Tag: blackmail

Letterman blackmailer gets Emmy nomination.

I guess there’s no reason not to nominate him for it, but it’s still sort of weird:

The former CBS News producer jailed for trying to blackmail David Letterman is up for an Emmy award.

Robert “Joe” Halderman was nominated Thursday for a News and Documentary Emmy award for his participation in an April 2009 “48 Hours” story about an American exchange student charged with murder in Italy. He was one of four producers cited for the story.

Halderman began a six-month jail sentence in May for trying to extort money from Letterman in exchange for not revealing the late-night host’s office affairs.

Via Ed Driscoll, who is not precisely filled with the milk of human kindness when it comes to the journalism industry.  Not that I’m saying that he’s wrong, given that a lot of journalists pretty much hate New Media for a variety of reasons, and the ones who do hate us are rarely shy about making that hatred known.

Moe Lane

PS: Oddly, this is one of those businesses where getting an industry award nomination is sometimes a response to having been thrown in jail, rather than being largely irrelevant to it.

Which will offend you more about the Letterman story?

That he used his position to sleep with staffers*?

Or that somebody tried to blackmail him over it?

Personally, I expect that we’re going to hear a lot more about the second part than we are about the first; it’s the sort of thing that you’d tend to gloss over at high speed if you’re trying to arouse sympathy for Letterman.  Which I might feel, if not the for both the first part, and the fact that Letterman’s never been shy about going after other people for this sort of thing.  And, yes, my respect for the man cratered with the Palin joke incident.  So I acknowledge that I’m not going to be favorable to his plight anyway.

That being said, blackmail is evil and unethical.  It’s also counter-productive: I can think of at least three media outlets who would have bought the evidence and exclusivity on a walk-in.

Moe Lane

PS: Jim Treacher acts as local karmic adjuster.  So does Jules Crittenden.  And I expect a great – nay, epic – response from Deceiver.com.

*Please note: I am not accusing him of adultery. There is no evidence that he carried on with other women after his marriage. But it is conceded from the start that he has engaged in sexual relations with people who worked for him.

Crossposted to RedState.