Media, money and the John Edwards affair

Former New York Times entertainment reporter Sharon Waxman has announced that her new site, the Wrap News, will launch in January 2009. The first press release called it a "news and information network covering the entertainment and media industries." When she was on the Hollywood beat, Waxman was known as a big (and sometimes controversial) presence. She's been maintaining her own site at Waxword.com for a while now, and it's been low-key and mostly Hollywood-centric.

But she posted an interesting contribution to the John Edwards affair story on Wednesday. Waxman points out that the reason the mainstream media has not been able to "beat" the National Enquirer is not just that chasing information on politicians' extramarital affairs is grubby and down-market. It's also that, even when they do investigate this kind of hushed-up story, traditional organizations come up short because they don't pay sources to talk to them, while the Enquirer has no problem doing just that.

Waxman has been on MSNBC discussing her angle and added another post on the media's involvement with the story Thursday, with more on money, business dealings and the tabloids. She links back to a 2004 piece that looked into how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's partnership with American Media earned him a pass from the tabloids.

Mainstream newspapers may not be willing to pay sources, but they do still have to live in the material world. As of this afternoon, when you Google John Edwards, both the New York Times and Fox news have paid search ads linking back to their coverage.

--Maria Russo

Comments

[RD]

How convenient...they don't publish scandal because it is beneath them and they also won't pay for it. Then how come I know without reading the NE who is leaving whom, who (among the movies stars is having an affair and who is in court and yada,yada,yada? The truth is that
the MSM get their news from obnoxious paprazzi and hired (by public relations firms) public relations representatives and they publish it without reserve. They just hold themselves a little bit better and "holier than thou".

[Robert Lewis]

Andrew Young the admitted father of the John Edwards story: The arrests for worthless checks, DWI, burglary, criminal mischief, the federal tax lien

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