Aug. 17, 2008
(CBS) Whenyou think of great investigative journalism, sensational tabloids don'tordinarily spring right to mind. But perhaps because it does fit intothe sensational category, the John Edwards story was broken by TheNational Enquirer. Kelly Cobiella visits the tabloid … and tells all.
Celebrities caught on camera. Gossip about the famous.
It's a formula that has turned the weekly National Enquirer intothe supermarket tabloid of record for anyone who wants to know more -or see more - about the lifestyles, and downfalls, of the rich andfamous.
"People say Enquirer is sensationalistic," said editor David Perel."And I would say I hope it is sensational. When we work a story we'llprobably take the most sensational angle and put it in the headline andblast it to catch your attention."
And it does sell papers … about 1.2 million copies a week.
"What is the perfect National Enquirer story?"
Cobiella asked.
"A big news event with accompanying photograph; a major celebrity doing something that they said they weren't doing," he said.
Every day, this Florida-based gossip gatherer scours through 20,000photos, looking for the pictures that tell stories, such as pictures ofOprah. "Because she went on a diet, talked about the diet recently, andthese pics indicate it was not too successful," he said.
Bad news for someone famous is good news for the Enquirer, like actor Patrick Swayze, suffering from pancreatic cancer:
"His face looks sunken now where it did not before," Perel noted after examining one picture.
But a tabloid notorious for dishing dirt on the stars is now in thenews for uncovering the year's biggest political scandal: the JohnEdwards affair, a story the Enquirer first began reporting whileEdwards was still a presidential candidate.
Perel indicated an issue from December 2007. It was "the first timewe named Rielle Hunter as lover and revealed she was 6 months pregnantand got the exclusive photo of her," he said.
The Enquirer pursued the story for months. Then the recentrevelation of a secret Beverly Hills hotel rendezvous between Edwardsand his mistress broke the scandal wide open. Senior writer AlexanderHitchin was lying in wait on a tip from an unnamed source:
Hitchen was at a hotel: "OK, so it's 2:40 in the morning. Andthere's a basement lobby, I approached him. And I said, 'Mr. Edwards,Alexander Hitchen from the National Enquirer. Would you like to explainwhy you were with your mistress Rielle Hunter and your love childtonight?'
"At that point he went white and ran into a restroom. I tried to open the door, and he's pushing and pulling."
"You're fighting with him over the bathroom door?"
Cobiella said.
"Ridiculous, ridiculous," Hitchen laughed.
The mainstream media began reporting the scandal only
after the former senator confessed to ABC News.
Edwards said the affair ended in 2006 and denied being the father of Hunter's child.
So,
Cobiella asked, if this is such scoop, and this was first out several months ago, why didn't others pick up on it?
Kurt Anderson, a media analyst and contributing editor at New YorkMagazine, said, "That is the sixty-four thousand million dollarquestion, isn't it?
"The National Enquirer gives the story cooties for all the Timesand Boston Globes, the Washington Posts of the world. That is partlybecause thirty years, forty, fifty years ago, the National Enquirer wasvery different than today. It is this low-brow celebrityscandal-mongering thing."
That tawdry reputation began back in the '50s under then-owner and editor David Pope.
Mike Wallace interviewed Pope for a
60 Minutes story in 1976:
Pope:I was looking for something that would give us instant circulation. Andreally I used to marvel at automobile accidents, and I'd see the publiccrowd around and for some reason have a morbid fascination in what'sgoing on. I personally would turn my head; I couldn't stand it. But Iknew they were attracted to that.
Wallace: The public was fascinated by gore.
Pope: Right
Wallace: And so, you decided -
Pope: So we gave it to them
Wallace: Huh?
Pope: We gave it to them - in spades.
When circulationstalled, Pope started placing the paper by supermarket checkoutcounters and changed its focus: sensational headlines, gossip, storiesabout psychic phenomena, alleged medical breakthroughs.
And some news that just isn't true. The resulting lawsuits againstthe Enquirer have made news of their own. In 1982 Carol Burnett won ajudgment after a false report of being drunk in public.
Just last week there was news of a settlement with a woman falsely reported as having a son fathered by Senator Ted Kennedy.
But contrary to what you might think, the Enquirer's record incourtroom lawsuits is no better or worse than other media outlets.Unknown is the number of out-of-court settlements the paper has had.
(CBS)
"Every newspaper gets sued; It's a fact of life," Perel
(left)said. "But, you know, we do pretty well. That's not to say we geteverything right. We don't. But you show the newspaper that does, I'llstart subscribing to it right now."
And every now and then, the Enquirer manages to break big stories.Their infamous "Monkey Business" photo sank Senator Gary's Hartspresidential ambition. They ran the exclusive that Jesse Jackson had anillegitimate child, and found incriminating photos of O.J. Simpsonwearing those Bruno Magli shoes which he had denied owning.
"It is a very rare type of shoe," Perel said. "It left the bloodyfootprints at the murder scene. He said he never owned 'those ugly assshoes.' That was his famous quote. And nobody could find a photograph[of him wearing them]. We found the photograph."
Like so many other celebrity magazines, the Enquirer pays forphotographs, and it's not shy about paying for information, either.
That raises eyebrows - and questions of credibility. And it'sanother reason, Kurt Anderson says, why most mainstream media outletsignored the Edwards rumors … and got stung.
"I think this will be a lesson," Anderson said. "I think this JohnEdwards case will be a moment we'll look back in three, five, ten yearshence and say that was one of the moments when the main street mediarealized that they can't make assumptions about the truth of a storybased on where it popped up."
Back in Florida, the Enquirer is still hot on the trail of the JohnEdwards story; Perel muses over a photo of a hotel room that is missingits bed ("That is truly strange" he said. "I think we'll send areporter or two over there and nose around and see what we find out.").But even he has limits.
"Stop, stop. I don't want to go there. I do not like it," Perelsaid to a reporter's suggestion about the Elizabeth Edwards angle."She's been hurt, she's lashed out."
"So there is such a thing as 'untouchable'?"
Cobiella asked.
"Just some places you don't go," Perel told her. "And there's someplaces I don't want to go. And in this case we really have tried tostay away from that aspect of the story.
"I want to hit the news element of the story. I want to hit thefact that a man running for president had an affair and then lied aboutit to the American public and, you know, darn near blew up his ownpolitical party while doing it."