufficiently loyal to him. I'd like to know which.

This sort of thing does not happen very often: certainly not with anything like the frequency with which our alpha male politicians put peter before probity. So why does our fourth estate drop the one story to pursue the other, even while acknowledging, as the Times does, that the media frenzy--the more than 70 reporters and photographers clustered outside the governor's Upper East Side high-rise, while three helicopters whirled overhead--is the story? This is not to say that the fall of the Governor of New York is not news. The man set himself up for a fall and he fell. The number of press helicopters circling like buzzards over his home, however, ought not to be news, because they ought not to be there to be reported on by their colleagues on the ground below who apparently have nothing to report other than the fact that they are there.

The op-ed page of this morning's The New York Times featured the expected column by Maureen Dowd, ruminating on the high price of Spitzer's "high end" hookers, an article seizing the Spitzer scandal as a moment to remind us that prostitutes are always victims, and, my personal favorite, an essay by Dina Matos McGreevey, recalling her own Governor-hubby-in-a-sex-scandal moment, and suggesting (ironically, given the venue) that the media leave the innocent wives in these situations alone. Explaining those helicopters whirling over the house to the children is bad enough, but imagine having the kids read about how you had to explain them in the very media that sent them to besiege you!

Alongside this detritus not one inch of precious editorial space could be found to raise questions about the resignation of Admiral Fallon. I've generally followed the rule that three needlessly emphatic official denials equal an affirmation. The Associated Press reported this morning that Defense Secretary Robert Gates "dismissed as 'ridiculous' any notion that Fallon's departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran." That's one. Will we miss the next two because Eliot Spitzer paid for sex?

Perhaps in the next few days, our national reporters will recall Sy Hersh's article. "Last Stand" in the July 10th 2006 New Yorker and ask some questions.

If they haven't forgotten Fallon by the time they overcome a preoccupation with whores, which one supposes is, for them, a kind of narcissism.

Comments

[PacificGatePost]

This is about our own bewilderment. It is almost as if Spitzer meticulously planned, scripted, then executed his own destruction.

He originally set in place the mechanisms intended to uncover exactly the kind of deceit he perpetrated, and is now apologizing for....

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/sex-trumps-presidential-race-coverage.html

[LucyC]

So well put. These are what I call "Cheney Lurking in the Rose Garden" moments. We are easily distracted. Yesterday Fallon. Today, at the eleventh hour, another blow to our environment. Always while our attention is elsewhere. It's a "strategery" that makes the next nine months so very dangerous to us all. Thanks for articulating this so well. I'm relieved that there are other people who see this clearly. I think.

[RhondaSTL]

Thanks for the excellent post. I get so discouraged by the coverage of lascivious shallow stories, discouraged by the media and mostly by the audience to whom they cater. Apparently the attention span of the general public, and therefore of the media, for the war in Iraq has reached its end. According to a recent poll by Pew Research Center for the People and the Press almost half of those surveyed believed the death toll for the war was 3,000 or fewer. Only 28% knew it was almost 4,000. Less coverage means less knowledge by the general public, yet we're not going to get more coverage if that's not what the public is interested in. Just look at the top stories listed on the front page here on Huffington Post - all Spitzer/Call Girl and the "who is this" in the nasty bathing suit.

[wayoutleft]

fallon, mccain, dead troops, a trillion dollars, zones, sunnis, teerists, and what have you no longer matter. it's just fascist monkey business. no one - least of all some candidate for something- will do anything about it. they're just part of it all anyway. do you think before iran or pakistan is attacked there's going to be some congressional "debate" (lol) where everyone will discuss and follow along with the help of an impassioned, involved press? is that what you think? why? i certainly don't recall any parallels in lewis carroll...

[research]

The MSM is owned by the war crime profiteers.

illegal wire taps were probably used to get Spitzer since he has been a major thorn in the corporatist side. My conservative acquaintances have never had a kind word for him. In this sense, the Spitzer story IS big news. The People have lost a champion against the robber Barons.

The DOJ has been infiltrated to the point where it is now an wholly owned arm of the GOP.

I am sorry to see Spitzer go, I wish he had been able to control his appetites.

Meanwhile BushCo moves one step closer to more war crimes with Iran.

[Liberal2]

Your point is correct. However....look at the HufPost writers, how many have posted about Fallon versus Spitzer, Fallon versus Ferraro, Fallon versus whatever Clinton said, Fallon versus Obama's response, Fallon versus who will win the next primary????? Has any Huffpost blogger written an indepth analysis and comparison of Obama's and Clinton's platform positions?

[jdm58]

It is of little wonder that this Bush/Cheney Presidency has been able to get away with as much as it has. Every time something of significance happens, that we need to take stock of as a country, our attention gets diverted to Anna Nicole, Britney, the weather, sports, whathaveyou. I was amazed that ABC devoted TWO nights to argument over whether Mary Poppins lied, with all that is going on at home and abroad, THIS was all they could cover? CBS doesn't even try to cover up the cover-ups- when 60 Minutes aired a story that might be embarrassing to some in Bushland, they just have a black-out in the areas where it would be most damaging, and then call it a mal-function. This is beginning to feel like a scene from "V for Vendetta", where the leader orders the newsmedia to show footage of riots outside London, to cover for the fact that they no longer had control inside London. Fallon falls? Let's attack Ferraro and Spitzer! Footage at 10!

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Huzzah.

No amount of indulging in hookers by Spitzer is as big a threat to this nation as the resignation of Admiral Fallon.

The salacious appetites of the press and the public just compound the dichotomy.

[batgirlevi]

I am tired of spitzer and his bad behavior. Enough!

The resignation of Admiral Fallon is infinitely more important and deserves to be top news!

HuffPo has no class anymore and is part of the problem.

[moderationsmuse]

How do we get the media to write about life? Granted that the governor's downfall is "life" too, but even in that "real" story, whatever tragic trajectory it took, the truth is not really told -- only the sensationalist version -- though in this I will not complain because I really already know more about this man than I ever wanted to know (and I only read the headlines).
Recall what it took to get the tragic story of young, murdered Chandra Levy off the front page of the Washington Post. It took an al quida hijacking of four American airliners and the subsequent destruction of the World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon and about 3,000 casualties.
What was moreover most deeply disheartening about the Chandra Levy story was how little the media seemed to care what had happened to the girl before her body was finally discovered or about the identity of her killer after it was.
The whole story was her affair with an until then little known Congressman.
What is a reader to do? I stopped reading print newspapers regularly a long time ago. So, it seems have hords of others (given the steady decrease in newspaper circulation statistics over time). Maybe the papers thought we wanted more sex and mayhem. Um, actually we wanted less. We wanted news, the kind of thing you mention.
So one finds out the news from a potpourri of sources these days, which does include newspapers online which is cheaper and just a "click" away from "switching channels." But I read them with more skepticism than ever. If this is what they think is important, or what they think I think is important, they've already made one huge blunder in judgment. So, why should I trust them to get the story of the resignation of Admiral Fallon right?
Credibility. The thing they lost when they began competing with the grocery store tabloids. I don't read Huff Po for the news, either. Oh, God no. I read the comments. And I write mine.

[argeec]

You are not really surprised are you, Marshall?
If it hadn't been the Spitzer affair, something else would have shoved the Fallon story off the front page.
The msm has been burying unfavorable stories about Israel for years now. And you can be sure Fallon's resignation is related to the Israeli desire to neutralize Iran.

[vbond]

EXCELLENT!

[Merlin7]

Well said! The media will seize upon any distraction -- especially if it involves sex and well-known public figures -- to obsess over the obvious and the trivial. Not that Spitzer's rutting isn't news, but a mention or two per hour would suffice. And I have given up expecting any semblance of professionalism in their war coverage. They merely print and air what the Pentagon tells them, often without a hint of skepticism. There are a handful of media outlets that do better, and they make the MSM look even sillier.

[batgirl71]

The media only seizes upon any distraction -- especially if it involves sex and well-know public figures-- because we watch it (or read it)! The media today is in the entertainment business, and like any other entertainment outlet cares only about their ratings. If we watch it, they'll keep playing it. If we turn off the TV and put down newspapers that lack serious coverage then they'll stop. We need to demand an independent investigative news media that doesn't release PR statements as news and can differentiate between fact and opinion.

[wolfgangmo]

Bat girl is right but not right enough. It is not enough to put down the newspaper and turn off the talking heads. I believe that when you do you also need to write the advertisers and tell them why you won't be supporting any company that supports a neutered MSM. And then don't buy any of their shit.

When sales start dropping, and not just viewership, they will pay attention. Keep in mind that the big companies can afford to pay to keep "news" on the air at a loss as long as it serves their needs. If they lose market share however, stockholders will he howling for their heads on a pike.

[radiclib]

.
Excellent post.
The Fallon ``retirement,'' whatever the backstory, is far more significant than the Spitzer resignation.
The death rate has jumped for U.S. servicemen in Iraq this week. But neither Fallon nor the military corpses make much ``news'' when there's sex in high places to gossip about. Empires rise; empires fall. The governor of the Empire State got caught paying for sex at a place named after Emperors. He may have new clothes, but the real fall of the real empire remains relatively uncovered (by the news media).
.
.