Bob Woodward kon de hand leggen op een audiotape van een gesprek waarin een medewerker van Fox News de toenmalige generaal David Petraeus in Afghanistan vroeg om zich kandidaat te stellen als Republikeins presidentskandidaat. Roger Ailes, hoofdredacteur van Fox wilde ontslag nemen en de campagne leiden die Rupert Murdoch zou financieren. Petraeus werd gegarandeerd dat ook de nieuwszender zijn kandidatuur, uiteraard, voluit zou steunen.
Ailes ontkent het verhaal niet, maar minimaliseerde het tegenover Woodward: “It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have. [...] I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate.”
Het artikel van Woodward is op de site van The Washington Post terug te vinden en werd eerder gepubliceerd in de papieren krant. Niet op de voorpagina, maar in het mode- en roddelkatern ‘Style’. Bernstein schreef er donderdag over in The Guardian:
Bob had a great scoop, a buzzy media story that made it perfect for Style. It didn't have the broader import that would justify A1, Liz Spayd, the Post's managing editor, told Politico when asked why the story appeared in the style section. Buzzy media story? Lacking the broader import of a front-page story? One cannot imagine such a failure of news judgment among any of Spayd's modern predecessors as managing editors of the Post, especially in the clear light of the next day and with a tape recording – of the highest audio quality – in hand.
Ook de andere media besteedden weinig aandacht aan het nieuwsfeit, of toch minder dan Bernstein ervan had verwacht:
And here let us posit the following: were an emissary of the president of NBC News, or of the editor of the New York Times or the Washington Post ever caught on tape promising what Ailes and Murdoch had apparently suggested and offered here, the hue and cry, especially from Fox News and Republican/Tea Party America, from the Congress to the US Chamber of Commerce to the Heritage Foundation, would be deafening and not be subdued until there was a congressional investigation, and the resignations were in hand of the editor and publisher of the network or newspaper. Or until there had been plausible and convincing evidence that the most important elements of the story were false. And, of course, the story would continue day after day on page one and remain near the top of the evening news for weeks, until every ounce of (justifiable) piety about freedom of the press and unfettered presidential elections had been exhausted.
Na het afluisterschandaal dat in Engeland vorig jaar boven water kwam, zou dit het definitieve bewijs moeten zijn dat niets of niemand veilig is voor Rupert Murdoch:
The tape that Bob Woodward obtained, and which the Washington Post ran in the style section, should be the denouement of the Murdoch story on both sides of the Atlantic, making clear that no institution, not even the presidency of the United States, was beyond the object of his subversion. If Murdoch had bankrolled a successful Petraeus presidential campaign and – as his emissary McFarland promised – the rest of us [at Fox] are going to be your in-house – Murdoch arguably might have sewn up the institutions of American democracy even more securely than his British tailoring.
Maar zoals bekend heeft David Petraeus zich nooit kandidaat gesteld. Uit de tape van Woodward:
We're all set, said the emissary, referring to Ailes, Murdoch and Fox. It's never going to happen, Petraeus said. You know it's never going to happen. It really isn't. … My wife would divorce me.
Het artikel van Carl Bernstein in The Guardian vindt u hier.
Het oorspronkelijk bericht van Bob Woodward hier. Daar staat ook het geluidsfragment.
