socialmedian: The Spitzer Files: How the New York Times and the Press Serviced Client No. 9 [Exclusive]

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The Spitzer Files: How the New York Times and the Press Serviced Client No. 9 [Exclusive]

Source: Valleywag

Nov 04, 2009

Summary

The New York Times broke the story of Eliot Spitzer's hooker habit last year, launching a PR shitstorm of epic proportions. But according to e-mail traffic we've obtained, the Times showed Spitzer's flacks extraordinary deference as the scandal unfolded.

On March 10, 2008, few people on the planet had more difficult jobs than Christine Anderson and Errol Cockfield. They were the communications director and press secretary, respectively, for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and at roughly 1:07 p.m. on that afternoon, the Times went live with a story documenting their boss' entanglement as "Client No. 9" in a federal investigation of a high-end prostitution ring. We were curious what the inside of a PR meltdown looks like, so—following in the footsteps of The State's investigation into the media's efforts to land an exclusive interview with Mark Sanford while he was hiking the Appalachian Trail—we used New York's open records law to obtain e-mail traffic between Anderson, Cockfield, and the dozens of reporters barraging them with inquiries in the days following the

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