Journalism exam

For your mid-term exam in Journalism 131, Making a Difference in the World, compare and contrast the press coverage of Karl Rove and the Plame investigation with the press coverage of two other matters involving White House aides:

1) After Webb Hubbell pleaded guilty to felony charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating President Clinton, White House aides arranged for Hubbell to be paid a total of almost a million dollars by various Clinton supporters (for which he did virtually no work). After the payments, Hubbell refused to cooperate with the prosecutors. Despite Hubbell's status as a felon convicted of cheating his clients and the loss of of his law license, the million dollars represented, by far, the most successful earnings year of his law career.

2) In 1998, a federal judge released evidence which established that White House chief of Staff Leon Panetta and his deputy, John Podesta, had orchestrated a massive coverup and obstruction of justice in a federal case involving a scandal within the Commerce Department.

In your answers to these two questions, be sure to analyze the differences in the amount of press coverage, the tone of the coverage, the editorial content of newspapers in each case, and the likelihood that a serious crime was committed by the White House aides involved.