Enquiring minds want to know

It's simply amazing to watch the major media outlets scramble to explain why they ignored a story finally broken by, of all publications, the National Enquirer:

The whispered allegations about John Edwards were an open secret that was debated in every newsroom and reported by almost none.

The story of Edwards's affair with a former campaign aide became so widely known -- what a Slate blogger called "undernews" -- that by last week there seemed little point in the mainstream media gatekeepers' keeping it isolated outside their moat. And yet, even as some national news organizations tried halfheartedly to confirm the tawdry tale, they ignored it in public...

When critics, especially on the right, accused the media of protecting a Democrat because of liberal bias, journalists were unable to respond, because to do so would be to acknowledge the very thing they were declining to report. At the same time, in an area of financial cutbacks and shrinking staffs, news organizations have fewer reporters to dig into what most considered a less-than-pressing priority.

That's a poor attempt at an apologetic. First of all, does anyone doubt this would have been a more "pressing story" had the subject been a Republican, particularly of the American sovereignty and limited government stripe? The double standard in such cases is literally breathtaking, as noted often by Glenn Reynolds in his periodic "Name that party" media reporting games.

Which leads to Kurtz's other thought. WHY are media organizations suffering "financial cutbacks and shrinking staffs?" Because their subscriber base is plummeting. Sure, to some extent it's American apathy about the world around us. But largely, it's because those who DO care find they are ill-served by a media establishment more interested in playing agenda-setter than reporting information that allows others to make decisions for themselves. (Insert pox on both CNN and FOX here.)

We keep hearing illegal immigrants are only doing the "jobs Americans won't do." I guess it now falls to the National Enquirer, of all sources, to balance the reporting the major outlets won't balance. If their credibility is now that low, in an internet age where information from primary sources is a click away to those who care enough to look, then we've only begun to see the death throes of the corporate press.

Good riddance.