April 16, 2002
LA Times Punts coverage of Washington Rally

Today's Los Angeles Times ran a story on the Rally for Israel in Washington—on page A10, buried in the middle of the section. At least there was a nice color photo on the front page, above the fold. The only online story I could find was buried in the "print version" section of the website, in the "inside A" section. It was the 18th article from the top, and there were no pictures.

The article did not estimate the size of the crowd; they quoted an organizer of the rally as stating that 100,000 showed up. (A Washington Post story quoted an independent source who also quoted the 100,000 figure).

The reason I bring all this up is because of the protests scheduled for next week. I wonder if the Times will treat them with the same diffidence that marked their coverage of this event. It will be interesting to see how many of the articles will be on the front page, how many articles will feature prominently on the website, and how many photos will be printed. I will note the number of attendees at the upcoming protests, and compare the coverage relative to the size of this crowd and the coverage it received. A comparison of the number of arrests to those at yesterday's rallies might be noteworthy as well. (The Times doesn't say how many were arrested at yesterday's demonstration; WaPo reports three arrests).

The Times has always fancied itself as a paper of national stature, but sometimes their coverage is downright provincial. Perhaps this was just an oversight, but coming from the same paper that prints the lunatic ravings of Robert Scheer, I have to wonder what the editors are really thinking. (Here is a deconstruction of Scheer's latest offering, from Pejman Yousefzadeh.)

posted on April 16, 2002 05:21 PM



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