North Carolina Paper Covers the John Edwards Allegations -- Carefully

By Clint Hendler, Columbia Journalism Review. Posted August 7, 2008.

For the Charlotte Observer, it began in October, when the National Enquirer published an article suggesting that presidential candidate--and former North Carolina senator--John Edwards was having an affair.

The Enquirer's story purported to quote crush emails the woman-in-question, Rielle Hunter, had sent to friends. But otherwise the piece was thin. And the tabloid, while enjoying a quiet reputation for being libel-proof, doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the hearts of editors and readers.

Still, the McClatchy-owned Observer, the largest paper in Edwards's home state, sent Lisa Zagaroli, its Washington reporter, up to New York to make contacts and check around.

"I looked at it as a news tip," says Rick Thames, the Observer's editor. "I wasn't put off by it being in the National Enquirer. I was worried it if it was true."

Thames felt Zagaroli was making progress. But then Andrew Young, an Edwards campaign aide, stepped forward to claim that he, not his boss, had impregnated Hunter. In Thames eyes, "the story cooled."

But on July 22nd, the National Enquirer published a luridly written tale asserting that Edwards had joined Hunter and her now some-months-old baby behind closed doors in the Beverly Hills Hilton. After said meeting, the Enquirer reporters wrote that Edwards led them on a Keystone Kops style chase through the stairways, basements, and bathrooms of the hotel.

That ratcheted things up in North Carolina. On July 24, Jim Morrill, a veteran political reporter at the paper, posted an item on his blog linking the Enquirer's account. Morrill called the Hilton to confirm, as best he could, the substance of the story. But they weren't talking. Neither were his Edwards contacts.

So the paper asked some high profile political types how the rumor might affect Edwards's chances of being named as Obama's vice presidential nominee. The verdict was clear -- even in the absence of non-Enquirer proof, this would be damaging, especially if Edwards wouldn't step forward to deny it.

Even though it was a mere blog post, and even though the framing did not presume the truth of the Enquirer's account -- something Morrill says the paper was keen to avoid--the item was noteworthy as one of the first mentions from the traditional press of the scandal-in-waiting. Meanwhile, the story raged online. Conservative bloggers accused the "MSM" of covering for Edwards.

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Clint Hendler is a staff writer at CJR.

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