Why Does the Mainstream Media Never Agonize Over The Privacy Of Conservatives?

Why Does the Mainstream Media Never Agonize Over The Privacy Of Conservatives?

I do believe that the press pries too deeply into people’s private lives. Also, as I wrote yesterday, I felt bad for Anthony Weiner’s wife Huma.

Still, this rubs me the wrong way.

The news that Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, is pregnant had been known and agonized over in newsrooms, including this one, for more than 24 hours before it was reported on Wednesday night.

It presented one of the toughest editorial dilemmas in recent memory. Abedin was an innocent victim in the story of her husband’s inappropriate behavior, and reporting her pregnancy — that of a 35-year-old woman in her first trimester — would have added the insult of invasion of medical privacy to the already considerable emotional injuries she’s sustained this week. Yet it was a big part of the biggest story of the moment. What’s an editor to do?

For the New York Times, which broke the story, the decision was not a quick one. The paper published the story a little after 5 p.m. Wednesday night on its City Room blog after Gawker published an item saying it had heard that Abedin was pregnant.

…“We knew,” he said. “We knew the Times knew. There wasn’t any doubt by late Tuesday of the facts of the matter. There was still a question of the ‘so what?’ It’s interesting. But is it interesting and relevant? Is it interesting and relevant enough to overcome the natural reluctance to go against wishes when it comes to the most intimate details?”

It also seemed like the pregnancy had no bearing on Weiner’s behavior, which was the essence of the political story.

“It’s a decision that we recognize as a judgment call that people could see differently,” he said. “It’s not a decision that we are on our high-horse about. As most of these difficult decisions are, it wasn’t a matter of absolutes. It’s a matter of competing values.”

It hard to take this sanctimonious horsecrap when the MSM has spent more time digging into the lives of Sarah Palin’s children than they have covering the early years of the President of the United States.

We’re talking about organizations that routinely invade people’s privacy, inflict emotional injuries, and add embarrassing details to stories solely to sell papers — but when there’s a liberal involved and suddenly, they have a conscience?

Give me a break.

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