Why would the news media ignore information about Al Sharpton's shady past? It is liberal media bias? In part, yes, but that also combines with some basic truths about the day-to-day nature of reporters' jobs - especially the way it worked at the time when Sharpton first rose to prominence.
Way back in 1988, New York Newsday reported that Mr. Sharpton had given the FBI information on black leaders. In other words, a man who refers to blacks who disagree with him as sellouts was himself selling out blacks. FBI agents first contacted him in 1983 about a videotape that apparently showed Mr. Sharpton discussing a drug deal with an undercover agent. The account also appears in the 1990 book "Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax," which was authored by six New York Times reporters. "As Sharpton told it, the agents warned him that he could be in a lot of trouble and suggested he cooperate with the government," the authors write. "The tape was never made public, but Sharpton insisted that it would not incriminate him."
Despite this shady history, Mr. Sharpton has lost no credibility with the civil rights establishment and members of the press, who with few exceptions continue to indulge his theatrics, help him build his brand and treat him as a respectable spokesman for black people. "The media, particularly television, needed him for his access to the movement," write the authors of "Outrage." "It was easier to reach Sharpton than to seek out diverse views among blacks; reporters didn't waste time wondering whom he spoke for. And the various civil rights groups, in turn, needed him for access to the media. For nobody knew better what buttons to push to get on the six o'clock news, to get on Oprah and Phil and Downey and Koppel."
I spent enough time working in newsrooms, and later in media relations, that I know exactly what Riley is talking about.
Reporters who work on certain kinds of stories are constantly under pressure to get "both sides of the story," which often comes down to sources you can get a hold of quickly - sometimes very quickly depending on the nature of your deadlines - who will not only talk to you willingly but will give you interesting quotes to pepper up the nature of your story.
Sources who will always take your calls, or will call you back quickly, and will always have something interesting to day, are worth their weight in gold to reporters operating under these kinds of requirements. Unfortunately, this means that attention-hungry demagogues often make the most useful sources - not in the sense that they add news value, but in the sense that they make life easier for the reporter.
Even today, I experience this in some of my freelance work. One of my longstanding gigs is for a trucking magazine, and there is a particular trucking company that has an excellent public relations rep who always gets back to me right away and gets me access to sources. My editors probably notice that this particular company gets quoted a lot in my stories. It's not because I like them better than any other trucking firm, but I do like their responsiveness and when I need someone to give me information on a moment's notice, I go right to them.
Now put that in the context of the 1980s. There was no e-mail or texting back then. Almost no one had mobile phones. If you wanted to get a hold of sources, you had to call their offices and that often meant going through some sort of secretary or gatekeeper. A source who had let it be known that he always wanted to talk to the press would be highly valued by reporters, and that's what Sharpton represented.
But didn't it bother them that Sharpton was known to be involved in such shady things? Probably not. The culture of many newsrooms is that you snicker in a wink-wink-nod-nod sort of way about sources that are useful to you. Reporters would banter back and forth about how this or that guy was probably involved a whole mess of things, but they didn't want to know because he always called them back on deadline.
And sure, bias plays a role here. A left-wing figure identified with the civil rights movement could get away with possibly nefarious things because, they figured, his heart was in the right place and he was probably just protecting himself from the evil Reagan Administration or whatever. By contrast, a right-wing evangelical type would be the object of deep suspicion amd probably a lot of mocking as well.
If you're finding it disturbing that the press ignores what it knows about shady people because it's to their own benefit to do so, you should. If you're finding it shocking, well, all I can tell you is that no one who's spent time in that environment would be shocked. In spite of what they tell you, the media serve themselves above all else.
