August 9, 2008
The L.A. Times And Rielle Hunter: Way Too Little, Way Too Late
Finally, finally, after suffering nationwide media blog ridicule, the L.A. Times squeeezes out a story about how they didn't tell the story, plus a "timeline," bylined Kate Linthicum, of l'affaire Edwards and Hunter. And even then, they couldn't quite manage to score the facts. For example, Linthicum's timeline has this:
2006: Edwards meets filmmaker Rielle Hunter in New York. His One America Committee pays her more than $100,000 to produce four videos about Edwards.
Um, to call her a "filmmaker" is a bit ridiculous. The woman made a 20-minute short called "Billy Bob and Them," and then miraculously sold herself to the Edwards campaign. She apparently has a few unproduced TV, stage, and screenplays in a box somewhere -- much like half of Los Angeles.
Fox has the details here, on former Manhattan party girl Hunter:
In 2000, Lisa Druck re-emerged in Los Angeles as newly single Rielle Hunter, writer and producer of a 20-minute-long comedy called "Billy Bob and Them," which she also acted in and self-distributed.Mooradian worked on "Billy Bob and Them." When he met Rielle, he said, she was just getting or had gotten a divorce.
He conceded he was paid about $50, if that, to shoot the low-budget film in Hunter's "very nice" Los Angeles-area home that he supposed she'd gotten in the divorce.
The film, he said, didn't have much of a plot. "It was very New Age-y. It had something to do with altars and temples and crystals." The shoot lasted two days.
Mooradian told me: "She definitely had some connection to the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, and there was an offer to meet the Dalai Lama."
By 2006 Rielle had hooked up with Mimi Hockman, a New York party planner whose clients, according to her Web site, are mostly obscure corporations. Even though neither of them had any real credits for making documentaries or political promo films for presidential candidates, they somehow pitched the idea of doing Web-only short pieces to Edwards.
...Since neither of them had any experience, the pair brought in Colin Weil, an experienced ad man whose company created AIDS Walk in Los Angeles in 1984 and has a long list of impressive credits. He was introduced to Hockman through a mutual Hollywood friend, Weil says, declining to give a name.
And Kate Coe, of course, had it here and here, in 2007.
Four of the Edwards films are available here. In the first one, "Plane Truths" (heh heh), he wants the country to see "who I am, who I really am."
Well, it seems he's accomplished that!
"I want to see our party lead on the great moral issues that face our country," he continues.
And eeeuw, icky, when he's all flirty during the film, I'm guessing it's with Hunter.
"Do you think most normal Americans have any idea what we do?"
We do now!
Finally, I hadn't seen the byline Kate Linthicum before, so I looked her up. Yes, while they're throwing all the experienced reporters out of the place, we've now got the apparently undersupervised intern (Barnard Class of 2008) writing the paper:
Randy Hagihara, senior editor for recruitment at The Los Angeles Times
I hired Kate Linthicum to be an intern at the Los Angeles Times this summer.
Katie, honey, in this town, we know to look at imdb.com to see if somebody actually is a filmmaker. This is a good dating tip for you, too, dear, because half the guys you'll meet at the bar in this town are "producers."
Comments
Edward's campaign really hired some real winners didn't they? There was his 'official blogger' flap, and now this. Bad judge of character or credentials?
Posted by: crella at August 9, 2008 5:35 AM
Bad judge of character or credentials?
Where is the evidence that he was assessing her credentials?
Posted by: Tom Maguire at August 9, 2008 7:13 AM
Bad judge of character or credentials?
Silly me, I thought the judging was based on assets.
Posted by: Michael at August 9, 2008 7:49 AM
Well, if you drop the last three letters from "assets..."
Posted by: Bill Quick at August 9, 2008 8:32 AM
I'm not so sure that the hook-up didn't come first, and then Edwards found a way to hire his plaything.
But having an intern slam together a timeline isn't such a sin. I think she probably did more reporting than the rest of the LAT staff put together. The LAT's been ignoring this story for a while and censored reader comments about it last year.
Posted by: Kate at August 9, 2008 8:58 AM
I don't think it's such a sin: I think somebody should be checking the intern's work. Perhaps the somebody who would've and the somebody who would've in that somebody's place have been let go.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at August 9, 2008 9:37 AM
a little more digging was in order:
looks like partner Mimi wears many more hats than filmmaker, party planner, and spiritual seeker--she's in real estate:
A client for the real estate firm she works for is also a client for the obscure party planning firm
Posted by: observer at August 9, 2008 9:53 AM
Amy,
You've outdone yourself. That was so funny.
I'll see you at Venice beach on Saturday the 23!
;-)
Posted by: Louis Villaescusa at August 9, 2008 10:06 AM
You're funny, Louis! (I believe he's referring to the day a lot of women who probably shouldn't go topless...see further down my blog.)
Posted by: Amy Alkon at August 9, 2008 10:16 AM
> I hadn't seen the byline
> Kate Linthicum before, so
> I looked her up.
Nicely done. While I don't care who the LAT hires or fires, it's nice to know they may be putting the B-team on this story.
Amy, your disk space is cheap, right? Let me repeat myself. This is a guy who made a huge amount of money and established a national political power base with his ability to persuade people and tickle their emotions. But even if he loved this woman very deeply, he wouldn't have been able to persuade the cancer to leave her. (My own efforts in that enterprise have failed tragically.) It must have been frustrating. It's not entirely surprising that he'd want to swing the ol' 'hammer of persuasion' someplace where it could connect, just for old times' sake.
This is not meant to excuse him. Quite the opposite! In reviewing his famous lawsuit against the swimming pool manufacturer, Wiki records this passage:
| In his closing arguments, Edwards
| spoke to the jury for an hour and
| a half and referenced his son,
| Wade, who had been killed shortly
| before testimony began. Mark
| Dayton, editor of North Carolina
| Lawyers Weekly, would later call
| it "the most impressive legal
| performance I have ever seen."
'K? Edwards has used personal expressions of pathos in tragedy to achieve enormous success. For a long time it worked great, and then one day --yesterday-- it didn't work so well more.
All lives have darkness, knowutimean? Each of us could bring tears to the others if we expressed our sadness clearly enough.
Al Fucking Gore should step very, very carefully.
Posted by: Crid [cridcridatgmail] at August 9, 2008 12:33 PM
"Yes, while they're throwing all the experienced reporters out of the place, we've now got the apparently undersupervised intern (Barnard Class of 2008) writing the paper."
Well spotted. Newspapers continue to devalue experienced journalists in the age of blogging = dead newspapers.
Posted by: lizzylights at August 9, 2008 3:33 PM
Maybe they can get better info from Karl:
Posted by: The Mad Hungarian at August 9, 2008 4:12 PM
Elizabeth Edwards to run for president?
Posted by: lizzylights at August 9, 2008 4:21 PM
"This is a good dating tip for you, too, dear, because half the guys you'll meet at the bar in this town are "producers.""
You better not ruin it for the rest of us...
:)
As for an intern being on it for the LAT, considering the ineptitude of the regular staff, this might actually be the best chance they have of something decent being reported...
Posted by: Scott Jacobs at August 9, 2008 7:38 PM
All lawyers are sleazy liars...why should anyone be surprised to find out Edwards fits the stereotype? So do Obama and Hillary.
S-L-E-A-Z-Y L-I-A-R-S
Posted by: rachel at August 9, 2008 7:45 PM
*All lawyers are sleazy liars*
Well, there goes Abraham Lincoln's reputation.
Amy, is it just me, but does Rielle have the same hairdo as your pooch?
Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 9, 2008 8:49 PM
" ... does Rielle have the same hairdo as your pooch?"
Nope, not just you. Looks much better on the pooch, IMHO. Maybe Rielle had her head out the car window?
I was wondering what the heck kind of name "Rielle" was ... Ree-Elle?? But apparently its pronounced Riley. Which makes me wonder why she wouldn't spell it Riley.
Posted by: catspajamas at August 9, 2008 9:04 PM
Ooh, a Lincoln fan. Betcha don't know what the Emancipation Proclamation really did.
But that's another topic.
Posted by: Radwaste at August 9, 2008 9:28 PM
It made it so that only congress has the power to declare war?
Just a guess, Raddy....
Posted by: Crid [cridcridatgmail] at August 10, 2008 12:17 AM
Crid schreibe: All lives have darkness, knowutimean? Each of us could bring tears to the others if we expressed our sadness clearly enough.
This rises to the level of weepiness of mass instruction.
Both ears, and the tail!
--
phunctor
Posted by: phunctor at August 10, 2008 6:12 AM
