Andrew Baron has denied he knew anything. But troublingly, he also says his dad didn't know about the affair, which strains belief — considering that it was Fred Baron's ongoing financial assistance to Hunter which blew Edwards's cover. I'm inclined to believe that the younger Baron was not, in fact, wise to the arrangement, and it's only natural to stick up for family. Unless you purport to be a news organization, in which case recusal is your best bet.

Because it all makes Rocketboom's original coverage of the Edwards campaign look all the more fawning and uninformed in retrospect. By continuing to toe the family line in public adds fuel to a story that, like Edwards's political career, no longer really matters. While one might be willing to forgive the original faux pas of letting the campaign lead you around by the news nose, it doesn't help perceptions of questionable "new media" journalist ethics to continue to deny, deny, deny.

As long as the younger Baron continues to trumpet his father's innocence in public, the more Rocketboom looks like it traded access for complicity, even if unintentionally. Andrew should probably take his own advice and "take a few days off."

Andrew Baron's involvement in the Edwards campaign has drawn notice before. The younger Baron failed to disclose that he was getting paid to do campaign videos which he packaged as interviews:

...Edwards tells Rocketboom's Joanne Colan — a former British MTV VJ — that places like Rocketboom.com are "one of the best ways to reach people" as part of his campaign to change America "from the ground up." But in the "interview," neither Edwards nor Colan disclose that there was a financial relationship between the Edwards campaign and Rocketboom.com, as [Washington Post's Howard] Kurtz reports.

But in their outrage over the undisclosed payments, no one stopped to ask how Baron, a relative unknown videoblog producer, got the gig in the first place. The notion that Edwards was buying blogger buzz satisfied even hardcore media reporters like Kurtz. It never occurred to them that the quid pro quo might be working in reverse.

By crowning Andrew Baron a rising star among videobloggers, worthy of a ride in the Edwards campaign jet, Edwards was boosting a business in which one of his backers, Fred Baron, had a financial interest. What a win-win-win! Andrew Baron got a job and a hot interview; Edwards got promotion as the Internet's candidate of the moment; and Fred Baron got two of his causes advanced. The Edwards campaign may have foundered, but the interview gave Rocketboom the kind of credibility that eventually paid off in an exclusive, seven-figure distribution deal with Sony. (To cap it all off, we've heard rumors that the jet actually belonged to Fred Baron, who reportedly loaned his plane out to Edwards from time to time.)

But Andrew Baron's credibility as a journalist is very much on the line now. Robert Scoble suggested that Baron had expressed relief that the affair was "out in the open." Did that mean the younger Baron knew about it at the time? The elder Baron certainly did. It was the money trail that Fred Baron laid which eventually led to Rielle Hunter's outing.

We asked Chuck Olsen, Baron's Rocketboom shooter, who was aboard the blogger plane back in 2006 at the time of the Edwards' campaign announcement, what he thought of this theory. Here's what he said:

"It's certainly possible that Andrew knew about the possibility of the affair. But, I don't think Andrew has been involved with the Edwards campaign since it launched. I'd guess Andrew's face time with his dad concerned Rocketboom business, not Rielle Hunter."

If so, that's too bad. Andrew could have helped out dad by giving Rielle Hunter a gig on Rocketboom. Two birds, one stone.

(Photo by Robert Scoble)

The accidentally historical shot is among those circulating on the AP wire, he told Valleywag this morning: "I never in a thousand years thought I'd be witnessing a scandal. But I don't really care about the sex part of it."

Except he does. Scoble says he and others on the blogger plane, like Andrew Baron of Rocketboom, are glad the affair is out in the open now — and not just so they can flog their photos: "We're all disappointed that he took such a risk with the presidency in the balance." Despite his past support of Edwards, said Scoble, "I'm really happy he wasn't nominated. If he was the nominee right now, it'd have handed the election to McCain." We're not normally fans of tech bloggers turning into political pundits, but Scoble's analysis is spot-on.

(Photo by Robert Scoble)

Alas, no luck. We called Scoble and asked if he had any footage of Hunter. "God knows," says Scoble. He filmed Edwards while working for Podtech, the ill-fated online-video startup which was recently sold for a pittance. His raw footage from that period, if any, is jumbled with the rest of Podtech's assets.

But Chuckumentary videographer Chuck Olsen, a contributor to Rocketboom, did catch Hunter in one of his videos of the Edwards campaign. Fast forward to 1:07 and you'll get a quick glimpse of Hunter, earning part of her $114,000 behind the camera. Update: Olsen has sold the video to the AP and taken it off Revver.