Inquiring Minds Bow to National Enquirer Scoops

For the second time in six weeks, the National Enquirer--the weekly tabloid that once staged and then reported on the landing of space aliens--broke a major news story that left much of the mainstream media playing an embarrassing game of catch-up.

As early as Thursday in its online edition, the Enquirer revealed that Hugh Rodham, the brother-in-law of former President Clinton, took $200,000 to lobby for clemency for a health marketer convicted of perjury and mail fraud. The print edition, which contains the story, hits newsstands today.

Meanwhile, last month, the scandal sheet with a circulation of 2 million, also led the way in reporting that the Rev. Jesse Jackson fathered a child out of wedlock.

“The lines continue to blend” between news and gossip, tabloids and the mainstream print media, said Steve Coz, the Enquirer’s Harvard-educated editor. Indeed, commented Newsweek’s chief political correspondent Howard Fineman, the Enquirer is “the newspaper of record of the Clinton years.”

The Enquirer’s latest revelation about the presidential pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell at the behest of Rodham, who is the brother of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), brought a swarm of reporters to the tabloid’s newsroom in Lantana, Fla. The Enquirer story was cited on the front page of the New York Times and by the Washington Post.

“We’ve got more reporters running around here today than you can shake a stick at,” said Charlie Montgomery, the Enquirer’s senior editor.

The scoop began to take shape three weeks ago when the tabloid’s investigative staff reviewed 140 presidential pardons, Enquirer editors said. The group narrowed the field to 10 pardons that, according to Coz, didn’t “pass the smell test.”

Coz’s staff was struck by what appeared to be a personal connection between Rodham and the wife of Braswell’s lawyer. The Enquirer then obtained a copy of a wire transfer of money that went directly to Rodham’s law firm two days after the pardon.

Coz would not disclose how his reporters obtained the copy of the wire transfer.

“I’m not going to say some sources weren’t paid along the way,” Coz said. “But money was not the driving force in this story.”

One of the two reporters who broke the Braswell story is Mike Hanrahan, a retired New York Daily News reporter who has been with the Enquirer for about five years. Hanrahan also worked on the story about Jackson’s out-of-wedlock child.

“This was straight-up investigative reporting, what we’ve been doing for the past couple of years,” Montgomery said. “News is what sells. Not just gossip, but news.”

Enquirer editors expect the scoop to increase this week’s newsstand sales by more than 300,000 copies.

The Enquirer earned grudging respect from the mainstream media during the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Among many scoops during the sensational trial, the Enquirer dug up a photo of Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes that he had denied owning.

It also won praise for breaking the story that Kennedy relative Michael Skakel had allegedly confessed to his role in the 25-year-old death of Greenwich, Conn., neighbor Martha Moxley. In 1997, the Enquirer offered a $100,000 reward that led police to the killer of Bill Cosby’s son, Ennis.