UPDATED: Lt. Governor Drew Wrigley Dodges Media Looking To Ask Questions About Affair

Lt. Governor Drew Wrigley hasn’t spoken to the media about the extramarital affair the confessed to earlier this month since the news broke, but he’s still making public appearances. He made one today in Fargo at the Big Iron agriculture event, and Valley News Live tried to ask him questions about the fair.

According to their report, Wrigley “dodged media questions about his affair and other things.”

Not a smart move. If you’re working on rehabilitating your public image, evading questions from the media is probably not the right way to go about it.

It would be one thing if Wrigley were still out of the public eye, working on rehabilitating his relationship with his family, but he’s not. He’s out in the public eye at public events and the media has every right to ask him questions.

Wrigley might also have a defense if he’d already spoken to Valley News Live reporters about the affair. He could say”asked and answered”, but he hasn’t spoken to Valley News Live. To my knowledge Wrigley has given just three interviews about the affair: One to myself, one to the Associated Press, and one to Fargo Forum reporter Mike Nowatzki.

I’m not sure what additional angles Valley News Live’s reporters could be working on in terms of this story at this point – as one of the first to report this story I’m convinced there’s no more meat on the bone – but they have a right to ask their questions. And Wrigley, I suppose, has a right to avoid the questions. But that’s making him look evasive rather than forthright and contrite.

If Wrigley stopped and answered VNL’s questions at worst they’d probably run another story rehashing things we already know about the affair. At best for Wrigley they wouldn’t run a story at all. But not answering the questions? Avoiding the cameras? That’s the worst case scenario from a public relations standpoint.

No doubt this is a painful situation for Wrigley, but who do we blame for that than the person who created the situation in the first place?