Those who do set the allegations in context find themselves in a thorny predicament. CNN recently sent Drew Griffin to Santo Domingo to investigate the Menendez affair. After knocking on the door of a brothel, which presumably has some connection to the Menendez case—and having it shut in his face—Griffin explains that no one, including the FBI, has been able to confirm the anonymous emailer’s account:
It appeared the matter was pretty much dropped until more emails began arriving. The author, someone calling himself Peter Williams, even wrote to a CNN reporter last month… CNN responded asking Peter Williams to meet us anywhere, even here in Santo Domingo, to give us proof that any of his allegations were true. We have since sent six emails to P. Williams. The response? Silence.
It’s a striking moment of journalistic candor. Griffin is essentially telling viewers that the allegations, which had been dismissed as unfounded, were later deemed worthy of coverage—merely because they kept circulating. Never mind that the evidence was (in CNN’s words) “skimpy” or that the tipster’s MO had only grown shadier.
At another point in the segment, Griffin pointedly wonders whether the sexual allegations could be “one big slander campaign aimed at baiting a scandal-hungry press into saying or printing the name of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, teenage prostitution, and Caribbean sex parties all in one sentence.” Good question. Maybe he should have asked it before banging on a brothel door with a camera crew in tow.
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The vacuum of evidence has been noted by at least one media critic. It has been acknowledged publicly by the woman who initiated the FBI investigation. It has even been laid out in telling detail by reporters describing the allegations to their audience—and yet the accusations are only given more weight as time goes on. The episode shows how easily scandals are manufactured in the media echo chamber, especially as more partisans enter the fray.
Partisan echo chambers indeed. Your 'twisting' of whats known about Menendez's tastes for underage Dominican hookers reminds me of CJR's treatment of John Edwards a few years back:
Update: The Edwards affair allegations? False and false. Both sides say so.
While denials, of course, don’t necessarily guarantee falsity, in the absence of any real evidence, the alleged affair seems to be one to forget.
Unless, of course, you’re Mickey Kaus. The pundit drags the non-story along today by complaining about e-mails he’s received from readers—which argue that if Matt Drudge, “Arbiter of Truth,” didn’t carry the story, Kaus shouldn’t have, either. Apparently still thirsting for the juicy irony the Edwards allegations failed to provide, Kaus gets defensive by accusing Drudge of the very “low evidentiary threshhold [sic]” for journalistic veracity that Kaus himself exhibited yesterday. And he goes further than judging Drudge: after setting the bar for truth ridiculously low, Kaus today sets the bar for falsity almost impossibly high.
Makes me wonder who the real whores are.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Mon 4 Mar 2013 at 06:02 PM
This is an example of what Geraldo Rivera speaking at an Investigative Reporters and Editors meeting in Boston called "Investigative Repeating."
The readers of your article might ponder whether a story of alleged influence peddling, for his campaign contributor would make the grade as a report as "news worthy" or whether it might be simply considered "business as usual."
During the Abscam investigation another New Jersey Senator Harrison Williams was convicted on dubious evidence. This is story worth reexamining.
#2 Posted by David Reno, CJR on Wed 6 Mar 2013 at 12:18 PM