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July 18, 2005
That Curious Chronicle
Recent political coverage (or lack thereof) from the Houston Chronicle has been puzzling, to say the least.
A week ago, Both Congressman Tom DeLay and his challenger Nick Lampson (disclosure: Houtopia is helping Lampson) released their fundraising totals for the period ending June 30th -- $800,000 and $500,000 respectively.
Right after came a slew of stories like this, in virtually every major newspaper in the country (including Austin, Dallas, San Antonio here in Texas). Conspicuously absent was any coverage in the Chron.
Fast-forward a week, and the much-anticipated (at least by us junkie types) City election fundraising totals (disclosure #2: Houtopia has two candidates in City races) were released on Friday. Traditionally, the Chronicle has done a story covering who raised what, filled with pundit projections about the possible implications of funds raised on the upcoming Mayoral and City Council races.
Saturday, the Chronicle decided to cover the Congressional District 22 totals a week after the fact (ah, memories of the Enron story, where the hometown paper was consistently scooped in its own backyard), and all but ignored the City totals, save a lame graphic on four of the Council races off to the side of the article, that had just been released on Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, as we wrote a few days ago, nudity on the little-watched Houston MediaSource Access Channel warranted daily in-depth reports all last week, plus a staff editorial. What gives??
The hometown paper blows off the fundraising story virtually every other paper in America saw fit to run, dissing what will almost certainly be next year's premiere Congressional race happening in its own backyard, until a week after the fact.
It then uses the now stale Congressional story to pre-empt coverage of City races, which occur in a mere 3 and 1/2 months, leaving folks from all campaigns unhappy. We are flummoxed.
To top it off, today we get this piece about City Council campaign logos. Huh?
The joys of a one-paper town.
Posted by houtopia at July 18, 2005 05:20 PM