Today’s Washington Post provided an ideal example of news priorities in the mainstream media. Howard Kurtz’s piece on the resignation of Ben Domenech, “Post.com Blogger Quits Amid Furor,” earned a spot on the front page of the Style section. However, the Post’s own story about a former member of the Maryland Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pleading guilty to dirty political tricks was buried inside the Metro section. (For the record, since the Post changes story locations in its editions, those page numbers were confirmed from the Post’s own Web site.)
The second story, where a Democrat researcher fraudulently obtained the credit report of Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele, was about an actual illegal action, but Post readers had to go searching if they wanted to know the outcome. “Democrat Pleads Guilty in Steele Case” pointed out that the guilty Dem, Lauren Weiner, used “a committee credit card to access Steele’s report over the Internet.” Both Weiner and her committee boss, the director of research, later resigned.
At least Post readers got to see the all-important story about how one Maryland lobbyist is trying to stop a bill to restrict sex offenders that both Republicans and Democrats support. That was more important than the Democratic scandal, at least to Posties.
