Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Kerry Gauthier has had a rough go of it lately. Embroiled in a sex scandal that has attracted the attention of national media outlets, Gauthier has gone from waging a promising reelection bid for his seat, to being caught engaged in oral sex acts at a rest stop with a teenage boy, to pulling out of the race and facing possible expulsion from the Minnesota legislature.
Gauthier does have one place in which he can reliably look for cover on this story however – CNN.
Disgraced Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Kerry Gauthier decided late Wednesday night that he will not seek reelection after he was caught having sexual contact with a 17-year-old. But that hasn’t appeased some at the Minnesota State House — they want to expel Gauthier from the legislature now.
The move to expel Gauthier, so that he cannot serve out the rest of his term, will be started tomorrow, sources tell ABC News.
Last week it was revealed that Rep. Gauthier had engaged in oral sex with a 17-year-old boy at a rest stop in Duluth in July. He has since apologized for the incident, but the political outcry in Minnesota has been swift and strong, some accusing him of being a “child-molester.”
Seems newsworthy, but not so for the so-called worldwide leader in news.
To be fair, CNN has been incredibly busy covering the controversial remarks of Rep. Todd Akin - to the tune of 117 entries on the website as of this post.
Execute the same kind of search for Kerry Gauthier on the site, and you’ll find a lone hit from 2007 that has absolutely nothing to do with the Minnesota lawmaker.
The question has to be asked – What is the more newsworthy event here, the asinine comments of Akin speaking about “legitimate rape”, or the fact that a lawmaker engaged in a sex act with a boy nearly four decades his junior; an act that would have been considered legitimate statutory rape in about 12 other states?
We’re guessing CNN’s defense would be that Gauthier is not a national politician, in contrast to Akin. And yet every other major network has covered the story in some manner, including Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, the Huffington Post, etc.
So why has CNN avoided the scandal and instead had a laser-like focus on the Akin story? Is it nothing more than the placement of a ‘D’ in front of Gauthier’s name that has the network burying the story?
Cross-Posted at the Mental Recession
