I know there aren’t many of them around anymore, but I wonder what the old school journalists that covered the White House and national politics think about how the goings-on in Washington are covered today. I ask this in the wake of the breathless anticipation with which current reporters previewed the “Stormy Daniels” interview on 60 Minutes and the two days of “analysis” that has gone on since then.
I just have a hard time imagining Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow sitting down with a porn actress of the 1950’s or ’60’s and asking her to describe having sex with a private citizen who would later become the President. Presidential affairs–while in office–were open secrets back then. Lucy Mercer was with Franklin Roosevelt when he died in Georgia. Yet there is not a single mention of that in reports of the time.
President Kennedy had affairs with female reporters assigned to the White House. Another mistress was the sister-in-law of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. And then there was Marilyn Monroe. Imagine what the coverage would be like today if the most powerful man in the world and the sexiest movie star in Hollywood were getting it on? (And the starlette believed that she could force out the current First Lady and take her place in the White House?) We would have to start new news channels and hire hundreds of anchors and reporters just to cover that one story.
Of course, this “code of silence” ended when President Bill Clinton decided to lie about his affair with a White House intern while under oath in a deposition. Then it became a political “affair” and almost a constitutional crisis. And with it came huge ratings for the TV news networks that dedicated 24-hour coverage and salacious details of blue dresses and cigars. The groundwork had been laid for Anderson Cooper to spend the better part of an hour talking with a woman paid to have sex with men in front of a camera talking in front of a camera about how she didn’t want to be paid to not talk about having sex with a man.
We may know more about our politicians today–but I’m not sure we are really better informed.
