Imagine you are a politician, making a name for yourself in a small town. Over the years, perhaps you get bored with your spouse. Naturally, one might start sleeping with one’s secretary. Shoot, this might even lead to a divorce. Now, suppose a weekly newspaper in the small town where you started finds this out and publishes it. What do you do?
At this point, you have some options. Some people, they take the honest approach, go out and say “Hey, I made a mistake. I should have ended my marriage before sleeping with someone else.” Others, they prefer to try stifling that weekly newspaper’s ability to print such information by threatening advertisers. Only one business doesn’t take so well to the threat, takes the nice little mail with the threat to the weekly, and they decide to write this up so their readers know the story. Seems some readers of that weekly don’t like it either, and will write in to show their support and chastise the politician.
Or at least, that’s how I understand the story. I could be wrong.