Coverage of Bush DUI varies among nation's newspapers
By TED ANTHONY
The Associated Press
11/3/00 5:18 PM
Newspapers across the country gave vastly different amounts of attention Friday to George W. Bush's newly revealed DUI arrest. Some put the story at the top of Page One, while others played it inside or even in the political briefs package.
"I want a front page that has stories people are going to read about and talk about in the morning. And I can't imagine a story people are going to talk about more than this one," said Bobbie Jo Buel, managing editor of The Arizona Daily Star of Tucson, where it ran as the lead story.
"Whether you think it's a vast left-wing conspiracy or a reason not to elect the guy, people will talk about it. I thought it was a fairly easy call," Buel said. She said there had been "lots and lots" of reader response -- enough to warrant an entire page of letters in Saturday's issue.
At The Washington Post, editors discussed extensively where to place the story. They put an early, bare-bones version on an inside page for the first edition but, "as the story became fuller," moved it to Page One, executive editor Leonard Downie said.
"I decided the final story was a front-page story," Downie said. "It struck me as clearly front-page news, in particular because of the larger political context of the story."
The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times kept the story inside, as did USA Today. Others that played it out front included the Dallas Morning News and the Concord (N.H.) Monitor.
And many tabloids leaped at the opportunity the story provided their headline writers. The front page of the New York Post read: "D-Dubya-I."
The challenge for newspapers was made more difficult by the late hour of the campaign: how to report news that has serious implications without overplaying it and tarring a candidate unfairly just before Election Day.
"I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that this story does not deserve coverage. The question is really how much and where -- tone and degree," said Al Tompkins, who teaches journalists at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in Florida.
"You have competing pressures on you in a story like this. How do you tell truths as fully as possible and minimize unjustifiable harm?" he said. And "the closer to the election you get, the more difficult it is to balance those competing pressures."
The Advocate of Baton Rouge, La., ran a wire story on page 6A, its "jump" page. The paper's main campaign story, which ran out front, mentioned the arrest but did not lead with it.
"I didn't think, and people here agreed with me, that the DUI story should be the lead story on the front page. But it deserved to be mentioned," said assistant news editor Kay Gervais.
The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal's editors played the story as a brief in their nation-world section. But in retrospect, executive editor Pete Goering said, he wishes it had been showcased more.
"I wish I could tell you why we didn't run it. I think it deserved better play," Goering said. "If it had been my decision, I would have played it outside."
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