The Epstein Fallout: US and UK Different Perspectives

In the United Kingdom, media outlets are brazenly calling out a once-revered and beloved member of the royal family. In the United States, media are trying to cover their collective behinds and a former president’s over ABC spiking a tell-all story involving the same controversial figure – the late, not-so-great Jeffrey Epstein. Why does the reaction to the presentation of news – the facts – differ so wildly in two Western nations?

Stiff Upper Lip Not the Best Strategy

A few days ago, Prince Andrew was interviewed by the BBC’s Emily Maitlis about allegations made by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a key figure in the saga of Epstein’s friends in high places with an alleged predilection for underage girls. In 2001, Guiffre, then a 17-year-old, claims she was flown to New York City, the Virgin Islands, Florida, and London for sex with older men friends of Epstein and has named Andrew as one of those men.

The prince, by all accounts, was a disaster on the BBC, with a wide range of ridiculous responses that left his subjects grumpier than normal. Whoever decided that it would be a great public relations coup to let Andrew speak publicly should be fired immediately. He began with claiming his tendency to be “too honorable” was the culprit: “The problem was the fact that once he [Epstein] had been convicted I stayed with him. It was a convenient place to stay … my judgement was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable.”

Because honor within the royal bloodlines extends to convicted sex offenders.

When pressed on specific dates relating to Giuffre's claims they had had dinner and danced into a sweaty mess at a nightclub in London, just before having sex in Ghislaine Maxwell’s house, Andrew alibied that he was at a pizza party with his daughter. Oh, and it is medically impossible for him to sweat. Yes, the prince said his condition stems from a Falklands War post-traumatic syndrome caused by an “overdose of adrenaline.”

What he didn’t say or do – even once – is express sympathy toward or contrition about the human-trafficked victims. And not one news outlet has bought into his spiel. The day after the interview, The London Daily Mail wrote, “Not one single word of remorse,” and the Sunday Mirror pithily followed with, “No sweat ... and no regret.” Other news media outlets have similarly hounded the prince.

Meanwhile, in America

The woman in the middle of a media firestorm in the United Kingdom is all but unknown in the United States. Giuffre, who gave a tell-all interview to ABC News’ Amy Robach that was tossed summarily into the “nothing to see here” file three years ago, might never have been known in media circles had a hot-mic rant not been exposed by Project Veritas. A visibly angry Robach went on what should have been a widely covered devastating rant. But ABC’s stellar journalism ethics and standards interceded:

“I’ve had this interview with Virginia [Guiffre]. We would not put it on the air. I was told ‘Who’s Jeffrey Epstein. No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.’ The Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. So, do I think he [Epstein] was killed? A hundred percent, yes, I do … I’ve had the story for three years … we would not put it on the air …  It was unbelievable what we had, Clinton, we had everything.”

There is no denying that ABC killed an exposé that may have had catastrophic consequences for Hillary Clinton. The story was quashed just prior to November 2016.

Are CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC – even in passing – mentioning this outright abuse by the Fourth Estate? No, rather, they cover for one another. Robach, clearly heard on mic, is now backing her paycheck scribblers, saying the story wasn’t up to ABC’s rigorous standards. Yes, ABC, the same network that ran footage of a gun range show in Kentucky as the “Bloodbath in Syria.”

Why?

As Royalty Goes

In America, presidents and their families are as close to royalty as this citizenry cares to come. But the drive-by media for the past 12 years have protected the Clinton family, the Obama family, and near every liberal, progressive, socialist, and communist politician. They have insulted this nation’s conservatives with impunity as deplorables and as gun-and-Bible grabbers. And in order to protect a presidential bid, ABC spiked a damning story connected to one of the 2016 candidates.

In the United Kingdom, journalists, pundits, public relations experts, subjects, and royal watchers are suggesting that, at this point, Andrew is lucky to not be in some Buckingham Palace dungeon. The editor of the social media site Royal Central, Charlie Proctor, said it best: “I expected a train wreck. That was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion-level bad.”

But here in the good old U.S. of A., another friend of Epstein, who flew 26 times on the convicted sex offender’s plane, remains untainted, unshackled, and unexposed by the American media.

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Read more from Sarah Cowgill.