How to Report a Sex Scandal
Two thing make teaching media ethics especially fun and interesting:
1. The media always provide fresh ethical problems (scandals) to study.
2. These ethical problems are always messy, i.e. far more complicated than hypothetical case studies.
Media-driven sex scandals involving politicians seem to me to be mostly an American phenomenon (please correct me with examples if I’m mistaken). We’re just uptight about sex.
Take the famous Clinton (non)blowjob (and the ruining of a perfectly good cigar) for example: I imagine many Europeans wondered what the big deal was. For Americans, the problem began with sex and veered into lying because, well, we’re uptight about sex so we lie about it. Imagine if Clinton had answered: “Well duh! Of course I had sex with that woman!”
The media creates sex scandals by covering them. But not all sex scandals are created equal. Despite the Clinton-Lewinsky affair being tawdry and silly, it did involve the President of the United States, the Oval Office, and a cigar. Damned near anything a president does is news. So that one deserved coverage (whether he lied or not).
But what about McCain’s spring scandal? Well, he got hosed. Reason: He’s not the president yet, and The New York Times ran with “supposed sex” rather than real sex. Sex should be like any other reportable phenomenon: Ya gots to prove it through the reporting of facts.
Now we come to John Edwards. This time the reporting of sex is wrapped up in a journalistic nightmare called tabloid journalism (see? I told you the real problems of media ethics are messy). Clark Hoyt covered the tabloid problem in The New York Times in Sunday.
Real journalists (there’s my (difficult to defend) elitism showing) should never follow the lead of the National Enquirer. But the Enquirer does get it right sometimes. It doesn’t matter what (kind of) news organization first breaks a story. Every other news organization must do its own reporting and verifying.
The Edwards scandal, in my estimation, rises to the level of news, despite its origins, because, as the Daily News put it:
John Edwards, a onetime Democratic golden boy, confessed Friday he cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, then lied to cover up his infidelity while running for President.
I don’t think sex is such a big deal most of the time. I don’t think infidelity marks one as unfit to serve. But while ruining a good cigar simply makes you a cad, the name for a guy who cheats on his cancer-stricken wife and then thinks he can hide it while running for president is, well, ________. I say that as guy who was an Edward’s supporter until he crapped out of the nomination race.
Edwards may have redeemed himself a bit if his assertion is true that he told his wife about the affair in 2006. American’s have a great capacity to forgive their masters of the universe for being weak in the flesh.
For more on the coverage of this scandal, see the CJR Daily Campaign Desk.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
I don’t think news about celebrity and politician sex lives demonstrates Americans are uptight about sex; anymore than news about celebrity and politician haircuts demonstrates American are uptight about that.
In the custodian of fact area, Nature of President Clinton’s Relationship with Monica Lewinsky:
Sex scandals around the world.
The media and Edwards’ lies
Seems to me that national lore would imply the public was more uptight about sex decades ago than today.
Tim re: uptight
The press does not equal the public.
I asked for links because I knew I was stepping out on a thin limb. So thanks for posting some.
Tim… One other thing: By “(non)blowjob” I did not intend to indicate that he didn’t get one (or more). What I intended was to indicate that, from the descriptions I read at the time, they weren’t very good
Andy, as you know, I’m a hard core conservative and while I do not support the Republicans I’m not a supporter in any way of the Democrats. That said, I really hope this is not the end of Edwards’ political career.
Sure, the guy really screwed things up and he needs to mend with his family as best he can before going forward in politics again but I’m tired of one mistake like this ending people’s careers.
Don’t get me wrong…short of him running against Ann Coulter I’d never vote for the guy…but I’d rather see a politician up there who’s screwed up, owned it and redeemed himself versus some guy showing an impression of perfection with more skeletons in his closet than Ed Gein.
Jason… I’m with you on that–although I would vote for him given the opportunity
I’m disappointed. A sex scandal is about the last thing I expected from him.
Andy … Well, I guess at least one of them was good enough to ruin a perfectly good dress
You may want to revisit this: Thank you, Bill Clinton…
Tim… Do you have my entire site cataloged and cross-referenced?
Yep, it’s called the total information awareness system (aka Google)
Tim…