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Tapper Responds: We Didn't Know About Sanford Affair When I Sent That Email*
It looks like Jake Tapper doesn't feel like his network's response to the news that he sucked up to Mark Sanford's office by denigrating NBC's coverage of the missing gov story -- that Tapper was just "carrying some water" for a producer -- is quite sufficient.
This morning, Tapper has been tweeting further defenses of his catty email to a Sanford aide -- in which he called NBC's coverage "slimy" and "insulting."
A few minutes ago, Tapper tweeted:
There was no "story" at the time, just mystery as 2 where he was. Only 1s who knew about affair-him, wife, mistress + The State.
"Story" in quotes here appears to refer to the larger story of Sanford's affair, which, it's true, wasn't known about at the time Tapper sent that email. Still, the "mystery as 2 where he was" had by that time been widely covered in the mainstream national press, somewhat undercutting Tapper's implied charge that NBC was overplaying the story.
Shortly afterwards, Tapper sent out another tweet:
The email reflects a clumsy attempt to harm a competitor's chances of getting an interview, nothing else.
* This post has been edited from an earlier version.
Josh
Zachary
In another article on the difference between right and left sites, you note that right wing sites like RedState don't consider themselves journalists. They're advocates.
I think Tapper is out to prove once and for all that the pretty heads on "old media" TV aren't journalists either - just in case anyone was in doubt on that one. And in Tapper's case, he's a really slow learner on the technology issue!
July 15, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. And the same goes for Chuck Todd advocating against investigating the Bush administration on MSRNC. They're not even trying to pretend to be journalists anymore.
July 15, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has to be clear to everyone by now that without blogs this story would not have been uncovered. The MSM wasn't interested or at least wanted it to disappear, and the few who did report on it were libeled by their competition for doing it. Blogs escaped all that because they only answer to their readers. If journalism really cared to be relevant they would immediately get to work on hiring bloggers.
July 15, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also, more striking about all this is that if the MSM and right wing sites like Erickson's were successful at hiding the story, Republicans would still be calling Sanford an important conservative voice for their agenda. It wasn't until after Sanford knew the jig was up did he admit that he was anything but a moral values, fiscal conservative, God-fearing Republican. Just worth keeping in mind.
July 15, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to weigh in on Jake Tapper's side. This story was way overblown even "before" the information was out. I think Jake was just saying that we should at least wait to know the news before reporting on it! Enough already!! Will someone please let this story die? Write about what's going on TODAY in our change goverment. I think the press is just lazy. If the story doesn't fall into their lap, we just don't get to hear what's really going on. I am really excited about Obama's new health plan and how it will effect me. Sure wish they had stayed up last night reading the 1,000+ page report and had written a story about that, instead of us having to hear about Sanford and Jake again. Who CARES?
July 15, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're really missing the big picture here. You call the press lazy but then say we should wait til we know the news before reporting on it. Which is it? Did it ever occur to you that the press' job is to go out and find the news? A governor goes missing for five days and the stories clearly don't add up and the story is overblown? Hardly.
And the takeaway from this part of the story is very significant. Exposing the MSM for the water carriers that they are is a huge service to the public...if only we could them to understand the degree to which they are being manipulated.
You are right, healthcare is a big story. And the same press that kissed ass in this story is covering that one so you connect the dots...
July 15, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. This continued coverage on TPM is not about Sanford as much as it is about the press. Specifically, a Beltway political press whose first instinct is to protect other insiders and dismiss critical thinking on face.
Such a media culture will preclude any fair coverage of substantive issues.
July 15, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not Beltway "insiders" protecting their own. It's the media protecting and defending Republicans.
How Tapper thinks that a governor disappearing for that length of time is no big deal is very illustrative of the mindset.
Had a Democratic governor gone "hiking the Appalachian Trail" while his wife didn't know where he was and didn't care, it would have been 24/7 coverage from the start.
Tapper is a tool.
As is David Gregory and Chuck Todd and Chip what's his name from CBS.
July 15, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. Thank you-- The pretty political commentators like Tapper and Reid and Todd and Gregory are all part of the same Toolbox favored by Republican plumbers everywhere. It makes me want to smash my teevee, everytime one of these blithering idiots gets on the air. They are the human equivalents of the old yellow WABC reporter jackets from the 70s: dorky, pompous and just plain wrong.
July 15, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tapper got scooped. "Slimy" and "silly" and CORRECT is a lot better than gullible and naive and wrong which is what Tapper was. No story because it was a mystery? The mystery WAS the story -- when staff don't know where their governor is and there has been no handoff of authority clearly the Governor is irresponsible.
And, yes, this stuff does matter BECAUSE of its potential impact on policy. We now have this sample of Gov. Sanford's judgment to consider when voting on whether or not we want him deciding on policy.
And, oh yes, the splendid help he got from C Street. King David used as an example and an excuse!
July 15, 2009 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're all wrong!
It is Corporate Media covering for the Corporate Party. Hence, you get MSMedia covering for Republicans.
Our "news" industry has been morphing for 30+ years....from an industry that had a journalistic ethos where news and information were disseminated, into an industry that hides more info than they ever expose.
Really, Corporate Media is very much vested in keeping the Consumeristic Greed economy running. They are hiding what the Masters of the Universe do on Wall Street. They are hiding what is going on in the DC weeds about Health Care. Heck, you name it...they are hiding everything. The only thing they will cover is Democratic Malfeasance and missing white girls.
It is a lot more sinister than "they are just doing it for the bucks" or they are "insiders protecting insiders". GE and Murdoch and ABC have a lot to lose if the Corporate Wolves get exposed. They are Corporate Wolves themselves, but who do you think buys all that billion dollar advertising? All the other Corporate Wolves. How long til we wake up in this country and realize it is a well oiled Lie Machine.
July 15, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny, this is what has been going on in West Virginia ever since the 1840's when the Bruens (not the hockey team) from Boston bought the coal, oil and gas rights under half the state. Then there was the B&O railroad and Collis P. Huntington with the C&O RR.
Then the rest of the coal industry again. Then there was Henry Gassaway Davis who clearcut about half of the state's timber (virgin timber over 100 feet high and up to 13 feet in diameter) over a 30 year period. The fire that followed lasted ten years. It has taken our forests 80 years to recover partly.
Then there was Union Carbide and the rest of the chemical industry.... once 50,000 employees strong then outsourced over the last 25 years. Heck the only chemical plant left in the Charleston area is the one that makes the stuff that killed all those folks in Bhopal India a few years back.
We do have a lot of small business entrepreneurs that manufacture methamphetimes, but that is not the chemical industry resurgence we are looking for.
Except for the Charleston Gazette, about every aspect of our state's economy and business life has been dominated by corporate interests from somewhere else.
Damn thing is, our state politicians get bought so cheaply that we don't even get much economic stimulus rebound from this corporate redistribution.
I guess it took a while for the rest of the country to catch up to West Virginia.
July 15, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the story was not at all overblown at the time Tapper wrote the water-carrying e-mail.
Did you read the post?
Here, let me quote it for you, although it's right up there in the post:
July 15, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
How is a Gov missing not an important story? Especially after said Gov has made hay out his state accepting stimulus money. The media narrative in Gov Sanfords career has been defined by his belief/ideology that small/limited government as well as claiming the mantle of fiscal responsability, so if this is an accurate portrayal of his managment while being in the service of the the people in office, then how does he explain leaving the state, not notifying his office let alone his wife and not ensuring that the states business was carried out while gone? He abdicated his responsability as the GOV to deal with personal issue. These are the facts. Also a fact in this case as has been discovered is that the GOV in the past used state funds to take personal trips to visit his mistress, this is wrong and does not line up with the Gov ideological background, so this discovery is a big deal. Jake Tapper's journalism career will go on, but I am sure many of the most dedicated investigative journalist now have a better idea of the type of journalist MR Tapper is!
July 15, 2009 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Jake Tapper's a journalist, I'm a professional basketball player -- and I'm 5 feet 6 and 48 years old. Oh, and weigh in at 215.
July 15, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tapper is emblematic of everything that's gone wrong with modern journalism. Once upon a time, TV journalists were people who'd learned the trade in the newspaper business and who took that training, and that understanding of what it means to be a reporter, to broadcasting--usually beginning with radio. Beginning in the 70s, they were slowly replaced with a cadre of vacuous, telegenic talking hairdos who majored in communications and learned their "journalism" in local TV newsrooms. Once upone a time, "real" journalists rightly looked down upon local TV news as an ongoing assault on the standards of the profession. Now, it's the training ground for the whole profession.
July 15, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Reporters" such as Tapper are precisely why We The People have abandoned mainstream media and all the other pretty boys and girls on the boob-tube, and have flocked to the Internet to get our news. If I were Tapper, I would be sending out inquiries to see if I find a job hosting some sort of "reality" show, or maybe star in a remake of "Animal House." Let's face it, he would look quite pretty on the big screen, as long as what comes out of his mouth remains mundane and simplistic. But as a journalist? Puleeeze! Tapper never was and never will be.
July 16, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jake Tapper, self identified as "clumsy" when sliming the competition.
July 15, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Guv, hang in there, we're all pulling for ya!
This whole thing will blow over in a few days, and you'll be talked about again for 2012 in no time!
Love Ya,
Jake
p.s. Oh crap, did I just hit "reply to all"?
July 15, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the point where Tapper is saying the story was overblown, I was thinking maybe Sanford was dead and his wife killed him. Or maybe Sarah Palin had a hit squad out there getting rid of her competition.
I didn't seriously consider those things but the circumstances were so unusual that I wondered if he was dead. Yesterday, I saw a report that his own staff had been trying to call his cell phone - he didn't answer and didn't return their calls. What if there had been a crisis in the state?
The story wasn't overblown. Tapper's been inhaling too much hairspray.
July 15, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fifteen times they called him and he failed to respond. He should resign or be impeached on that fact alone.
According to Tapper a governor missing for 5 days is a non-story; candidate Obama smelling like smoke is right up there with the Watergate break-in.
July 15, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was such a non story he slimes the competition for his bosses so they could score the interview "get" with Sanford.
July 15, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Recall that when Jake Tapper wrote that he smelled tobacco smoke on Obama he bragged on his keen olfactory senses. Obviously tyhey do better on smoke than his own shit.
July 15, 2009 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jake is tap tap tap dancing away. He's a repub tool. Apparently going after Bill Clinton(Tap tap had a big role in that) on a blow job was a big deal but Sanford going AWOL for 5 days is not a story.
July 15, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe Tapper has his own C Street connections. Given what C Street is they must certainly be seeking to co-op the media as well as the politicians.
July 15, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The email reflects a clumsy attempt to harm a competitor's chances of getting an interview, nothing else."
What is Tapper trying to say here? "It's not what it looks like, honey... really, I'm just having sex with the baby-sitter..."
(What did he think his e-mail looked like...?)
July 15, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"There was no "story" at the time, just mystery as 2 where he was. Only 1s who knew about affair-him, wife, mistress + The State."
Gosh, if only Jack knew some reporters who could have looked into the story for him...
July 15, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
You want to bash Jake Tapper? I've got no complaints. But to say that the mainstream media ignored the story, and it was the bloggers who made this a news story, is to display unbridled hubris and ignorance.
The best work on this story has been from The State, which, as far as I know, is actually a newspaper and an MSM member. It's been their ORIGINAL reporting that has fueled a lot of the discussion on the blogs. Even TPM, which I greatly admire as a journalistic organization, relied on a lot of second-hand information on this story, rather than original reporting.
July 15, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"You want to bash Jake Tapper?"
Yeah I do. I'm very tempted to say something I shouldn't, so I'll pass.
And while The State did fine work much of the early information was dropped in their lap. I'm not sure how much original reporting they did.
TPM very early on stated that early releases from the Gov's office were highly suspicious and another shoe was about to drop.
July 15, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
FYI, in case anyone cares for the original, unredacted emails, they were posted on the Charleston Evening Post's website and mirrored at http://www.scribd.com/doc/17394703/Emails-to-Governor-of-South-Carolina-staff should they decide to take it off their page.
July 16, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tapper has been called "an up-and-comer," and how does one become "an up-and-comer" do you think? By NOT doing what your bosses want you to do? Even when your boss does not directly tell you what to do or "report," an "up and comer" like Tapper is intuitive enough to know what his bosses want, and he does exactly that. That, my friends, is the very DEFINITION of "an up-and-comer." Congratulations, Tapper! You have now been proven bought and now you've sold your soul. No one cries for you but Faust.
July 16, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink