My jaw dropped.

Noticeably, like when your mouth hangs open a little further than is polite.

A colleague had pointed out the four-column lead photo in the Toledo Blade this morning. There, front and center, was Blade Co-Publisher John Robinson Block, shaking hands with Barack Obama.

Obama’s photo belonged on the front page of The Blade. He spoke to an overflow crowd of 10,000 Sunday at the University of Toledo; another 5,000 were turned away. His visit was clearly the top news of the day.

But what was the newspaper publisher doing on the front page? I was shocked. As a journalist, I was embarrassed for The Blade and the editors who work there.

Journalists ought to be doing everything in their power to keep from getting entangled in the news. It’s our job to report, not to participate.

In The Blade’s defense, Mr. Obama did meet with the newspaper’s editorial board, and it’s certainly appropriate to report what he said to the newspaper’s editors. There’s nothing wrong with a photo of Mr. Obama visiting The Blade.

But which photo do you lead the front page with - Mr. Obama speaking to 10,000 people, or shaking the publisher’s hand.

There may not be another serious newspaper in the country that would have used the photo of the publisher on Page 1.

The first word that came to mind was tawdry. Next was arrogant.

Surely editors of The Blade would not have used that photograph unless they were ordered to by the publisher - the man in the picture. Does he really think that much of himself, to believe that a visiting presidential candidate shaking hands with him was the top news of the day?

What was he thinking?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm and is filed under National media issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.