On March 25, when former political aide Tara Reade came forward with allegations of sexual assault against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, her words were met with radio silence. The story was largely ignored by mainstream media sources until 19 days later, when the New York Times put out an investigative piece that interviewed dozens of pertinent sources on the matter. Only after that, and more so after the emergence of a corroborating Larry King Live clip, did traditional sources cover the story in greater depth.
A New York Times editorial has since acknowledged that traditional media sources, including itself, “waded in slowly,” and an article published by the Times’ editorial board on May 1 called for a more thorough investigation. However, the initial passivity speaks to a broader and ongoing understating of Reade’s allegations by established media sources. Reade has still not received an offer to appear on television from CNN or MSNBC, news networks that deliver around-the-clock coverage of news and politics, or from NBC. Reade has only received an offer from Fox News, which she accepted but abruptly canceled after backlash from the public. This disparity in coverage is evident not only in television appearance offers but also in on-air mentions. As FiveThirtyEight pointed out in an analysis of closed captioning data and online news coverage, Fox News jumped on the story, mentioning Reade in 371 clips through May 1; in the same timeframe, CNN mentioned Reade in 35.
The lag in response by certain outlets hurt not only the pursuit of truth in the matter but also put the media itself on trial. Conservative channels like Fox News have called the lack of coverage hypocrisy, pointing to the extensive reporting devoted to allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. The conservative outlet Blaze Media has similarly pointed to a disparity in treatment, highlighting how the mainstream outlet CNN published seven articles the day Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh became public and went on to put out more than 700, while not publishing a single article on Tara Reade within the first three weeks of her allegations becoming public. As Ryan Grim of The Intercept stated, “That the media isn’t more concerned about the image ignoring this story creates, and the fodder it gives to cynical actors like Donald Trump Jr., gleefully parading the media’s hypocrisy, suggests a potentially destructive lack of self-awareness.” By ignoring the story, traditional media outlets have undermined their own credibility, and, more importantly, set aside a significant issue that warrants coverage.
Furthermore, a timely and effective response has not only been lacking on the part of the mainstream media, but also on the part of the Biden campaign. Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Biden, responded to Reade’s allegations by pointing to the candidate’s record.
“Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women. He authored and fought for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard — and heard respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”
However, to point simply to the candidate’s politics is to uphold the fallacy that a favorable political record absolves politicians of any wrongdoing. And even then, Biden’s record is not entirely unblemished. Twenty-nine years ago, when Anita Hill accused Supreme Court appointee Clarence Thomas of sexual assault, Biden led the Judiciary Committee in an especially hostile questioning of her before the Senate, working to tarnish her character in an attempt to undermine her credibility. In an interview conducted in 2019, Hill stated that while she believes people can change, Biden still has not fully accepted responsibility for his actions. Among the things he has not apologized for are his refusal to call female witnesses with corroborating stories to the Senate and his absence of a public apology. This episode in the senator’s past reveals that his actions have not always been consistent with his favorable political record, and that they must be scrutinized more carefully.
Biden himself, who was absent from the response to the controversy until over a month after the initial allegations and a week after the Larry King Live tape surfaced, released a statement on Medium adhering to a similar rationale as Bedingfield. The statement began and ended with a plea to remember the Violence Against Women Act, passed 25 years ago and strengthened over time to include prevention strategies and further protections for survivors of sexual violence. While the statement did not address Reade’s corroborating evidence, it did notably call upon the Secretary of the Senate to go through the National Archives to search for a complaint that Reade claims to have placed in 1993. This request was a critical step forward, but the Biden campaign has still been slow to go deeper in the investigation by probing the files from his early Senate career that he donated to the University of Delaware in 2012. While scrutinizing these files, most of which have not yet been catalogued, would prove a massive effort, it would indicate a definitive commitment to seriously hearing out the allegations — something that has been lacking so far.
Finding the compact seed of truth within this storm of controversy — when there are resolute voices on both sides corroborating oppositional stories, when details change over time, and when specifics remain unclear — is not easy. But while the extent of truth within the allegations remains unclear, the claims and evidence put forward are not insubstantial. They merit timely recognition on the part of established media sources and the Biden campaign that there is something here that warrants further investigation. And this recognition came, and continues to come, too late.
Image Credit: flickr / Gage Skidmore