Medill Watchdog: Do GOP Sex Scandals Get Bigger Coverage?

Evanston, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/18/2013 -- A new complaint of double standard: Is the media hiding the allegations of Sen. Menendez having contact with prostitutes, in contrast to how they treat Republicans accused of sexual misconduct? That is the claim of right-wing media critics: “Allegations of shady campaign contributors and procurement of prostitutes are usually the ingredients of a political scandal that send the media into a feeding frenzy. Unless, of course, the figure involved is a Democrat,” observes Geoffrey Dickens, deputy research director for the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog.

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Medill Watchdog identifies and investigates systemic problems in public institutions and strives to hold officials accountable for these flaws.

Experienced investigative journalism faculty work year-round with interns who are current Northwestern University students or recent graduates on original reporting projects that are extra-curricular, not graded and not for credit. Faculty and students focus on comprehensive public-service journalism that relies on public records, supplemented by shoe-leather reporting.

The project is headed by director Rick Tulsky and assistant director John Sullivan, both longtime news reporters who returned to their native Chicago to establish the initiative. Tulsky, whose many national awards include a Pulitzer Prize, has been a reporter and editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times and San Jose Mercury News as well as other journalism organizations in Mississippi, Michigan and California. Sullivan, whose first newspaper job was at the Chicago Reporter, went on to undertake work that has won widespread recognition, including a Pulitzer finalist, at the Philadelphia Inquirer and The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina.

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