John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer
DBKP Exclusive!
An Inside Look at How the National Enquirer
Scooped the Mainstream Media
In the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Investigation
–Difficulties, as well as Disapproval and Dismissal by the MSM during the investigation.
UPDATE at 23:08 EST July 23 2008:
Edwards was asked a question by one brave reporter in Houston today. The video is here: John Edwards at a Press Conference in Houston. One source called it “the worst denial ever”.
As DBKP reader, Kelly put it: “Edwards looked like a deer in the headlights, and was very careful about how he parsed his words. He even stopped himself mid-denial and reverted to his stock answer.”
hat tip: Kelly!
How did the supermarket checkout staple, The National Enquirer, scoop the combined forces of CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, New York Times and the rest of the mainstream press in the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Love Child affair?
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
After an hour-long interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer, we can now say with certainty: it was easy. The steadfast “cone of silence” placed on the story by the Mainstream Media (MSM) made it easy for anyone willing to do the legwork to grab the story from a decidedly-uninterested “respectable” press.
Perel, who was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of the Enquirer in 2005, has overseen the John Edwards Scandal investigation from the very start and provided DBKP with some interesting insights on Edwards, the Love Child Scandal and the Mainstream Media.
Mondoreb: Hi David, congratulations on the National Enquirer’s scoop of the mainstream press–again.
David Perel: Thank you. It was nice to finally have the “smoking gun”.
Mondo: This story has been on-going over the last–what–ten months?
DP: Yes, something like that. Certainly, it’s taken some time.
Mondo: Do you feel vindicated by the latest turn of events in the John Edwards Love Child Story–after the Enquirer’s reporters cornered Edwards in the Beverly Hilton?
DP: Absolutely. We’d gotten information and tips that Edwards was seeing Rielle Hunter and the baby. On Monday, we got some good intel that there was going to be a meeting at the Beverly Hilton hotel and we got the information in time to get everyone in place when it happened. We had a big team on it.
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ALSO at DBKP.com: * Over 35 stories on the John Edwards Love Child Scandal, from the beginning.  |
Mondo: I seem to remember that back in December, when the Enquirer broke the second installment of the Edwards scandal, that you had seven reporters working on the story then. How many did you have at the Beverly Hilton this time?
DP: There were seven on this story, also.
[NOTE: Presumably, they were all in optimum positions, as Edwards ran into not only two Enquirer reporters trying to make his escape from the hotel, but at least one Enquirer photographer, as well.]
Mondo: It’s been over ten months since the Enquirer broke the Edwards scandal; seven-plus months since the December story that named Rielle Hunter as the “other woman” and showed her visibly pregnant. What was the Enquirer doing in the last seven months that the major press organizations could have been doing, but didn’t, that allowed you scoop them?
DP: We stayed on the story. We did it the old-fashioned way, with lots of legwork. We did what the major news organizations used to do: we knocked on doors, ran down leads and talked to people.
Mondo: Why do you think the “major news organizations” didn’t do this?
DP: I think it was a matter of interest. We knew–even though we couldn’t reveal them–that our sources were credible. We fact-checked their stories and they checked out. It was a giant puzzle and we started fitting the pieces together. But, we were interested in fitting them together; in doing the checking, the groundwork.
I think with all of the cut-backs the other news organizations has suffered, many of them may not have had the man-power or the resources to do what we did. It was a major commitment on our part to continue and stay on the story.
“At least three-dozen daily newspapers in the United States published the Craig news the day after the Roll Call scoop [on Sen. Larry Craig's foot-tapping troubles in a Minnesota men's room stall], according to Nexis, but this morning not a single U.S. daily mentioned the Enquirer piece.”
–Jack Schaeffer, Slate: Why the Press Is Ignoring the Edwards “Love Child” Story, A Double Standard at Work
Mondo: Have you ever seen a more blatant–what we’ve called it–”media blackout” of any story the Enquirer has broken than the Edwards affair?
DP: No. Amazing, simply amazing. It wasn’t a total blackout, but very nearly.
Mondo: Why do you think this was?
DP: A couple of things: partly a lack of ability and partly a lack of desire on the part of the media.
Mondo: Do you think it might have anything to do with the fact that reporters on the regular campaign beat get too “comfortable”? Maybe they’re afraid of offending whoever they’re assigned to cover; who is really their meal-ticket?
DP: Absolutely. It’s a flaw in the system and certainly a flaw in the coverage.
What would it have taken for a reporter to stick a microphone in Edwards’ face and ask him to confirm or deny certain details of the story we broke in December? What would it take for a reporter to stick a microphone in his face now and ask him to deny or confirm he was in the Beverly Hilton? What was he doing visiting Rielle Hunter there?
Edwards is supposedly on the list for vice-presidential candidates. Look at Edwards actions, his involvement with the cover-up, the size of the cover-up. It shows a bit of his character. People might not want someone that close to the presidency.
Mondo: If they knew about it…
DP: Yes.
Mondo: What were some of the difficulties in the Edwards investigation?
DP: The cover-up by the campaign, the scope of the cover-up.
I can tell you it was not easy locating Rielle Hunter. A couple times it was very hard finding out where she had moved. It took a lot of time, effort and resources.
Mondo: You were in contact with the Edwards campaign in December about the story. Did you give them a chance to respond to it before it came out?
DP: Yes.
Mondo: And they didn’t?
DP: There was no official response from the campaign or its lawyers.
Mondo: The National Enquirer’s record on breaking political scandals is pretty solid. What do you say to your detractors; the ones who dismiss anything you uncover with a “Well, it’s in the Enquirer”.
DP: Our detractors don’t read the magazine. The ones who read it know we get it right.
Mondo: Isn’t it just a way of avoiding having to address the facts; to attack the Enquirer?
DP: It’s like reviewing a book you’ve never read. Or like, who was it, Maxim reviewing an album they’d never listened to.
Mondo: There was some rumblings about the first and second Love Child stories being the products of the Clinton camp. One of the Clinton backers has a share of your parent company, I believe. Any comments?
DP: It has nothing to do with the editorial side, which I run. They could say that back in December when Clinton was still in the race, but now, she’s supposed to be uniting the Democrats behind Obama. So, it doesn’t make much sense.
We follow the story, not the man. We cover both sides. We broke Rush Limbaugh’s Oxycontin troubles, we did Jesse Jackson’s love child and we broke a lot of the news in the OJ story. It’s nothing personal–it’s the story.
Mondo: You have more updates planned on this latest installment?
DP: We’ll be updating the story several times. We’re not finished yet.
Mondo: Any other comments?
DP: We were looking for the “smoking gun”: time, place, day and date. Edwards could always “deny, deny, deny”. Now, Edwards can’t deny being at the Beverly Hilton and visiting Rielle Hunter. There were at least 10 eyewitnesses to the affair of Edwards running on the stairs and ducking into the restroom. I’m proud of the story. It speaks for itself.
Mondo: Congratulations on your scoop and thanks for talking with me.
DP: Any time. Keep in touch.
[A few other subjects were covered, some off-the-record and some on.]
[Doug Ross has a complete recap of the blow-by-blow (so to speak) in the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter affair, "Enquirer: John Edwards Visits Rielle Hunter and their Love Child. Doug was one of the only sites which covered the Edwards-Hunter action from the beginning and stayed with the story. He also supplied some intrepid, original detective work along the way. Check it out.]
by Mondoreb
Source: telephone interview with David Perel
images: National Enquirer.com
There is more, significantly more, evidence against Mr. Edwards than there was against Mr. McCain when the New York Times run its story in February.
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[...] Continue reading: John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
[...] UPDATE I: John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
[...] Read the rest: John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
Any photos?
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Photos?
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When this breaks, and it will, the MSM will lose more readers. If we can get leftist BS from the idiots in Congress, why do we need the MSM.
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The story is breaking right now…I can’t wait to get the magazine…I expect the photos to be inside the magazine.
John Edwards political career is over….the more he denys the worse it will be. Remember the NE said that John and his baby momma left the hotel for a brief break….they could have been taking their photos then.
I can’t wait to see how long before Edwards is thrown under the bus by Obama.
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Nice work, Mondo!
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The MSM is mostly in favor of liberal thinking…
Global aging: the demographic winter is coming.
Aging workforce in the USA.
geocities(dot)com/demographic_crash
Louis XIV : Après moi le déluge.
Also new website prowomanprolife(dot)org
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[...] From death by thousand paper cuts: [...]
Rightwingers will be punished with the fury of hell.
It’s coming.
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Has the Enquirer ever actually gotten anything right?
Aren’t they the ones who are always reporting about psychics, UFOs, bigfoot and other such “news”?
Do they ever higher reporters? I thought it was just a bunch of journalism school drop-outs sitting in a back-room somewhere making stuff up.
I know they hire people who own cameras to stalk people but do they actually send people who know how to use a pencil out into the field?
This will be a story when someone with an ounce of credibility presents any actual facts instead of this innuendo couched in official sounding language.
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I think the reason this hasn’t been grabbed onto by the MSM is because… while supposedly they have pictures, none have been released… and the Enquirer isn’t exactly the best of sources. Not to mention the fact that he’s not a public servant anymore, and isn’t currently a candidate for President. Now if McCain or Obama had been busted in the same way, I don’t think there would be anyone that would
Just look at the way they attacked Clinton over and over during his Presidency. (99.9% of the stuff they said about him ended up not even being true… though he certainly couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, and then when busted, had the audacity to just lie about it).
If it does end up being true, I’ll be pretty upset. I like Edwards, and supported his campaign over the other Dem candidates from the very beginning.
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DBKP kept this story alive and well documented even after it was clear that the MSM wasn’t going to say anything on the first go-round. Nice to see your work vindicated in a wider venue now.
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“Has the Enquirer ever actually gotten anything right?”
Only the Rush Limbaugh’s drug problem, Jesse Jackson’s illegitimate baby, OJ’s shoeprint at the murder scene, Monica Lewinski’s semen-stained blue dress…
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I was going to answer the “Has the Enquirer ever gotten anything right” question….
but kl got there ahead of me with the info! Thanx.
And I don’t think Edwards supporters know what “innuendo” means. A mountain of facts, dates, days, places–all easily checked–even with our limited resources, we’ve checked out some–yet, curiously, the MSM seems uninterested.
Ahh, well, like we said 7 months ago, “Time will tell”.
Time just has a bit louder voice this week than it did in December.
Thanx all for taking the time to stop by, read and the great comments!
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Good job, Mondoreb! You are the new media.
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Nice story. Thanks alot fot this
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Aw….jeez. Here we go again.
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At least.if it’s true,he was having consensual sex with a woman,which seems to be much more common amongst Democrats than Rethugs.Of course,I guess little boys and giving BJ’s in mensrooms have an appeal to certain people9(Fundiecons,that is)…
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I hate to be obtuse but why is this of any interest today when Mr. Edwards is no longer running for the presidency and in fact is not in public office? What about the effect such publication of these allegations is having on his fragile wife and family? Does that not matter to the amoral media? I know it’s all about selling papers but in my case I will make sure not to buy one.
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Archie1954:
No problemos. Why is it important?
Well, one reason may be because Time named sources who said that Edwards was on the Obama short list of VP candidates.
Another may be because of the non-investigative reporting done by traditional media. Still another may be to show the sheer brass of Edwards, who gave many a speech about the responsibilities of unwed mothers.
There’s a number of others, but I’m sure if you thought about it for a moment honestly, you’ll come up with them.
Thanks for stopping by, reading and commenting.
ALL the others:
THANX!!
We’re just glad you’re reading!
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No photos. No video. Just the word of a joke of a tabloid. Right.
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bigyaz,
No photos. No video. Just the word of a joke of a tabloid. Right.
…and now, two large UK papers, The Times and Independent, which have big stories in their Sunday edition. U.S. papers are slower–but it may be that some of them are operating under the same constraints as the LA Times, which advised it’s reporters not to write anything on their blogs about the story.
However, this is breaking slowly, but break it will because not only does the Enquirer have pictures, but also video of the whole escapade at the Beverly Hilton, including when Hunter and Edwards left the room for awhile.
I doubt that will satisfy your hunger for the “truth”, however.
That being said, thanks for taking the time to stop by, read and comment.
Doug, Suzette, pat, Diablo, Ed, kl, BA, boo:
Thanks one and all! You guys are great!
Everyone else, you’re great too–just for adding to the discussion! Come back, we might not agree with all your points,
but we are fiercely free speech, whether we agree or not. We like the give-and-take of different opinions!
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This is an important story because it points out the left/dems weak standing on morals, marriage, and personal responsibility.
With all the crap the left spews about the right the lefties crumble when their little gods like Edwards crumble before them and say well they did it worse or some other childish response.
How disgusting to be cheating on your sick wife and children. This guy has real morals and cares about people, yeah right, he is only for himself.
Wake up fools. Just the idea he is this close to a bad situation should be setting off alarm bells. Stop excusing bad behavior. Oh wait you give the Obamaessiah a pass too on his 20 years of being a racist church, and his dirty dealing in Chicago…
Good job National Enquirer. The looney left will never believe its true becuase they tell themselves its all a right wing conspiracy.
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All I can say is that Edwards was pretty stupid to meet this woman at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Who in their right mind would do this? He left for a walk with her late at night. Then he avoided the press. This is so out of respect for his wife who has cancer. My question is this “if there are pictures, why doesn’t National Enquirer release them as well?”
Is it possible that this women has leaked this for ransom money? Is it possible that since he had business with her during his campaign, that even though they were friends then, she gets pregnant by someone else and then lays it on Edwards for money? There are women like that.
The more secretly Edwards is about this, then the worse he will have of explaining this situation. If he was any man at all he would admit it and get on with his life(hopefully his wife).
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[...] The bad news was that the Times reporter, Sarah Baxter, in her story, Sleaze scuppers Democrat golden boy never credited DBKP as her source for the quotes, which were taken word-for-word from our story, “John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer“. [...]
Hanna,
All good questions.
Sadly, to anyone who has followed or dug up information on this–or in our case, tracked down tips, made phone calls and checked out leads–the “why” Edwards did this escapes us. Really, it’s not that important to me.
The fact that he did it and undertook an elaborate–but ultimately ineffective–cover-up, however, was.
Thanks for stopping by, reading and leaving a comment.
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[...] The bad news was that the Times reporter, Sarah Baxter, in her story, Sleaze scuppers Democrat golden boy never credited DBKP as her source for the quotes, which were taken word-for-word from our story, “John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer“. [...]
[...] about that story however. The Times’ reporter, Sarah Baxter, lifted quotes from DBKP’s John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer without giving credit to [...]
[...] Times’ reporter, Sarah Baxter, lifted quotes from DBKP’s John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer without giving credit to [...]
[...] Times’ reporter, Sarah Baxter, lifted quotes from DBKP’s John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer without giving credit to [...]
[...] going on. We’ll see what happens when The National Enquirer releases the pictures that their Editor-in-Chief claims that they have. Though I expect that the MSM will still ignore the story if all The National Enquirer has are [...]
[...] This is such a hole — no, such a crater — in the story that even Betsy seems perplexed about it. But never one to let such a tiny obstacle interfere with her efforts to spread calumny about a Democrat, she’s got an answer: We’ll see what happens when The National Enquirer releases the pictures that their Editor-in-Chief claims that they have. [...]
It’s so refreshing to finally see the end of the career of this two-faced, do-as-I-do-not-as-I-say, prissy, sick-wife-cheating, dead-baby-channeling, loser-in-his-own-state, lying piece of excrement. And, honestly, it was obvious long before this NE story. This bad actor whines that there are ‘Two Americas’, then goes out and actually proves it to us just by being himself. What a sad, pathetic excuse of a husband, father, lawyer, politician. He’s simply a complete waste of human skin. Good riddance to the rubbish that is the pond-scum John Edwards. Somebody flush that thing.
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Who cares really. There are much more import things going on than John Edward supposed “love child”.
Get a life you idiots!
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[...] * John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
Since he was running for president, and since he was recently on the list of Veep candidates for BO, it is important. It’s important that he is now out of the picture – in any regard – for the upcoming election. That’s good for the country.
And apparently, it was important enuf for you to read this far on this page.
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[...] * John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
[...] * John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
[...] * John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer [...]
When will the John Edwards photos appear in the National Enquirer? I have the latest edition but no photos yet.
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[...] Editor, David Perel “We Drew the Media a Road Mapâ€] to our original interview with David Perel [John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer] was pretty adamant. “We’re on our schedule. Because we’re the only ones that pursued the [...]
[...] David Perel, referred to the Enquirer’s “one-year” investigation [John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer, among others]. So, the Edwards camp most likely knew that questions were being asked about Hunter [...]
[...] David Perel, referred to the Enquirer’s “one-year” investigation [John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer, among others]. So, the Edwards camp most likely knew that questions were being asked about Hunter [...]
Please investigate this story, please pass it on to your investigative team/dept. A formerly close friend of Randy Weingarten, who knows people close to her very well explained at a dinner, privately, why Randy Weingarten has become inneffective as the UFT President.
It is another mind blowing revelation like the one that happened with John Edwards.
Hillary Clinton and Randy Weingarten have been reported to the National Media for being involved in a torrid affair. Randy Weingarten, UFT President of the Teachers Union of NYC is being blackmailed by the Clinton people or by the Bloomberg/Klein administration and has compromised the lives, safety, legal rights and contractual rights and well being of the teachers are being neglected due to the affair and the blackmail. This should be under investigation by the National Enquirer. Hillary Clinton, former and future Presidential Candidate is definitely but indisputable contacts who’ve revealed it is a lesbian and had a long term affair with now Florida rep. Nan Rich and is having it with Randy Weingarten. It is a fact, investigate it now!
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[...] least the blogs are linking and attributing. When the Times of London lifted quotes last year from DBKP’s interview with David Perel of the National Enquirer, they neither responded to our emails or corrected their [...]
[...] that he made the statement–in late July 2008–that “Our detractors don’t read the magazine. The ones who [...]
[...] was reminded that he made the statement in July 2008 that “Our detractors don’t read the magazine. The ones who read it know we get [...]