Chron reader rep: We blew Iraqi election story
Chronicle reader representative James Campbell is unusually, bluntly critical of his newspaper today:
We blew it on the story about the elections in Iraq. Instead of playing the story about how many Iraqis voted on Page One, where it should have been, we placed it on page A23.
We opted to put on Page One above the fold stories about President Bush's agreement to support a proposal by Sen. John McCain to ban the torture of foreign prisoners in U.S custody and a story about the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' reconsideration of its opinion to overturn the conviction of a woman in connection with the 1999 death of her infant son.
We completed Page One with stories about the body of a missing Fort Bend County girl found in the Brazos River, one about Hispanic literacy and another about President Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States suspected of ties to terrorists.
We earned charges of bias today. We didn't even refer Page One readers to the inside story about the elections in Iraq, which for many readers was the biggest news of the day.
The Chronicle earned charges of bias, yes, but even worse, the Chronicle definitely earned charges of being a horrible NEWS source. That last is far more damning.
We frequently suggest that the Chronicle editors (executive and line) are a major weakness, and simply don't seem like an intellectually curious or ideologically diverse bunch. Dropping the Iraq election story on Page 23 in favor of a page-one story about Hispanic literacy and a page-one story designed to make the President look bad while selling a new book by the author only drives the points home.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/16/05 10:20 PM | Houston Chronicle | Print | Comments (1)
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