The sin of omission is a cardinal one among reporters, yet, for a hundred different reasons, every day we run across stories that fail to embrace facts relevant to the topic — and thereby leave the wrong impression with readers. This morning the New York Times’ Glen Justice offers an example of just that in an otherwise solid piece about the mounting legal bills Tom DeLay has incurred in the process of defending himself against the bevy of legal and ethical charges leveled against him. Justice writes that:
Expenses began increasing in 2004, when Mr. DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee, and three of his political operatives were indicted in Texas. They face charges that include money laundering and raising illegal corporate contributions for a political action committee created by Mr. DeLay. The prosecutor, a Democrat, has not ruled out charges against Mr. DeLay. (Emphasis ours.)
The prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, is indeed a Democrat, and an elected official — a relevant part of the story. While he has been under attack for months from some conservatives for launching an allegedly partisan investigation of DeLay (and didn’t help his cause by speaking at a Democratic fundraiser last month), his record shows that he has prosecuted far more Democrats than Republicans in his 27-year tenure as Travis County, Texas, District Attorney.
The Christian Science Monitor pointed this out in December 2004, writing that “Earle has prosecuted 12 Democrats and three Republicans” during his tenure. Earle himself, in March of this year, told Lesley Stahl of CBS’s “60 Minutes” that “There have been somewhere around 15 cases involving elected officials, that my office has prosecuted. … Of the 15, 12 were Democrats; three were Republican.”
In reviewing the coverage of the case over the last several months, which has generally been thorough and fair, we found, sadly, that the Times is hardly alone in fingering Earle as a Democrat, while omitting his record.
In the final analysis, a little perspective is in order. One sentence in a news story isn’t going to tilt the case one direction or the other, but significant omissions like this may well influence the court of public opinion — and they don’t reflect well on the basic reporting skills of those involved.
–Paul McLeary
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.