By Katie Bell
Culture and Media Institute
June 3, 2010

“The Gores aren’t offering explanations,” Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow said in reporting the news former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, would be separating after 40 years of marriage. Leave it to the media to fill in the gaps with speculation and rationalization.

In an e-mail sent to family and friends earlier this week, the Gores said they just “grew apart.” The e-mail also said that they would de declining further comment. Instead of highlighting the pain and destruction of divorce, the media are making excuses for the Gore split up.

According to CBS Morning News, “It’s been ten years since that oddly public passionate kiss at the Democratic convention. That was followed by Gore winning the popular vote for president, but losing the electoral vote. Family friend Sally Quinn says that may have done the marriage irreparable harm,” Sharyl Attkisson said.

“He obviously suffered a lot, and still is suffering. He’ll never get over that and neither will she,” Quinn said.

Others preemptively addressed criticism of Gore. ABC reference Gore’s achievements as an award-winning environmental activist. CNN cited his accolades as being a “planet saver.”

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) took a different approach, using the divorce to suggest that marriage as an institution is doomed to failure.

 “Whatever the Gores’ issues - he’s 62, she’s 61 - they are part of a new normal that began with their generation, according to Census statistics. Of the 8.1 million women who were married between 1970 and 1974, just over half made it to their 30th wedding anniversary, compared with about 60% for women married between 1960 and 1964,” Zaslow said.

According to wsj.com, “The biggest issue is that we’re living longer, we’re healthier, and couples are bored with each other,” says Ms. Putzel, who also wrote the American Bar Association’s book “Representing the Older Client in Divorce.” “We have to ask ourselves: Is ‘ever after’ too long?”

The June 3 USA Today echoes the WSJ. A headline says the Gores’ split “puts focus on late-stage divorces.”

“These separations occur well after the nest is emptied. Breakups after 30 or 40 years of marriage, as in the case of Al and Tipper Gore, stem from a variety of factors, including longer life spans, different generational expectations about marriage, and feelings about divorce, personal fulfillment and happiness, divorce and marriage experts say,” Sharon Jayson, USA Today Reporter, said.

NPR reporter Jennifer Ludden interviewed Professor Betsey Stevenson of the University of Pennsylvania on the subject of the Gore separation. According to Ludden, Stevenson prefers to see the Gores’ separation not as a failure of marriage, but as a celebration of life.

Darryle Pollack of the Huffington Post addressed the possibility of an affair in the second paragraph of her June 2 post, but immediately dismissed the notion.

Across broadcasts, internet reports, and newspaper articles one thing is clear: the media can’t seem to bring themselves to say anything that might suggest their golden boy is flawed.