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Eliot Spitzer, the Governor of New York, hogged headlines. He publicly apologized for "violating his obligations to his family," as the euphemism goes, after he was reported to be "Client #9" for a high-priced call girl in the federal indictment of the Emperor's Club VIP escort service. The indictment claimed that #9 arranged for Kristen, a petite brunette prostitute, 5'5" and 105 lbs, to take the Amtrak from New York to Washington DC's Mayflower Hotel on the eve of Valentine's Day for $5,300 worth of entertainment. It was a Today all-female reunion at the anchor desks as ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams took the night off. All three networks led with Spitzer's disgrace--Today alumnae Katie Couric and Elizabeth Vargas at CBS and ABC; current Today newscaster Ann Curry at NBC.

The three newscasts may have been unanimous that Spitzer was Story of the Day but they differed on his standing. Was he the focus of a federal political investigation or an unlucky John exposed by its sex crimes dragnet?

NBC's Mike Taibbi asserted that there is "no indication Spitzer was a target of the investigation." Taibbi claimed that when the feds eavesdropped on the Emperor's Club VIP they "turned up exchanges involving a customer reported to be Spitzer." CBS reported the opposite. CBS' Armen Keteyian detailed an investigative trail from Spitzer's bank finding "unusual movements of money" to the Internal Revenue Service, which spotted "a series of moneylaundering steps," to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which ordered a wiretap on suspicion of political corruption. ABC's Dan Harris (no link) tried to split the difference: he stated that the investigation had indeed been triggered by that tipoff from Spitzer's bank yet he still characterized Spitzer as "caught up in a federal investigation into the high-priced prostitution ring."

CBS certainly attacked the Spitzer story with most verve. Keteyian offered appropriate tabloid vocabulary--"tryst" "call girl"--and vivid details of the offerings on the Emperor's Club VIP's Website, with "more than fifty girls on call around the world in prices ranging from $1,000 to $5,500 an hour featuring exotic names like Sienna and Maya, girls rated on a scale from one to seven diamonds." ABC's Harris was demure, observing merely that the site claims to "service" a select group of "educated, refined and successful international clients." NBC's Taibbi focused on Spitzer's hypocrisy, noting that he "busted a couple of prostitution rings" when he was New York State's Attorney General.

CBS had Byron Pitts rerun a 2002 clip from 60 Minutes when Spitzer was proclaiming himself Sheriff of Wall Street with a "national reputation as a standard bearer of justice and morality." ABC's Harris pointed out that Spitzer is "known as a straight arrow, an ambitious overachiever." He called Spitzer's public apology "a supremely humiliating press conference." MSNBC's legal eagle Dan Abrams (at the tail of the Taibbi videostream) told NBC anchor Ann Curry that Spitzer's problem was the Amtrak ticket--inducing a prostitute to cross state lines would constitute a federal felony with penalties of up to 20 years in prison. On ABC, Harris disagreed: "He may not be in legal jeopardy but he is in political jeopardy." Opined ABC's George Stephanopoulos (no link): "It is going to be very very difficult, if not impossible, for him to continue in office."

Hats off to NBC's Taibbi, the only network correspondent to give The New York Times' Website the credit for breaking the Spitzer story. For the record, back in 2004 when then-Gov James McGreevy (D-NJ) came out of the closet as a "Gay American" he attracted eight minutes on the network nightly newscasts on the day the story broke; for Sen Larry Craig (R-ID) and his arrest as part of a men's airport toilet sex sting, the first day's coverage was eleven minutes; Spitzer's total today was 15.


Andrew Tyndall 3/11/08 8:47:39 pm

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