Violating an Election Day tradition
Traditionally, newspapers shy away from giving last-minute controversial political statements high visibility on Election Day. Certainly not on the front page; probably tucked inside the paper, if we publish at all. We're old fashioned that way. Several reasons:
* The statements often cannot be vetted in time
* Publishing on the day people vote risks giving the statement more influence that it deserves
* The "other side" doesn't have much time to respond to the "hot" story
If I could do it over again, this story would have been inside the paper today. (It was on the Local front.) A week ago, an article about two school board members urging voters to vote down school bonds would have been worth notice. Today, it violates at least two of the reasons above. Unfortunately, they successfully played us. It's not a mortal sin; more of a low-grade venial one. Still.
Allen has more. Right now this feels wrong, like a political sucker punch..
Comments (1)
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It didn't have much impact anyway. As I noted on my blog today, voters in Deena Hayes' district supported the school bonds by a stronger margin than they passed countywide.
Posted on May 7, 2008 3:54 PM