LAST CALL
Shiflett, Dave
The EnquirerWay BY DAVE SHIFLETT The National Enquirer has pushed its way to the front of the journalistic pack, and those eating its dust are not happy. It is no fun for professional journalists,...
...They certainly aren't pretending to be neutral observers...
...Many (if not most) Americans were hardly shocked that a middle-aged philanderer married to a wife whose blood is one-half liquid nitrogen would agree to a servicing contract from a willing and warm 22-year-old...
...No This was indeed the Full Monty...
...But these victories have more than money behind them...
...Rodhams fee of $400,000, which many if not most Enquirer readers would have to work 20 years to match, provided a stark reminder of the power money has over those who supposedly represent the readers' interests...
...That may be a scandal, but not on the Enquirers part...
...Mainstream journalists affect the stance of the outsider, all the while straining to be in with the in-crowd.The Enquirer really is an outsider publication...
...Here we had Rodham and Clinton—a couple of grubworms operating at the top of the political game—sitting in the White House committing unspeakable sins against the public: freeing criminals who had been in the business of selling crack cocaine to children and fake cancer cures to desperate adults...
...One suspects, however, that it won't be quite enough to purchase a Pulitzer...
...Distance sharpens the vision of the Enquirers editors, and provides them with a different sense of what comprises a legitimate news story...
...Who knows how much the Enquirer might have paid for these stories...
...It may be even less so...
...The WWN, to be sure, is a great publication...
...The chief complaint is that the Enquirer sometimes pays for information...
...At least the Enquirers informants aren't trying to spin anyone...
...And so despite a definite shortage of Pulitzer-winning investigative reporters, the Enquirer not only exposed the Reverend Spunk, it came up with what is perhaps the most damning story of the entire Clinton experience—the Rodham/Clinton jailbreak...
...one can accuse them of operating a protection racket for media favorites...
...they pay for stories, make up stories, and they appeal to the lowest common denominator...
...They are also paid regularly for their insights and opinions—a type of information—sometimes in cash, other times in the coin of exposure...
...They're often providing the sort of information about secret bank deposits, etc., that nail the likes of Jackson and Rodham...
...As the usurers at the credit card companies like to say, the information was priceless...
...The understanding among the pros is that these guys aren't the real item...
...Besides that, the Enquirer has an immense circulation...
...They reflect a philosophical difference between the Enquirer and its mainstream competitors...
...They also understood that to lie about the arrangement is hardly a big story...
...V 98 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ April 2001...
...A journalist's self-interest is no cleaner than the kind that leads people to tell the Enquirer about secret bank deposits, etc...
...This week's issue reports "Adam's Body Found in Noah's Ark," among other developments, such as "Loch Ness Monster Captured...
...But the Hugh Rodham story provided a ghastly view of political corruption...
...It is no fun for professional journalists, as the term is understood, to be scooped by "supermarket literature" like LAST CALL the Enquirer...
...Its editors and writers are not on the A-list for Georgetown dinner parties attended by political and media magnates...
...Those of a fair turn of mind recognize that the Enquirer has some important lessons to teach its journalistic cousins— including the virtue of being first to report stories of national importance, such as Jesse Jackson's love child and Hugh Rodhams work for Felony, Inc...
...in similar circumstances, they'd do the same thing...
...Indeed, the fact that the Enquirer broke these stories is an argument for, not against, its way of gathering information...
...While it is an article of faith among main-streamers that paying for stories is very bad, that rule doesn't necessarily apply if those on the receiving end happen to be journalists themselves...
...They get paid big bucks by the book publishing world to give their spin of events...
...Any time you see one journalist interviewing another (a hideously common occurrence) you are seeing a payment in kind, one that results in higher speaking fees and greater professional demand...
...But the attempt to establish guilt by association cannot conceal the Enquirer's real sin: ignoring mainstream rules, and sometimes winning big...
...One suspects however, that it won't be quite enough to purchase a Pulitzer...
...First off, however, it may be necessary to point out that the Enquirer is not your ordinary supermarket mag, such as the Weekly World News...
...Who knows how much the Enquirer might have paid for these stories...
Vol. 34 • April 2001 • No. 3
