Matt Bai, a columnist for Yahoo News, has written a “look-back book” entitled “All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid,” and while the new release focuses on the 1987 incident that ended Gary Hart's quest for the presidency, it also lists John Kerry as one of the victims of the media's new motivation “to find character problems, hypocrisies that will drive web traffic and segments on cable news.”

According to Washington Post blogger Erik Wemple, one example of this change in covering politicians took place in 2004, when Bai interviewed Kerry -- while he was a presidential candidate -- for the New York Times Magazine.