The State newspaper provides a glimpse inside the media's Sanford scandal sausage factory, revealing e-mails from national reporters to the governor's office seeking interviews with the governor.
The e-mails show a range of strategies: ABC's Jake Tapper seemed to imply his network would not report a critical story, slamming NBC reporting as "slimy" (he's since apologized), a Fox News correspondent offered positive coverage to "dispell" the "ridiculous" story, and a Washington Times staffer (who was involved in Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign) offered "friendly ground."
One reporter who did not slam his competitors for negative coverage or promise positive coverage is Chris Cillizza of WaPo, who simply asked whether the office had anything to say about Sanford's disappearance and whether or not Sanford was okay.
Thanks to the continued good work of the reporters at The State, you can read the e-mails yourself.
Here's excerpts:
Jake Tapper of ABC:
SUBJECT: NBC spot was slimy
For the record I think TODAY Show spot was pretty insulting...
SUBJECT: And fyi
David Gregory of NBC just tweeted: Fm First Read re Gov Sanford: U should be concerned if "your wife say(s) that she doesn't know where you are but that she isn't concerned"
Joseph Deoudes of The Washington Times (Deoudes was also apparently a Huckabee alternate delegate):
You know that you will be on friendly ground here!
Griff Jenkins of Fox:
If the Gov does an interview and its exclusive, it will make air on the tv channel and our radio news service all across the country. And I'm not sure if you've seen the stuff I do on the channel as a reporter, but I work mostly for our primetime coverage - Oreilly, Hannity, Greta, Beck -- so there likely would be primetime coverage as well for some soundbites of the gov dispelling this flap...
Having known the Governor for years and even having worked with him when he would host radio shows for me - I find this story and the media frenzy surrounding it to be absolutely ridiculous!
Please give him my best.
Chris Cillizza of The Fix blog at The Washington Post:
Are u guys saying anything about his disappearance?
:::
Update (9:02AM) -- Join the discussion in Nuisance Industry's recommended diary.
