Soon after Hillary Clinton became First Lady, the attacks against her and Husband Bill reached a new level of vindictiveness and creativity. Some were actually quite amusing if you could set aside the very real possibility that people would believe what they read or heard.
The National Enquirer jumped into the media food-fight with a scandalous fabrication called “Hillary’s Intimate Secrets.” Among other tidbits the authors described an angry Bill Clinton calling Hillary a “bitch” and a traumatized Chelsea Clinton crying and asking her mother why such terrible things were happening — and just before Christmas!
Well, Frank Marafiote, the intrepid editor of the Hillary Clinton Quarterly, decided to call the National Enquirer and speak to the writers involved. With two-thirds of the story attributed to anonymous sources, he wanted to find out how they managed to put this piece of creative writing together.
According to Frank —
I discovered the National Enquirer formula for escaping accountability for its stories. First, send out a pack of reporters. Four is the absolute minimum. Interview anyone who will talk to you. Gas station attendants. Waitresses. The local hardware store clerk. In the story, call them all “insiders.” What your sources don’t tell you, make up. When someone asks how a particular part of the story came into being, just say “I didn’t work on that part of the story — it was one of the other reporters.”
You can read the entire story about the writing of “Hillary’s Intimate Secrets” on the Hillary Clinton Quarterly web site.