I opened my home town paper, the L.A. Times, this morning with something in mind besides the Sudoku (which is "moderate" on Saturdays anyway). I wanted to see how they covered the Sanders speech/Clinton appearance that was the talk of the virtual town yesterday. Pres. Clinton and his photo with Pres. Obama made the top of the fold, page 1. Nice long story, too, on the whole tax cut kerfuffle. I read it, looking for the discussion of Sanders.
Nope. Nothing, nada, niente, zilch, zero. Kazaam! I Wrote A Letter.
To: Richard Simon, Lisa Mascaro, Peter Nicholas (who had the byline) and the editor:
I've been following the tax cut issue with great interest. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours watching Sen. Sanders' eight and a half hour speech on the Senate floor, where he was joined briefly by Sens. Landrieu and Brown. You all heard about it, didn't you? It was one of the most Twittered stories topics yesterday. The Washington Post had a story. The New York Times had a story. Why look! The LA Times had a story! Right there on your on-line edition on 12/10/10, by Michael Memoli of the Tribune's Washington bureau. He's your co-worker, isn't he? Oh, and the Times had an AP story on it, too, yesterday! Neither in print, of course. But if you search the latimes.com website, I bet you can find them.
I wasn't surprised that your story today started with Pres. Clinton's surprise appearance at a White House news briefing in support of the proposed compromise. An appearance by a former president in that venue is always news. Seeing as it was on a Friday afternoon and appeared to have been hastily arranged, I wouldn't be surprised if it was in direct response to Sen. Sanders' lengthy, informative, well-reasoned, interesting speech. You know, to try and turn the spotlight away from it.
The Times of late has been very interested in the horse race aspect of news, so I expected at the very least that your story would mention the Sanders speech in that context. Imagine my surprise, when I read the entire article, including the last follow on page which had the subheading "Opposition Growing," to find not a word about the unusual event on the Senate floor yesterday. Not a word.
That matters to me because I'm interested in the SUBSTANCE of the tax cut deal. If your article had mentioned Sen. Sanders' speech, others of your readers who are also interested in substance could have found it on C-SAN or elsewhere. If your article had summarized Sen. Sanders' arguments, of course, or quoted from them, it would have been even better. But, sadly, it was not to be.
I'm disappointed in your story and in The Times.
(Emmet)
UPDATE: To my surprise, I got a polite e-mail response within half an hour from one of the reporters, saying that their story as written did include Sanders, but he was cut out, and that the reporter would try to find out why. The reporter would try to find out why and let me know, and there'd be more reporting on the Senate debate Monday. I sent a thank you but still disappointed note back.