News notes

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?

If they’re smart enough to admit they were wrong, the leaders of Michigan’s Democratic Party have a way out of their presidential primary mess.

The national party apparently is pressuring Michigan Democrats to hold caucuses this spring to choose new delegates to the national convention in August.

Makes sense to me.

The Jan. 15 primary was a fiasco. The results are meaningless, because only Hillary Clinton was on the ballot (among serious candidates). The national Democratic committee told Michigan’s party leaders the state would lose its delegates if the primary was moved before Feb. 5, and it pressured candidates to stay off the ballot.

Now Michigan doesn’t have a voice in the selection of a Democratic presidential candidate, and that’s just plain wrong – especially since it appears to be a historic choice (see previous blog post).

Enter the caucus idea. Why not? Compared to running a statewide election, it’s a relatively inexpensive way to select a candidate. Every Democrat in the state would have a chance to participate. Michigan would get its delegates seated at the national convention. It’s a win-win.

Hillary Clinton supporters may think they can convince the national committee to seat the Michigan delegates based on the Jan. 15 primary election. But that’s not likely, especially if the result remains in doubt.

It would simply be unfair to let Michigan’s unbalanced primary – where Barack Obama wasn’t even on the ballot – play a role in deciding the party’s candidate.

It’s not a matter of supporting Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama. It’s a matter of doing the right thing. As it stands, Michigan Democrats didn’t get a chance to choose between the first serious woman presidential candidate in history and the first serious black presidential candidate in history.

That’s just plain not right

A statewide system of caucuses would give the state’s Democrats a chance to participate in the process.

And that would be a good thing.

I’ve never liked the primary system (big surprise; how many people do).

I’ve  lived in seven states and in November will vote for a president for the 10th time. But I’ve never been in position to vote in a primary that counted for anything (At this juncture, I should mention that as a journalist, I don’t vote in primaries. I don’t want to be identified with one party or the other. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens in the primaries).

Rarely has my vote in the general election counted, either. Usually, by the time votes from my state were counted, the winner had already been declared.

This year could have been the first primary that counted, if Michigan had not been stripped of its delegates and its role in the process.

The Republican race seems to be nearly ended, with John McCain’s lead apparently insurmountable. And Michigan Republicans at least got to vote.

But for Michigan Democrats, Super Tuesday was particularly hurtful. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ended the day in a virtual dead heat for delegates. If Michigan had stayed in the middle of the pack, our primary could have been extremely meaningful. Instead, it’s meaningless.

Voter turnout was high across the country , especially among Democrats. You have to believe one reason is that this time around each Super Tuesday vote mattered. Folks marched to the polls knowing that they were helping to select a historic candidate – either the first woman or the first black.

In Michigan, we didn’t get to share any of that historic perspective. We just got to lick our wounds and comtemplate how unfair it is that our votes don’t count.

Sure, there’s a chance the National Democratic Committee will change it’s mind and seat Michigan’s delegates. But not if there’s any chance the Michigan votes – which went to Mrs. Clinton because Mr. Obama wasn’t on the ballot – could sway the result. That would be patently unfair and not likely to happen.

The next few weeks will be a fascinating period in America politics, as the two candidates duke it out in one of the closest races of our time.

Too bad we won’t be part of it.

There’s a thread over on MonroeTalks.com titled, “News media IS biased.”

I’ve been engaged in this discussion, to one degree or another, for most of my 30-plus years as a journalist.

I’ve seen much of the research – some of which confirms the left-leaning of the mainsteam national media and some of which refutes those claims.

I’m not surprised by research that shows Democratic candidates getting more coverage and more positive coverage this year. There are reasons to explain the difference – for example, the first time in U.S. history that a woman and a black man are leading contenders for president. It kind of makes sense that they would get more coverage. But I doubt that kind of explanation would impress most conservatives.

I’m convinced that there’s something to the claims of media bias, especially at the national level. Most journalists strive to be fair and balanced – it’s what they were trained to do and it’s one of the principles that attracted them to the business. But they can’t change the fact that most of them come from the same educated, middle class backgrounds. They go to the same colleges, where the faculty tend to be liberal, and they attend the same workshops and frequent the same coffee shops. They’re human, and they’re products of their environment. That will be reflected in the decisions they make.

Conservatives who believe there is an organized, liberal conspiracy to give Democrats an advantage in national politics, however, are simply wrong. Journalists aren’t wired that way. They would reject such a conspiracy en masse.

Besides, as someone on the MonroeTalks.com thread pointed out, the liberal tendency of national journalists is balanced by the conservative ownership. Most national media outlets, whether television, radio or newspaper, are owned by giant corporations which, for obvious reasons, tend to support conservative candidates.

At the local level, any bias caused by the background of journalists is largely negated by the local nature of the work force. At The Evening News, most of the journalists come from the local area. They are products of Monroe County schools and Michigan universities. They reflect the community they serve.

I’m one of the few exceptions. I was born and raised in Oregon, 2,000 miles from Monroe County. But Oregon isn’t New England or New York, or even California. I come from a small state with a reputation for being fiercely independent. I’ve found that I fit well in Monroe County, a swing area with a full spectrum of political views.

So what does all this say about bias in the media. I believe strongly that Americans can sort through any bias, to the extent it exists. If you’re conservative, you’re probably sifting through anything you read or see or hear from the media, looking for bias. If you’re liberal, you can check out Fox News to get a different perspective.

It goes without saying that Don Imus gives journalism a bad name.

Heck, he gives mankind a bad name.

Forget that he’s not really a journalist; he’s a shock jock. The problem is that too many members of the public don’t make the distinction.

It’s not just the latest episode – insulting members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team with racial and sexist slurs. He’s been saying disgusting things for years.

Journalists like those of us at The Evening News often lament that the public perception of the media – our character, our values, our trustworthiness – is unfairly tainted by jerks like Imus who pretend to be journalists but follow none of the standards of decency, accuracy and balance that we hold close to our hearts 

Imus doesn’t have any excuses. The brand of lowest-common-denominator talk show that he pushes isn’t really related to what real journalists do.

Unfortunately, I worry that consumers of the media don’t make the same distinctions that I do.