Raleigh N&O silent on Edwards affair story

Are you following the latest concerning former Sen. John Edwards, a self-proclaimed “poverty fighter and a possible Vice Presidential running mate of President-presumptive Barack Obama?

If you are, you know Edwards may have done more than just get $400 haircuts and “fight poverty.”

You must know about his filmmaker "friend," Rielle Hunter, and a “love child” whose paternity Edwards denies.

But you didn’t learn any of that from reading Edwards’ “hometown newspaper,” the McClatchy Company’s liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer.

As of 8:00 PM ET Wed. July 23 there’s nothing at the N&O’s website, and there’s been nothing in its print edition, about reports Edwards on July 21 “visited” with Hunter in a room at Los Angeles’ posh Beverly Hilton Hotel, while a friend of Hunter’s cared for the child in another room at the same hotel.

You can read more about it all here.

A search of the N&O’s archives using the entry terms “John Edwards,” “Sen. John Edwards” and “Edwards” for the period July 1, 2008 through July 23, 2008 returned no hits concerning Edwards’ reported affair with Hunter; or anything concerning a stay at LA’s Beverly Hilton at any time within the search period.

I then tried the entry term “Rielle Hunter” for a broader time span - Jan. 1, 2000 to July 23, 2008 - because in the past she was hired by a pro-Edwards group called One America Committee and paid $114,000 to produce videos for Edwards' campaign. Or were they about his "poverty fighting?"

People I’ve talked to in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Hunter and Edwards have traveled together in order for Hunter to get “footage” for the videos.

But I found nothing in the N&O reporting on the two ever traveling together.

The only search “hit” returned for “Rielle Hunter” was a brief story dated Dec. 12, 2006.

With the headline - “Web clips show hip Edwards” - and underneath Edwards-friendly reporter Rob Christensen’s byline, here’s the story in full:

First there was John Edwards the book. Now there is John Edwards the movie.

Last week, Edwards began posting scenes from the campaign trail on his One America Committee Web site and on YouTube.

The camera catches him on planes and in cars, in jeans, and tucking in his shirt as he heads to a teachers' conference in Iowa and a union-sponsored anti-Wal-Mart rally in Pittsburgh.

"I've come to the conclusion I just want the country to see who I really am -- not based on some plastic Ken Doll you put up in front of audiences."

During his 2004 campaign for the vice presidency, Edwards was sometimes criticized as too programmed -- giving the same speech, the same gestures at every stop.

The "Webisodes" are the idea of Rielle Hunter, a New York filmmaker.

That’s all the N&O has reported that I could find.

Now maybe I missed the Birth Announcements or something else.

If you know of anything in the N&O I've missed, please let me know.

I’ll be back to this story tomorrow updating with developments and comparing some of the N&O’s racially inflammatory, biased and often false reporting of the Duke frame-up attempt with the N&O’s much more “restrained” coverage of Poverty Fighter Edwards and his "Webisodes" Maker, Rielle Hunter.