I started reading the story and, since I didn't know the indicted commissioner, I wondered if he was a Republican or Democrat. However, as I kept reading and the reporter didn't give a party affiliation, even after mentioning the man was on the ballot and how old he was, I knew he had to be a Democrat.
And sure enough, in the last paragraph, there it was. He's a Democrat.
Was there no place in the preceding 20 paragraphs to give us this detail?!?
You see, this is common practice for The Blade - if the individual in trouble is a Democrat, they bury the party affiliation. But if it's a Republican, the party affiliation is in the first several paragraphs or even the headline - so you can be sure not to miss the 'bad' association with Republicans.
It's certainly not a subtle bias - it is their modus operandi. It's also probably one of the reasons they, and other papers like them, have such declining readership.
It's bad enough if a reporter makes such a stupid error - it's worse when the editors allow it to go through.
Here are screen shots of the rest of the article just to prove the party affiliation wasn't earlier in the story.
I certainly don't expect The Blade to end this horrible practice in their supposedly objective news, especially when pointed out by #justablogger. But I do hope continually pointing out their bias (so often evident that I resorted to numbering my posts on it) will rightly educate any still-remaining subscribers and advertisers about what they may read.
