What’s undeniable is that the Post and Times stories landed like a big rock in a small pond, rippling out and activating the other journalistic lifeforms residing in the pool. (Disclosure: My employer, POLITICO, published its first free-standing story about Reade on April 23.) Considerable coverage followed the Post-Times one-two, some even advancing a difficult-to-advance story, most notably Business Insider’s April 27 report that two Reade acquaintances say was she talking about the alleged assault in the mid-1990s. It was a big deal because it provided some contemporaneous corroboration of her account—and one of the sources is even a Biden supporter.

Even so, the coverage hasn’t sufficed for all critics. They want to know why the TV media isn’t chasing the story more aggressively, which is a fair question. On Tuesday, the media critics at NewsBusters charted the slim coverage of the Biden charges on CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and PBS. (It should go without saying that Fox News Channel has run hot on the story.) According to NewsBuster’s calculations, ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC have all interviewed Biden recently but not one of 77 questions they asked of him between March 25 and April 27 has been about Reade’s charges. There can be no finessing around this line score: The broadcasters deferred to Biden.

I might be tempted to second NewsBuster’s view that the fix is in for Biden at “liberal” TV news networks if not for Jake Tapper's interview one year ago on his Sunday show, CNN’s State of the Union, where he interviewed former Nevada state Assemblywoman Lucy Flores for 12 minutes about Biden inappropriately touching her and kissing the back of her head in 2014. (Here’s the video of the interview, which CNN titled “First TV interview with Lucy Flores on Biden accusation.”) I’m not suggesting that one interview from a year ago should give the mainstream press a permanent pass from all Biden criticism, but it does argue against the notion that the press has formed a phalanx in front of the candidate.

When holding the press to account, whether TV or not, it’s also worth noting the difficulty of confirming another outlet’s findings. The Wednesday Washington Post repeats the nut of the new Business Insider story on Page One, but has trouble advancing it very far because Reade’s two acquaintances did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.

On Tuesday, Atlantic contributor Peter Beinart called on Biden to release his senatorial papers, now being held at the University of Delaware, to help sort out Reade’s claims. (She says a sexual harassment claim she filed against Biden in 1993 might be in his papers. She did not keep a copy for herself.) The Atlantic’s status as one of the glittery jewels in the liberal media crown cannot be denied. If the libs were so determined to silence this story, wouldn’t Beinart’s editors have broken his typing fingers?

As a fan of wildlife documentaries, I love watching reporters attack a hot story with the enthusiasm of Komodo dragons ripping into a captive ox. So while I might have favored more aggressive coverage of the Biden accusation, I’m at peace with why it didn’t take off with the velocity of the Kavanaugh charges. For reasons good and bad, the press tends to move faster on a story when it is part of an official proceeding like a trial, a special counsel’s investigation or a Supreme Court nomination. Reporters benefit from having stacks of transcripts, depositions, interviews, testimony, bank records, et al. at their disposal as well as witnesses to interview. Public hearings also set journalists on fire. They delighted—professionally, that is—when Anita Hill gave witness against Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court. They did the same as independent counsel Kenneth Starr built his paper case against President Bill Clinton. Likewise, the Mueller investigation and the Kavanaugh hearings unleashed lahars of evidence for reporters to wade through and mold into copy. The greater the evidentiary bounty, the larger the media bonfire.

Without a doubt, Reade’s accusation would have made a larger media splash had it been filed before the statute of limitations expired. Activists are free to believe all accusers, but reporters give greater credence to charges of wrongdoing that are tethered to judicial proceedings such as criminal trials, or special prosecutor investigations that toss off evidentiary findings that support or negate accusations. As we saw with Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, the prosecutorial style of modern confirmation hearings also provides journalistic fuel. We should expect the release of Biden’s papers and continued press findings to keep the coverage going.

But Reade might end up like Juanita Broaddrick, who waited two decades to file her rape charge against Bill Clinton. She languished in the journalistic limbo of “she said and he denied” with no real resolution to her case.

Does that mean Biden will continue to get an easy ride? Given the rising interest in the story, it seems inevitable that he’ll have to face questions from reporters about the allegations soon. We can also expect him to get a nudge from Donald Trump, who will capitalize on the dispute as the presidential campaign progresses. Trump has every right to ask why the press has grilled him on his treatment of women but has seemingly given Biden a bye. (While residents of glass houses shouldn’t necessarily throw stones, that maxim doesn’t apply to Trump. His followers have made their peace with him being a sexual predator, so how much of a loss of reputation can he suffer by raising the issue?)

The press might not have reacted as swiftly or as aggressively as some would have liked in reporting out a 27-year-old allegation it first learned about from a March 25 podcast. We can—and should—criticize broadcasters for not putting the question directly to Biden. But as coverage from the Post, Times, Business Insider, the Intercept, and others show, neither did the press avert its glance. Over the past week, the press has accelerated its pace from a cruise to a sprint, which is a good thing. If you’re keeping score at home, ding the broadcasters for their meekness at confronting Biden but award a gold star to print and digital outlets that have reported the story out giving the accuser her say without giving Biden a dose of vigilante justice.

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Trump as 2020’s protector of womankind was not the campaign I expected, but I am now preparing myself for it. Send your campaign themes to [email protected]. My email alerts have always wanted to go on Jake Tapper’s show and ask, “Why are you so pensive?” My Twitter feed wants its own show. My born-again RSS feed refuses to watch TV.