Why werent Bill Cosbys rape victims listened to years earlier than this? This post-interview AP footage tells the story. Heres Amanda Hesss take: Entertainment journalists require access to rich, famous people, and rich, famous people require favorable press. How news organizations and celebrities negotiate that exchange depends on their relative status in the marketplace. When Cosby granted the AP interview at the beginning of the month, he believed that he was powerful enough to demand positive coverage, and ultimately, it appears the AP agreed. But just ten days after the piece aired, Cosby’s stock had dropped considerably: In that time, Netflix, NBC, and TV Land had all cut ties, meaning that he had fewer friends, less influence, and very little leverage. As the power differential shifted, the AP’s complicity with Cosby in producing the art-related video and scuttling the rest began to pose a reputational risk to the news organization. (The AP notes in the new video that it decided to publish the additional footage in the new context of the “backdrop” of his shuttered business deals.) So: The AP rolled the tape of its interview touching on the rape allegations, and also included the tense off-the-cuff conversation that followed. The postscript contained the interview’s juiciest bits, but it also served as a sly explanation for why the AP failed to release the video earlier: The implication is that Cosby and his people intimidated the AP into silence. But the video shows that the Associated Press reporter was not eager to approach the topic in the first place, and unwilling to justify his line of questioning when Cosby challenged him. [slate/blogs/xx_factor/2014/11/20/bill_cosby_ap_video_why_did_the_news_organization_suppress_it_for_more_than.html]
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 02:32:22 +0000
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