Conffederate
Confederate

June 13, 2006

FOUND: The Word The Media Lost

A word seems to be missing from this story from CNN:

Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, who presided over the city's economic renaissance of the 1990s, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison and fined more than $6,000 for racketeering and tax evasion.

U.S. District Judge Richard Story praised Campbell, 53, for two decades of public service but said he could not ignore his crimes.

Campbell was convicted in March of a single racketeering count and three counts of tax evasion. He was cleared of charges he lined his pockets with payoffs from a contractor but was found guilty of failing to pay taxes on what prosecutors said was illegally obtained money. Campbell said the money was gambling winnings.

"Yes, Bill Campbell, you did good things, and there is a person in this room that recognizes this," Story said, referring to himself. He cited Campbell's work in improving public housing in Atlanta as an example.

But the judge added that during the trial he "was overcome, almost appalled, at the breadth of misconduct in your administration."

The story goes on for another 13 more paragraphs, and yet, I can't find that word.

Couldit be in WXIA's coverage? No.

How about UPI's story? Nope, it's not there, either.

It isn't until the very last word of the very last paragraph of this AP story that we finally found that missing word [my bold]:

Instead, he was convicted on just three counts of federal tax evasion, and acquitted on racketeering and bribery charges _ a verdict he and his attorneys painted as a vindication. Campbell was once considered a rising star for Democrats.

I wonder how that one particular word got so lost?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at June 13, 2006 07:55 PM | TrackBack
Comments

The most memorable sentences in an article are the first and last, and the the word "democrat" is in the last sentence, so what is the beef??

Posted by: Johnny at June 13, 2006 08:57 PM

Well, Johnny, I'm glad you asked:

In print journalism, they use the inverted pyramid format to put the most important points of an article first, so if they run out of column inches in a print publication, the can drop the paragraphs at the end to make it fit, without losing the "important" details.

Thanks for playing my foil.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at June 13, 2006 10:53 PM

I don't think it's right to say that the media routinely favors Democrats. Take the corruption unfolding in congress. Everyone involved in that web -- Abramoff, Delay, Ney, Mitchell Wade, Lewis, Cunningham, Safavian, etc is a Republican, but this fact isn't trumped up at all in the reports I've seen.

William Jefferson is the only Democrat that I know of who is in trouble, and I'm not sure if he's involved in the same web as those other guys or if instead he was running an independent shop.

Posted by: Cyrus McElderry at June 14, 2006 01:00 AM

Cyrus,

All you have to do is read. What you will find is that if it is a Republican it will be noted with his/her name along with the random "other problems Republicans face and/or Bush's dropping numbers". You don't see those descriptive types of phrases with Democrats. Not on a daily basis.

Posted by: Specter at June 14, 2006 08:01 AM

Mayor is a non partisan office. It does not matter what party you are in Yankee. My gosh go study your politics 101.

Posted by: Jswanny at June 14, 2006 12:29 PM