Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 4, 2016
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 4, 2016
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s “sex for power” and public corruption scandal was first chronicled in an exclusive series of investigative articles titled, “Forbidden Love” and “Executive Betrayal”. These articles were published on my Facebook page, commencing on September 4, 2015. They were also published, in real-time, by my personal friend and fellow online journalist, David Meckley of Dothan, Alabama, on his blog:TheMeck.Blogspot.com.
For the convenience of our readers, David "The Meck" Meckley has republished the original four “Forbidden Love” articles and four “Executive Betrayal” articles in their entirety. The eight articles, which are listed by dates of publication, appear in the top left column of his website.
David, who has been exposing public corruption in Alabama for more than a decade, asked me this weekend to publish this article so that our readers would be reminded that I was the journalist who first broke the story of the Robert Bentley-Rebekah Mason sex, lies, and audiotape scandal. In a March 31, 2016, Washington Post story titled, “The inside story of how Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s sex scandal broke wide-open”, AL.com took full and sole credit for breaking this scandal wide-open. According to the Post's story: “The group's reporters cracked open a scandal involving their governor's alleged infidelity last week and have been covering the unpredictable fallout aggressively ever since”. AL.com reporter Leada Gore explained how they broke the story open in a lengthy interview.
Everybody in Alabama knows that AL.com did not break this sex scandal story open. We did. Yet, AL.com took false credit for this journalistic accomplishment. The truth is this: AL.com refused to report on the scandal when the “Forbidden Love” and “Executive Betrayal” articles were published in September because they were afraid of the consequences of accusing a sitting governor of marital infidelity. My loyalty was to the truth about the Bentley-Mason sex scandal, and I was willing to pay whatever price was required for reporting the truth.
Additionally, AL.com reporter Chuck Dean openly criticized snippets of my articles in a failed attempt to bolster the credibility and respectability of Bentley and Mason. Dean, who covers the governor’s office for AL.com., was listed as a longtime customer of Ashley Madison (the marital cheating website). He is also a close friend of Rebekah Mason.
As the Post’s article shows, AL.com promotes itself in national media circles as the Alabama media group that broke the sex scandal open. This is an intentionally false and misleading representation. What is more, AL.com never mentioned the “Forbidden Love” and “Executive Betrayal” articles during its recent promotional tour. This fraudulent conduct by AL.com is called “theft of story credit by deception”. This conduct also evidences AL.com’s propensity to mislead the public in news reporting.
AL.com publishes newspapers in Huntsville, Birmingham, and Mobile, Alabama. It is the largest traditional news organization in Alabama. Yet, AL.com is the only major newspaper chain in the state that has NOT called for Governor Bentley to resign.
Eighty-nine percent of the respondents in a recent AL.com poll want Bentley to resign. AL.com's editorial board apparently falls within the eleven percent of respondents who want Bentley to remain in the job, or who are not sure if the governor should resign.
In a bizarre editorial, AL.com offered Bentley a suggested pathway for keeping his job – fire Rebekah and come clean. Bentley promptly fired Rebekah and is expected to release a "come clean" video statement this week.
AL.com now serves in the dual role of reporting scandal-related news and giving Bentley public relations advice, all while taking credit for breaking open the scandal. Remember this connection: Chuck Dean, Ashley Madison, "dark money" sponsors/AL.com advertisers, state of Alabama advertising dollars, and “Birds of a feather flock together”.
Anyway, if you take the time to re-read the “Forbidden Love” and “Executive Betrayal” articles at: TheMeck.Blogspot.com., you will see how incredibly accurate we were in our detailed reporting last September. Then, you can determine for yourself who broke this sex, lies and audiotape story wide-open.
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