New York Times: Less Coverage Of John Edwards In All Media
According to the Public Editor of the New York Times a surprising admission and then a disappointing excuse from the editor in charge of political coverage:
For as long as I have been in the newspaper business, there has been tension between editors who have finite resources and an obligation to reflect reality and readers who argue that a lack of coverage shuts out the ideas and diminishes the prospects of lesser-known candidates. Richard W. Stevenson, the editor in charge of The Times’s coverage of this campaign, said: “Not all candidates are created equal. Some of them have a much greater likelihood of becoming the next president of the United States.”
I think the call is easier on the candidates at the very back of the pack, including some whose only campaign activity is to appear in the debates. But an unusually large number of serious candidates bunched somewhere behind the front-runners are not getting major attention in The Times.
“It is frustrating to us as well,” Stevenson said. “We are acutely aware of it, and are watching very carefully to be sure we aren’t making a mistake in how we are apportioning our resources.”
I’ll cite just one case where I don’t think The Times is paying enough attention.
In Iowa, which launched a little-known Jimmy Carter to his party’s nomination in 1976, John Edwards is close behind Clinton in the most recent Des Moines Register poll, yet The Times has given him comparatively scant coverage. Clinton and Obama have been profiled twice each on the front page since Labor Day, but Edwards not at all this year. Throughout the paper, The Times has published 47 articles about Clinton since Labor Day, only 18 about Edwards.
Stevenson said, “I don’t track our coverage by quantity; in a qualitative sense, we’ve covered him pretty thoroughly, and there is more to come.”
Yeah, after John Edwards was almost completely ignored by the New York Times and other media, where talk of Obama vs Clinton was an easier story, now American voters are being promised future coverage when the Iowa caucuses are less than 45 days away. So much for fair and accurate coverage in a democracy where we let voters decide!
Hell, yes, it is a mistake as the Public Editor himself puts it in the context of previous elections where a win in Iowa can catapult a candidate to the nomination and the presidency. That is still a very strong possibility as this new Washington Post article notes today.