Jack Lessenberry on Edwards' coverage: Should print media be uptight nerds or sloppy whores?
Maybe uptight whores?
Detroit Metro TimesJack Lessenberry | Politics and Prejudices | Sum of our parts
Sheesh. Once again, it just goes to show you that the First Iron Law of Modern Life and Journalism is this: Real life is far more bizarre than anything you could make up. For example, if you were writing this as a novel, would you even think of trying to include: Rielle Hunter, a 42-year-old who recently gave birth to a girl who Edwards says is not his, has long been said to be the inspiration for Alison Poole, the "cocaine-addled, sexually voracious" 20-year-old lead character in My Life Story, Jay McInerney's novel of 1980s excess and degradation? ...
Once you've assimilated all that, you just knew her real name had to be Lisa Druck, which, of course, it is....
...what our hypocritical, proto-Puritanical society has yet to acknowledge is that lots of people have complex sexual lives, and that few are entirely truthful about them....
Everyone in the media, and millions of other people, knew about John Edwards, whatever-her-name-now-is and the alleged love child more than two weeks ago.
They knew, because the National Enquirer reported it, and it was all over the Internet. Nevertheless, the "mainstream media" ignored it. They didn't know what to do. ...
Richard Berke, an assistant managing editor for the world's most important newspaper, The New York Times, was quoted by that paper's ombudsman: "We run the risk of looking like we are totally out of it. Or we're just like the rest of them — we have no standards."
.... It is clearly time to stop reporting about candidates' sex lives.
