Entertainment Reporters (Mostly) Ignore Rose McGowan’s Elder Endorsement

You don’t need a journalism degree to spot the news value in Larry Elder’s Sunday press conference.

Elder, the talk show host turned gubernatorial candidate, teamed with actress Rose McGowan to share some troubling allegations against the wife of his competitor, Gov. Gavin Newsom. McGowan used the platform to claim Jennifer Siebel Newsom “offered her hush money in 2017 to stay quiet regarding her sexual assault allegations against Weinstein.”

The “Charmed” alum also shared emails which she claimed back up those charges. 

McGowan says the movie mogul, currently jailed for numerous sexual assaults, raped her in 1997.

The news value hardly stops there. Consider:

• Elder could be the state’s first black governor and is the leading GOP candidate
• McGowan is famous for both her acting career and helping bring down Weinstein
• The actress’ support of Elder flies in the face of her industry’s hard-left views
• Hollywood is based in California, so the Elder-McGowan alliance has even more interest for entertainment sites
• Elder is an entertainer, too. He’s a long-running talk show host, author and documentary filmmaker (“Uncle Tom”)

Yet a search of three major entertainment news sites (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline) found zero coverage of the duo’s Sept. 12 press conference.

McGowan did more than that, though. She officially endorsed Elder’s gubernatorial run and shed any remaining ties to the Democratic party. She even took a meaty swipe at Identity Politics, a core tenet of the modern Democratic party.

“They want to hear that the more we micro-label each other, the better we’ll be,” McGowan said during a Sunday news conference. “The reality is, today, I challenge this state, I challenge these voters, I challenge the media, to back up. Be human first, vote for humanity.”

In old school journalism terms that’s a “man bites dog” moment.

Yet the big three entertainment news sites looked the other way. It’s no accident, of course.

It’s the same reason the fourth major entertainment site, TheWrap.com, covered the story with a sharp anti-McGowan angle.

“Rose McGowan Slammed for Backing Anti-Abortion GOP Governor Candidate Larry Elder,” its biased headline reads. The “news” coverage begins by quoting a random Twitter user, all to better underscore its slant.

To be clear, TheWrap.com is all but saying McGowan, a rape survivor, is a liar. The site also is waging editorial war against a black man hoping to become his state’s first governor of color.

Mainstream media bias trickles down into Hollywood coverage on a daily basis. This is merely the latest example.

The mainstream press did somewhat better, with official reports on the press conference filed by The Daily Beast, Newsweek and The Hill. A good faith Google News search found a brief mention at The New York Times but nothing from CNN or The Washington Post, where Democracy Dies in Darkness.

RELATED: How Liberal Media Bias Extends to Arts Coverage

Adam Carolla, a fierce Newsom critic, bemoaned this kind of political back-and-forth, which started when Newsom’s camp claimed Elder once waved a gun near his ex-partner.

Still, Carolla correctly summed up why the story may not have legs. The media, which also grossly downplayed a racist white liberal who attacked Elder while donning a gorilla mask, will keep the story suppressed.

“It could be a huge story or it could be a nothingburger. It’ll be up to the news outlets to figure out whether it blows up or not,” Carolla said hours before the press conference. He also offered a prediction. “They’re not gonna let it blow up this close to the recall [election]… if it resurfaces it’ll resurface after the runoff election.”

It’s clear entertainment news sites are doing what they can to make that “nothingburger” prediction a reality. If the aforementioned outlets do finally cover the Elder-McGowan alliance, chances are it’ll reflect what TheWrap.com published above all else.