On Monday, I posted on the virtually complete lack of establishment press interest in the story of Trevor FitzGibbon, the former owner of far-left PR firm FitzGibbon Media. Fitzgibbon folded on Thursday after allegations of serial sexual harassment and sexual assault were reported in the Huffington Post. From there, the establishment press did virtually nothing with the story.
It will surprise no regular reader that non-coverage is still the norm. Searches this evening at the Associated Press's main national site and at the New York Times returned nothing and no recent stories, respectively. While I'm also sure deliberate refusal to cover an obviously relevant story doesn't surprise the editorial board at Investor's Business Daily, it has infuriated them enough to write a stinging editorial justifiably decrying the situation — especially the press's double standard.
One other search-related item: A Google News search on FitzGibbon's full name (in quotes, past week, sorted by date) returned 42 items. That's up from 22 late Sunday night, but hardly impressive. I found no new items from an establishment press outlet, several more center-right posts, and a pathetic number of left-side wailing and gnashing of teeth at places like The New Republic and The Nation about how, yes, these things even happen at progressive firms.
I believe that a case can be made that these things happen especially at progressive firms and other progressive outposts for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that there is a pantheon of liberal icons — e.g., Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and others — who are still lionized by the left in no small part because they escaped genuine accountability for their actions.
The editorialists at IBD also believe that such a case can be made (bolds are mine; FitzGibbon graphic added by me):
Why Do The Left's Perverts Get A Pass From Mainstream Media?
... FitzGibbon Media, a left-wing public relations giant, shut down suddenly Friday in a huge sex-harassment scandal. The press is strangely silent, which wouldn't be the case if this progressive firm was on the right.
Remember the War On Women? That was the campaign pitch used in recent elections to smear conservatives as ogres.
It was a phrase used by FitzGibbon Media, a left-wing PR firm, as its operatives hounded GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney into a campaign flap over his inept turn of phrase, "binders of women," on female hiring. Radio host Rush Limbaugh also was caught in the PR dragnet, with a hullabaloo over his description of a birth control campaigner as "a slut." Conservatives, in short, are raked over the coals for minor verbal transgressions, with wall-to-wall media coverage for days.
But actual dirty deeds were going on inside one of the very crafters of that "narrative." Founder Trevor FitzGibbon has been accused by his leftist employees and even his clients of soliciting naked pictures, demanding sex and harassing with impunity. Slate noted that it was "an open secret." In other words, it was known to the press for years, which did nothing.
Indeed. Does anyone believe that the folks at Slate or any other leftist press outlet would sit on "an open secret" like this if a Republican or conservative firm had a problem with such behavior?
Continuing:
It's also a pattern across the left: Democratic pols such as Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer and Bob Filner pioneered these predatory acts.
Slate blames "a patriarchal society" for the barbarism. But the reality is, the left-wing philosophy itself is the root of the behavior.
Leftists, wrote P.J. O'Rourke in his 1993 "Give War a Chance" have a toddlerlike idea of freedom. They "want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums."
Like toddlers, they are also getting a pass in the press. But they are adults. And the media is derelict in not covering the true image behind the FitzGibbon spin.
I would argue that the press is much more than derelict. They're enablers, and untold numbers of real women — not "women in binders" — have paid and likely continue elsewhere to pay a steep price for that posture.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
