Bloggers, mainstream media members and several politicos gathered in the LSU Journalism Building’s Holiday Forum Monday for the first night of Louisiana Speaks, a panel discussion on the media’s coverage of the 2015 gubernatorial election.
The panel was part of a two-day event, and will feature two more discussions Tuesday.
Much like the election itself, prostitution was heavily featured.
Jason Brad Berry, a blogger at americanzombie.com who dove into Sen. David Vitter’s prostitution scandal in October, served on the panel. He said he began working on the story in 2010 and reported that Wendy Ellis, a New Orleans escort, had Vitter’s child and put it up for adoption.
He also said he chased down several other rumors surrounding Vitter, but several of them turned out to be false. After weeding out the dead ends, Berry said Ellis’ story was the only one he believed true.
“I never stopped looking into that over the past five years,” Berry said. “In the mid-summer, I was convinced that none of this was true, except for the one rumor that I had heard about Wendy Ellis actually having a child.”
Several mainstream media members, such as The Advocate editor Peter Kovacs and Monroe News Star business writer Greg Hilburn, said parts of the story were inconsistent and they did not want to risk their respective publications’ reputations by publishing it.
Kovacs said he believed all the media outlets and bloggers had similar information, but decided to go in separate directions with the coverage.
“I think in many ways, much of the media in Louisiana had access to the same ingredients,” Kovacs said. “It was a question of what they did with the ingredients.”
The vetting process is also more stringent in mainstream newsrooms, Kovacs said, and Ellis might have been viewed with more skepticism at The Advocate. Lamar White Jr., a blogger at cenlamar.com, said there were inconsistencies in Ellis’ timeline.
The panelists briefly discussed other issues as well, including how Gov. Bobby Jindal affected the outcome of the race.
Clancy DuBos, political editor and co-owner of Gambit Weekly, said he was puzzled as to why Governor-elect John Bel Edwards did not hang Jindal over Vitter’s campaign during the runoff election.
“I think we, the media, talked about it to the point where he didn’t need to,” DuBos said. “I guess Bel Edwards felt he didn’t need to and that it was understood.”
Camille Conaway, vice-president of policy and research for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said the challenges plaguing the state under the Jindal administration were well covered by Louisiana journalists. She said it was clear the issues falling to the next governor would be difficult.
The media may have also been slow to pick up on the possible connection between Jindal and Vitter, said Stephanie Grace, a columnist for The Advocate. She said media members are aware of the animosity between Vitter and Jindal, but voters may have seen the same person.
When the panel began to wind down for the night, Robert Travis Scott, the moderator and president of the Public Affairs Research Council, reminded attendees what the election, as well as the panel, had focused on.
“To sum up, we have a lot of sex but not much love,” he said.

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Nicholas Martino

Robert Travis Scott discusses the Gubernatorial debate on Monday, Nov. 30, 2015, at the Holliday Forum.