But with Edwards denying the affair and another campaign worker claiming to be the father of Hunter's child, the network felt it needed persuasive information before airing a report, Feist said.
"In a story like this, these are significant allegations," he said. "I think it's entirely appropriate . . . to wait to report a story until they have information that they're comfortable with reporting."
The Los Angeles Times was unable to confirm the details in the Enquirer, said Craig Turner, an editor who oversees front-page stories for the paper.
"All I can say is that we're not in the business of printing things we don't know to be true," Turner said. "The problem with a story like this is that it's very, very difficult to ascertain the truth until one of the people steps forward."
The fact that the Enquirer said its reporters had seen Edwards at the hotel was not enough to go on, he added.
"The National Enquirer is a supermarket tabloid that is accurate some of the time and inaccurate some of the time," Turner said.
A few news organizations did follow the Enquirer's reporting, including Fox Newsa detailed story.
The Charlotte Observer went further than most. The North Carolina newspaper broke the news that the birth certificate for Hunter's daughter did not list a father. On Thursday, the Observer reported that Democratic Party strategists said Edwards needed to address the Enquirer reports or risk losing a speaking slot at the national convention.
Rick Thames, editor of the Observer, said the paper had decided it would be foolish not to acknowledge the story.
"It was the subject of late-night talk shows and certainly all over the Web," he said. "It was in our culture and in our faces, and to act as if it didn't exist would be to ignore reality.
"I don't know if others were confused by the fact that it seemed tawdry to follow a tip that began with a tabloid," he added. "The truth of the matter is journalists take tips from all sorts of sources, and some of them are unsavory. That's not so important as what you do with the tip."
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matea.gold@latimes.com
