Since the News Journal Couldn’t Be Bothered to Cover Chris Coons Launch….
Did you notice what was missing from the News Journal today?
Coverage of Chris Coons’ official launch of his Senatorial bid. No wonder they have a hard time getting people to buy this thing. A serious candidate for Senate does the three county tour and the best the NJ can do is show a picture in the dead tree edition. The web has some footage that doesn’t work. So what is going on here? Apparently they can’t quite rouse themselves to even cover the launch of a nationally covered race. So in case you were looking for some serious reporting on Monday’s launch:
The Community News — Coons Makes It Official
It really is unbelievable that the local newspaper wouldn’t cover this. It isn’t as if Chris Coons is Mike Protack or Rose Izzo for cryin’ out loud. But just to make sure they know what you think about this, you can send the a Letter to the Editor, or call (or email) this guy:
David Ledford
VP News – Exec. Editor
302-324-2860
dledford@delawareonline.com
an ask if if he was too busy counting the dollars he has to send to Gannett HQ to actually cover a Senatorial race.
Tags: Chris Coons, DE-Sen, The News Journal
The picture is not even in the main section. It’s on page 3 of the local section in my paper. No story accompanies either, just a pic with his family.
If you’ll check past history, TNJ traditionally doesn’t cover the formal announcements and 3-county tours. They gave Coons front-page play when he said he was jumping in a few months ago. He’s been mentioned as a candidate multiple times since in stories about the election and national issues. From the paper’s standpoint, what was news about this announcement? Did Coons say something he hadn’t already said? Roll out a new policy statement? Or just say “I’m running for Senate,” the same old news from way back when?
When you run against Castle you are running against Ledford, Williams, Cohen, Loudell and probably Carper.
They had a video of it online. Not sure if that counts as coverage, but it was there…
I checked out the video online at Delaware Online and a 41 second clip about the announcement (which was mostly a News-Journal staffer talking and not a lot of Coons speaking) was preceded by a 17 second commercial for CB Joe’s. I am wondering if commercials almost as long the clip are going make a few people not take the time.
Castle is first and only Repub to support the Citizens United campaign finance fix (h/t delawarepolitics and Politico)
This can only mean one thing: the bill is definitely going to pass, so Boehner has given Castle the green light to try to fluff up his moderate credentials.
Castle is more worried about Coons than O’Donnell. Shocking!!
anon is correct, it’s that time of year for Castle to proclaim himself a “Moderate”. I hope he thanks the Orange Man profusely.
wRONg Way Williams hits Coons today, claiming that Coons had no role in the successful refinery negotiations. Markell specifically spoke of Coons’ role in those negotiations, on Monday at the New Castle County announcement (100 yards south of the News Journal building, but which was not covered by the News Journal, or wRONg Way Williams).
Hey, Ron, remember back when journalists actually did some research before writing? Without research, it is merely written diarrhea.
A real journalist would first find a source who was party to the full negotiations, who refutes Coons’ assertion, get that source verified. Lacking that, a journalist would STFU.
Oh, jeez, now we’ll hear from journalists who are pissed that I included Ron in their ranks.
If you really want to complain, contact Greg Burton and Phil Freedman as well. They’re the editors who would have made the decision not to write a story. Ledford’s in charge, but doesn’t care about anything beyond the front page.
PB,
Do you have a link to the column by Williams? I can’t find it on delawareonline but that doesn’t surprise me. (Their website sucks)
Nevermind PB, I found it.
Could you post a link? I can’t find it, either. The only recent thing I could find by Williams was his column on the highway patrol.
anon, I made a post about it above. The link is there.
it’s at http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100421/OPINION16/4210301/1004/OPINION/You-can-t-say-GOP-s-Bonini-doesn-t-like-diversity-among-his-donors, and in UI’s new entry
[damn, she’s fast]
Phila radio covered Coons’ announcement:
http://whyy.org/cms/news/government-politics/2010/04/19/chris-coons-officially-starts-his-u-s-senate-campaign/36223
From the paper’s standpoint, what was news about this announcement?
From this reader’s standpoint, I wouldn’t know the answer to this question unless I had been there or unless I had checked on on everyone else’s reporting. Which — of course — makes this paper and its editorial decisions pretty damn clueless.
Waste…of…ink!
there just may not be anything left are plan is to spend it quickly.
cassandra,
I don’t think you understand my question. But since you’ve checked everyone else’s reporting – what did they report that was new?
– The fact that he’s announcing isn’t new. He’s been a candidate for several months.
– The fact that he criticized Mike Castle isn’t new. He’s been doing that for a while.
– The fact that he supports the Obama administration isn’t new. He’s been doing that for a while.
So we’re left with the fact that he appeared in person in all three counties. Is that really news? Do you really think so? Or are you just looking for an excuse to bash the NJ?
I understood your question. And since I am a reader and a consumer of news, I don’t much care about what the editorial questions are for ignoring this thing. What I do care about is that I had to go to other places to see any coverage at all of this event.
They’ll dutifully report on the Return Day dullness. And the only reason they report on that is because of its tradition, because there won’t be any news. At best they’ll be guessing at who is getting set up to run for something else. But they report it because it is a part of the process here. As is the traditional announcement events. Certainly if Coons did not do the 3 county thing, that would have been breathlessly reported as news.
The Community News did a decent job at reporting on this as did WHYY. Both of whom also covered the earlier announcements too. But I think that we can see here which news entities are trying to cover their communities in a fairly serious way. Which doesn’t include the NJ apparently.
I’ll repeat myself: What was news about the announcement that warranted an article? Or even a photo, for that matter?
Your argument seems to be along the lines of “Well, the other guys do it.”
I guess I don’t understand they the NJ says no “news” was created at Coons’s announcements if the NJ wasn’t there to hear them.
A major event is a major event. And the three county announcement is one of the usual main events of a campaign that will have alot of nationwide attention.
But what you completely fail at here is that what the editors of the NJ think is news isn’t especially material to me. The editors of the NJ SHOULD be quite concerned about what their customers think is news or would find useful info. The fact that they (and you) would stick to this paternalistic We’ll Tell You What Is News And You’ll Bloody Well Like It should tell you everything you need to know about the increasing irrelevance of this paper.