Jilted Ex Blasts NY Times Over ‘Vows’ Story: ‘Revisionist History’
Dec. 21 2010 - 4:46 pm | 14,387 views
Yesterday I asked whether The New York Times made any attempt to get both sides of the controversial story of two married parents who left their spouses for each other — a question the Times refused to discuss. Now we have our answer.
“No, I wasn’t contacted or interviewed or given any opportunity to opine on any of it, including having my seven-year-old daughter’s picture in the paper,” says Bob Ennis, former husband of TV reporter Carol Anne Riddell. It hardly needs to be said that Ennis, a media executive who has held high-level jobs at IAC and News Corp., feels he should have had that opportunity.
“The primary story here is not that interesting,” he says. “People lie and cheat and steal all the time. That’s a fact of life. But rarely does a national news organization give them an unverified megaphone to whitewash it.”
Ennis, now head of the digital media practice at the investment bank Petsky Prunier, did not have a high opinion of the Times even before this incident. “I’m happy if they spell all the headlines on the front page correctly,” he says. “The idea that they’d fact-check a style story — I don’t think that’s incumbent on them. But there’s a difference between that and publishing a choreographed, self-serving piece of revisionist history for two people who are both members of the media industry.”
Although his ex-wife said she and her new husband volunteered to tell their story to the “Vows” column partly “for our kids’ sakes,” Ennis says he is angry primarily because of the effect he sees this episode having on those same kids. “You could easily try to brush this off as a kind of self-evidence, a self-serving act by a couple of narcissistic people who for whatever reason have a need to try to persuade people, except for the fact that there are lots of children involved,” he says. “These kids watch TV, they read newspapers a little bit and certainly they surf the internet.”
I called Riddell, whom I spoke with yesterday, seeking her comment on Ennis’s accusations of whitewashing but haven’t heard back. I also tried to contact Riddell’s second husband, advertising executive John Partilla, but his Facebook account, through which I messaged him yesterday, appears to have been hidden or deactivated.
Ennis, who is away on a ski vacation, says he hasn’t been reading coverage of the spiraling controversy, “although I’ve received about a thousand emails from friends and family members, so I got the spirit of it.”
Update: In a second conversation, Ennis stressed to me that what he’s most upset about is the photo of his daughter. “These folks are well within their rights to tell whatever version of reality they want to tell, and if The New York Times is gullible enough to print it, that mostly reflects poorly on the Times,” he says. “The picture of my daughter is another matter. I sure as hell would have objected if they had told me they were going to print it.”
“Maybe The New York Times has forgotten, but New York can still be a dangerous town for children of wealthy people. I want to find out from the Times how that occurred and I will expect some sort of response and if I don’t get one I’ll take further measures to achieve one.”
New York Times Wedding Couple Flaunts Leaving Their Spouses, Screwing Up Their Kids
This Sunday morning Gawker points us to a sordid story in the wedding section of the New York Times. It turns out that rich white people leave their spouses.
And then they talk about it to the Paper of Record!
She was a "glamorous" anchor at WNBC; he was the president of media sales at Time Warner and a "triathlete." They both had children at the same Upper West Side pre-kindergarten. It's "part 'Brady Bunch' and part 'The Scarlet Letter,'" the Times tells us.
They say they never cheated: "I did a terrible thing as honorably as I could," said the man who left his wife and three children.
THEN HE TOLD THE MOST FAMOUS NEWSPAPER ALL ABOUT IT SO WHEN HIS KIDS GROW UP THEY CAN GOOGLE HIS NAME AND SLAM THE DOOR OF THEIR ROOMS AND SIDE WITH THEIR MOTHER.
Here's the heart of the tale:
The connection was immediate, but platonic. In fact, as they became friends so did their spouses. There were dinners, Christmas parties and even family vacations together.
So Ms. Riddell was surprised to find herself eagerly looking for Mr. Partilla at school events -- and missing him when he wasn't there. "I didn't admit to anyone how I felt," she said. "To even think about it was disruptive and disloyal."
What she didn't know was that he was experiencing similar emotions. "First I tried to deny it," Mr. Partilla said. "Then I tried to ignore it."
Like in high school, it eventually came to a head:
In May 2008, Mr. Partilla invited her for a drink at O'Connell's, a neighborhood bar. She said she knew something was up, because they had never met on their own before.
"I've fallen in love with you," he recalled saying to her. She jumped up, knocking a glass of beer into his lap, and rushed out of the bar. Five minutes later, he said, she returned and told him, "I feel exactly the same way." Then she left again.
Why would you sign up for this? Why would you apply to air your family business? WHY ARE YOU SO DAMN PROUD OF YOURSELVES?
"He said, 'Remind me every day that the kids will be O.K.,' " Ms. Riddell recalled. "I would say the kids are going to be great, and we'll spend the rest of our lives making it so."
But probably not! Therapy is expensive. Moreover, it's not just the five (!) children; it's both the cuckold and the slighted wife, plus the parents, siblings and friends of all of the adults involved!
Oh, their story is "fodder for neighborhood gossip?" You don't f_ucking say. The egomania and bubble of privilege here is out of control.
"I will always feel terribly about the pain I caused my ex-husband," said the woman. "It was not what I ever would have wished on him." Then why make him relive it all? In ink! With photos!! It seems like someone wants a movie deal. (I'd watch.)
Hmmm...trouble in "paradise" already...the groom has regrets for publishing this tripe ... but the bride has NO regrets for her tasteless gloating...in fact, she's PROUD of how they handled it all (the adultery!).
Groom regrets scandalous NYT wedding feature
Carol Anne Riddell, the former TV reporter and one-half of the newlyweds who have been widely criticized for participating in a Sunday New York Times wedding feature that detailed how the couple had broken up their previous marriages in order to be together, said she regrets nothing.
Riddell told Forbes on Tuesday: "We did this because we just wanted one honest account of how this happened for our sakes and for our kids' sakes. ... There was nothing in the story we were ashamed of."
But now it seems like her groom, advertising executive John Partilla, has some misgivings -- about agreeing to let the Times profile him, that is.
"I think if we had had an indication afterwards of the nerve it would have struck," he told Page Six, "we obviously would not have shared our life in any way publicly."
As The Cutline's sibling blog, The Lookout, said on Monday, the Times' Vows column is "typically a place where the spawn of diplomats and Wall Street titans share cutesy tales of how Cupid's arrow brought them together, while making sure to drop in a casual mention of the elite schools attended by the couple."
In other words, it is typically not a place where you find anecdotes about beer spilling into laps in Irish pubs as a married man and woman awkwardly confront the mutual feelings of love that will ultimately bring about divorce proceedings for each of them. But that was indeed the saga of Riddell and Partilla's union. (And yes, they both have kids.) Here's how the Vows write-up read, in part:
"'The part that's hard for people to believe is we didn't have an affair,' Ms. Riddell said. 'I didn't want to sneak around and sleep with him on the side. I wanted to get up in the morning and read the paper with him.'
"With that goal in mind, they told their spouses. 'I did a terrible thing as honorably as I could,' said Mr. Partilla, who moved out of his home, reluctantly leaving his three children. But he returned only days later. Then he boomeranged back and forth for six months."
The feature prompted outrage in the blogosphere and in the Vows story's comments section (which has since shut down amid the controversy).
But when contacted by Forbes media reporter Jeff Bercovici on Monday, Riddell stood by the decision to air their tale.
"We are really proud of our family and proud of the way we've handled this situation over the past year," she said.
Her ex-husband, unsurprisingly, feels differently. "People lie and cheat and steal all the time. That's a fact of life. But rarely does a national news organization give them an unverified megaphone to whitewash it," Bob Ennis told Bercovici on Tuesday. He said he wasn't "contacted or interviewed or given any opportunity to opine on any of it, including having my 7-year-old daughter's picture in the paper."
Ennis, described by Bercovici as "a media executive who has held high-level jobs at IAC and News Corp.," continued: "The idea that they'd fact-check a style story — I don't think that's incumbent on them. But there's a difference between that and publishing a choreographed, self-serving piece of revisionist history for two people who are both members of the media industry."
So now you have both sides of the story with the Dad being concerned about what is most important.. how the photo of his daughter will effect her safety.
It also illustrates how you have no control once the media steps in. And a journalist can adjust the facts to create a more interesting story. I saw it happen when the former spouse was included in a NYT business article. The quotes were correct, their intent the opposite in how the article was written.
And yes, the groom exhibits the same vacillating behavior as when he was married. "I did it, but I shouldn't have."
Emotional affairs start because of an inherent unhappiness, lack of communication between the spouses. I spent four years constantly suffering bouts of debilitating illnesses and injuries. Once he left those disappeared. In retrospect the stress of being married to someone who blamed me for his unhappiness depleted my immune system.
He tried at times as did I. But something broke and couldn't be fixed. If I knew then what I know now I would have initiated a separation and/or divorce when nothing worked. Folks usually want what they can't have. And his response would have said it all. If he wanted to stay he would have and done the work to make it happen. It would have been a joint effort. If he didn't he'd be gone. And everything would be out in the open. But I'd never break up the family.. never.
Yes, divorce destroys the family emotionally, financially. And the children take the brunt of it, especially when one parent disappears into the new relationship.
This couple continued their behavior on creating a buzz with their actions only on a grander scale, hurting those who were already in pain. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to emotional maturity.
Perhaps I'm cynical. Perhaps I'm realistic with the end of a marriage. But at some point it's time to stop beating a dead horse. And that's usually when living life starts again. It doesn't change the tsunami of emotions and destruction. It's just rebuilding with a new foundation.
