Schwarzenegger mistress not named here, a rarity in media

Usually news outlets are noticeable for what they report. Less often, they stand out for what they don't.

That has been the case this week as the Los Angeles Times has held back the name of the child that former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered with a woman who worked for years in his Brentwood home.

Times political reporter Mark Z. Barabak broke the big story (along with reporter Victoria Kim) at about midnight Monday on this website. It appeared in Tuesday's print edition of the paper, setting off a furor that has swept across other newspapers, television, radio and the Internet. Virtually every news organization I could find has named the one-time Schwarzenegger employee and provided other details about the politician-movie star's secret child.

The Times has not only declined to name the woman, but is also not disclosing the name, age or sex of her child.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Times Editor Russ Stanton gave me a statement explaining why the Times didn't publish the name.

"The public has a legitimate interest in the behavior of someone who held high office in this state and is likely to remain prominent for a long time," Stanton said. "Schwarzenegger’s conduct is what was newsworthy.

"In some circumstances, it might be necessary or appropriate to reveal the identity of a politician’s mistress," he continued. "In this situation, we thought it was not. We hewed to the principle of protecting the identity of an innocent child.

"To have identified the mother would, in effect, have been to identify the child. Different media companies have different standards. We will stick by ours, regardless of what others do."

By 3:45 a.m. Tuesday morning, the celebrity website TMZ was on the story. Later in the day, it identified the mistress and began running pictures of the child, with the face obscured. From pictures Wednesday of television news crews swarming around the woman's home in Bakersfield, it was clear the Times' position was not shared by a lot of others.

ABC flashed a picture of the woman on the morning news. TMZ had a veritable album of photos, including one in which the young child's face could be seen. The New York Times named the woman, described the "quiet cul-de-sac" where she lives and provided other details of her life, though the paper did not name her child.

(An Associated Press account I read also did not give the woman's name, although it described the media mob scene around her home and interviewed neighbors--and named the family dog.)

New York Times Editor Bill Keller emailed his thoughts on identifying the mistress. "Our basic job is to inform readers about news events, so we need a pretty compelling reason NOT to give readers information we think they care about," Keller wrote, in part. "We're sensitive to privacy issues, but in this case we don't see that compelling reason to keep our readers in the dark."

Keller added: "Often — as in the Schwarzenegger case — we withhold the names of children, because they are particularly vulnerable....

"The employee who had Schwarzenegger's child is a more complicated question. We don't know enough about the circumstances to know whether, or in what degree, she was a victim, beyond the obvious fact that there was a serious imbalance of power in the relationship.

"But there's nothing to suggest that reliving the earlier experience is likely to be traumatizing in the sense rape victims describe (she's lived with it — and worked for him -- for 10 or 15 years). And the reality is, there is not much privacy left for us to protect."

Even the smarmier corners of the Web seemed to be withholding the child's name. Though that did not mean it couldn't be found.

A news assignment manager at television's NBC4 in Los Angeles issued a Twitter message Wednesday listing the name and purported age. It appears that the NBC employee, David Reese, got the age wrong.

When I asked him if he would put the information about the child on the air, the response suggested Reese had suffered an instance of Itchy-Twitterfinger Syndrome.

His Twitter message to me about the use of the child's name: "We're not putting it out at all ... I should not have tweeted it."

They talk about the Fog of War. There's also something like the Fog of Celebrity. In the rush to get some part of the story of the moment, proportion and judgment can fly out the window.

--James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has admitted that he had an affair with a former household employee, an affair that produced a child. The L.A. Times, which broke the story, has not identified the child but many other news outlets have. Credit: Matt Sayles/ Associated Press

 

 

Comments

[Fran]

This is America. Arnold will move forward and be adored by countless women. His mistress will submit to a Make Over in 60 Days on prime time television and come forth looking beautiful and make lots of money. Don't you just love it!

[T jones]

Keller from the New York Times is a jerk! Does no one care about the privacy of her son??? By putting his Mothers name and picture in the Press certainly identifies the child and this is totally wrong. I bet if that was his son he would not feel the same way about publishing the name.

[John Bielinski]

I am sure you are selling a lot of papers.

You should be very proud of yourself. This is clearly the highest form of being a writer.

It's creative. It shows tremendous talent on your part as a writer. It's very impressive. It's original.

Ground breaking.

You are a master of journalism.

(Is my scrams too thick?)

[Njoy]

Why should this be any different than any other person of fame? I think this is as it should be, personally I think Maria is taking it very well. Arnold is no different from any other man WHO CHEATED ON HIS WIFE, And since he is a PUBLIC FIGURE, IT'S NEWS. If the President of the United States was asked (not forced by Trump) (how do you force the president to do anything? Then Arnold certainly is no exception. HE IS A CHEATER, Pure and simple. And as far as the mistress, she is a CHEATER as well.

[mazie lindsey]

anyone of you whom haven't sin, please cast the 1st stone. GOD BLESS YOU

[mazie lindsey]

lady. go get your husband , because there is no man without sin.

[E. Montaldo]

In regard Schwarzenegger Who cares for affairs of the famous. That's what makes you sell. However, you should be the first to post your own affairs! Bet you have some! You should respect the privacy of others.

[donna]

you are wrong. leave the woman alone. at no point did she seek out any kind of spotlight and she does not deserve the kind you and the rest of the exploitative media are giving her. again-leave her alone!

[Herb O'Fallon]

I think I read the name of the employee in some article just an hour or two ago. The media is known for low-handedness. An example is an article Sandy Banks, a columnist for the LA Times, wrote pretty recently called Memo to Donald Trump: You're Fired, in which she insinuated that I am prejudiced against Barack Obama because of his skin color and the fact that I don't like a black man in the Presidency. She wrote it because I criticized her in an e-mail the previous week about the stance she took concerning a previous article in which she made deriding personal comments about a Republican lady in the area who sent a cartoon of Obama to Republican friends who hold positions in the local Republican party. Sometimes, reporters should be sued in the courts. It might teach them a lesson.