The John Edwards love child allegations were a series of stories initially published by The National Enquirer, an American tabloid newspaper, about John Edwards, a former United States Senator from North Carolina and Democratic Party presidential candidate. The Enquirer cited claims by an anonymous source that Edwards had engaged in an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker hired to work for his presidential campaign, and that the relationship had produced a child.

The allegations, initially published in late 2007, were denied by both Edwards and Hunter. Andrew Young, a member of Edwards' campaign team, claimed paternity of Hunter's daughter, although his name did not appear on the child's birth certificate. The Enquirer's claims received little attention outside the tabloid press and political blogosphere until July 2008, when several mainstream media news outlets cited them in relation to Edwards' future political career, and his chances of being selected as a running-mate in Barack Obama's 2008 presidential bid.

Rielle Hunter and the Edwards campaign

In December 2006, Newsweek reported that Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker, had been hired by the Edwards campaign to produce a series of webisodes portraying behind-the-scenes life on the campaign trail. Hunter had pitched the idea of the series to Edwards when she met him at a bar in New York, where he was attending a business meeting.^[1] The campaign paid Hunter's production company over US$100,000 for the short documentaries,^[2] which were uploaded to YouTube. Business Week later included one of the episodes in a feature on Web video in 2006.^[3]

In September 2007, Sam Stein, a political reporter for The Huffington Post, reported that the web documentaries had been pulled and were no longer accessible. Representatives from the Edwards campaign stated that the material could not be used due to campaign finance law.^[4][5] Stein was criticized for the article by a writer at the website Daily Kos, who labeled it a "hit piece" and "sensationalist",^[6] but the story received little other attention at the time. Several days later, The Huffington Post reported that the videos had been reposted to YouTube.^[7]

Initial National Enquirer allegations

On October 10, 2007, The National Enquirer, an American tabloid newspaper, published an article claiming that Edwards had engaged in an extramarital affair with a unnamed female campaign worker. The article cited an anonymous "friend" of the woman as the source, and claimed that the Enquirer was in possession of e-mails which discussed the affair.^[8] On the same day, Sam Stein published another article at The Huffington Post which contained additional details about Hunter and the Web videos she had produced.^[9] The following day, October 11th, New York published a piece which linked Hunter to the Enquirer allegations.^[10]

Both Edwards and Hunter denied the relationship claims. Edwards said the Enquirer story was "made up", and was quoted as saying "I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years," referring to his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, "and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false."^[11][12][13] Hunter's attorney issued a denial via Jerome Armstrong, a political blogger and founder of MyDD, stating "The innuendoes and lies that have appeared on the (I)nternet and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous."^[14][15][16] David Perel, the Enquirer Editor-in-Chief, stood by the paper's allegations, stating, "The original story was 100% accurate."^[17]

The Enquirer published a follow-up story on December 19, 2007 that included a photograph of a visibly pregnant Hunter. The Enquirer alleged that, according to their anonymous source, Hunter was claiming that Edwards was the father of her child. The article also claimed that Hunter had relocated to a gated community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, near Andrew Young, a former official with the Edwards campaign who had claimed paternity of Hunter's child.^[18] As with Hunter's initial denial of the affair, Young's paternity claim had been issued to Jerome Armstrong and published at MyDD.^[19][20]

The claims received little attention in the mainstream press. CBS News journalist Bob Schieffer, asked about the allegations on Imus in the Morning, stated "I believe that's a story that we will be avoiding, because it appears to me that there's absolutely nothing to it...This seems to be just sort of a staple of modern campaigns, that you got through at least one love child which turns out not to be a love child. And I think we can all do better than this one."^[21] Mickey Kaus, a journalist at Slate, speculated that the lack of mainstream coverage was motivated by a desire not to harm Elizabeth Edwards (who was fighting cancer at the time), or that the news organizations were taking a "wait-and-see" attitude pending the results of the Iowa caucuses.^[22]

Hotel encounter with reporters

According to David Perel, the Enquirer Editor-in-Chief, the paper had received information that Edwards would be visiting Hunter and her child at the Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on the evening of June 21, 2008, and the paper dispatched several reporters to the hotel. The team of Enquirer reporters encountered Edwards on the hotel premises sometime after 2 a.m. on the morning of July 22. According to Perel, Edwards, who was not a registered guest of the hotel, retreated from the reporters to a washroom, where he remained until being escorted from the premises by hotel security. The encounter between Edwards and the Enquirer reporters was later confirmed by a hotel guard interviewed by Fox News. Edwards' spokespeople did not respond to Fox's request for comment on the incident.^[23]

In articles published immediately after the hotel encounter, the Enquirer claimed that Edwards had visited with Hunter and her child in the Hilton for several hours.^[24][25] The Enquirer also claimed to have videotape of Hunter entering the room where she allegedly met Edwards, and videotape of Edwards leaving the same room, but the paper declined a request from Fox News to release photos or videotape of the incident.^[23] In an interview with Radar, Perel said that the Enquirer would release the photos when "the time is right".^[26] The Enquirer later stated that they had filed a "criminal complaint" against the hotel's security over their conduct during the encounter,^[27] but the Beverly Hills Police Department said that there was no criminal complaint, only an "incident report" which was under investigation.^[23]

Questioned at a New Orleans event on 23 July, Edwards stated "I have no idea what you're asking about. I've responded, consistently, to these tabloid allegations by saying I don't respond to these lies and you know that ... and I stand by that."^[23] On the same day, Hunter appeared on the television program Extra, describing the Enquirer story as "completely unfounded and ridiculous".^[28]

Media coverage

Aside from Fox News, other mainstream news sources did not immediately pick up on the story. Articles describing the Enquirer allegations were published by the magazines New York^[29] and Radar,^[26][30][31] and the claims were mentioned in opinion columns and in-house blogs of several other papers.^{[32][5][33][34][35][36][37][38]}

The allegations were discussed by two reporters from The Washington Post. On 23 July, Roxanne Roberts said "We have no evidence this is true. Lots of juicy details----enough so Edwards may feel he has to address the issue, especially if it's not true and there's an innocent explanation. Or not. That won't stop anyone from talking about it, but let's assume, until we know the facts, that this could be false."^[39] On 25 July, in response to a question as to whether The Washington Post was investigating the claims, political reporter Jonathan Weisman stated "Yes, and to be quite honest, we're waiting to see the pictures the Enquirer says it will publish this weekend. That said, Edwards is no longer an elected official and is not running for any office now. Don't expect wall-to-wall coverage."^[40]

On 25 July, Mickey Kaus at Slate published a 24 July e-mail from Tony Pierce, an editor at the Los Angeles Times, to the Times in-house bloggers, which referred to the Edwards allegations and said "...I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified." Kaus portrayed the e-mail as a "gag" order.^[41] The incident was also mentioned by Rod Dreher at The Dallas Morning News,^[42] Paul Mulshine at The Star-Ledger,^[43] and Guy Adams at The Independent.^[44] In an online interview, Pierce defended the e-mail, stating that it was the result of a decision by senior editors at the Times to allow time for the newspaper's Metro Desk to investigate the allegations. Pierce also pointed out that a Times blogger had already posted a story^[45] on the Enquirer claims.^[46]

Over the period of 27-28 July, the claims, and speculation about their possible impact on Edwards' political career, were picked up by several papers outside the United States, including The Times,^[47] The Independent,^[48] Der Spiegel,^[49] The Irish Independent,^[50] and The Times of India.^[51]

In the American political blogosphere, the story was covered by Jack Shafer^[52] and Mickey Kaus^[53][54][55] at Slate, Alex Coppelman at Salon.com,^[56], Rachel Sklar^[57] and Lee Stranahan^[58] at The Huffington Post (Stranahan also cross-posted his article to Daily Kos)^[59] and by independent political pundit James Joyner,^[60] among others. Some of the coverage alleged mainstream media bias due to Edwards' Democratic affiliation^[44][61] or contempt for tabloid papers like the Enquirer,^{[62][43][57][63]} and compared the coverage to that of a scandal involving Republican Senator Larry Craig.^[52][58] Some stated that the non-coverage was motivated by sympathy for Elizabeth Edwards.^{[56][57][64][63]} Others claimed that the Enquirer was reliable in regards to scandal reporting, noting their reporting on the Gary Hart/Donna Rice affair,^[56] the O. J. Simpson murder case,^[43] Jesse Jackson's out-of-wedlock child,^[52] and Rush Limbaugh's prescription drug addiction.^[56] Several pundits stated that Edwards was "fair game" for reporting on the allegations, because he had been recently identified^[65] as a potential candidate for Vice President or Attorney General for Barack Obama,^[52][44][57] and that Edwards himself had made his marital fidelity an issue in his campaign.^[57]

Blogosphere claims of a media "blackout" extended even to the online reference site Wikipedia and its biographical article on Edwards. Several prominent sites criticized the omission of information about the allegations, most notably Gawker.com^[66][67] and the Media Research Center's NewsBusters blog.^[68][69][70] Another critic was Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media,^[71] whose post was linked by Glenn Reynolds at the high-traffic weblog Instapundit.^[72] The Wikipedia biography was later changed to include a mention of the allegations' potential impact on Edwards' political career. The controversy over the Wikipedia page was covered by Wired magazine,^[73] and Kansas City Star columnist Aaron Barnhart opined that the addition of the information to the Wikipedia article influenced later media coverage of the allegations.^[74]

Birth certificate and subsequent developments

On August 1, 2008, the Enquirer published an article alleging that Hunter was receiving payments of US$15,000 per month from a wealthy Edwards campaign donor. The Enquirer article also named Hunter's child.^[75] Mainstream news organizations subsequently obtained a copy of the birth certificate,^[76] and confirmed that a girl named Frances Quinn Hunter had been born to Rielle Hunter at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on February 27, 2008. Several news outlets noted that the birth certificate listed no father, although the child was born approximately two months after Young's claimed paternity had been announced by Hunter and Young.^{[2][77][78][79][80][81]} When questioned about the birth certificate omission, Hunter's attorney said "A lot of women do that" and that the issue was "a personal matter" between Hunter and Young, before declining to comment further.^[77][82]

In late July and early August 2008, news outlets reported that Edwards was avoiding further questions from reporters about the Enquirer claims.^[83][2] WCNC-TV, a North Carolina television station, said that Edwards' political career was "effectively frozen" pending resolution of the allegations.^[2]

References

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