People Mag Editor explains to Wash Post what would have (not)happened if he had known about assault [View all]

[wishstar]

I knew Natasha Stoynoff had asked People mag to be taken off coverage of Trump and told several people about the assault. But she did not tell her editor. In this interesting article, he explains why he thinks she did not tell him, admits he would not have wanted a story to be about the reporter rather than the subject and he would not have publicly exposed Trump, but would have contacted his publicist and made a mutual truce instead.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/14/i-edited-the-people-reporter-who-says-trump-groped-her-heres-why-she-never-came-forward-before/?utm_term=.63070494ccff

"For a second there, I imagined a scene of Ben Bradlee-esque outrage, calling out the swine for his behavior and striking a blow for reporters everywhere. But in reality, I would probably have simply killed the story that Stoynoff had gone to Palm Beach to report. I would have then called Trump’s public relations operatives, told them about their boss’s bad behavior and agreed to a truce of mutual silence. In the end, few people would have learned of the event, we’d have had to fill a few more pages in the next issue, and Trump would have avoided any public embarrassment.

News organizations are devoted to the idea that unless something truly gruesome happens during the course of reporting, the subjects, not the reporters, are the real story. They instinctively feel pressure to absent themselves from the narrative. It’s the right instinct, but in the case of sexual assault, whose violations are not always visible, reporters face a terrible choice. No wonder Stoynoff didn’t feel able to confide in me or her other editors in 2005. The ghastly truth is that had Trump punched her, our course of action would have been much clearer. Instead, he exploited power, privilege and media sclerosis to his own sweaty ends."