On Wednesday, the Washington Post ran a news brief on page A3 about disgraced former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, but the paper conveniently forgot to mention that Nagin is a Democrat. The blurb began, “A federal judge says that former New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin will have to pay the government more than $501,000 as a result of his conviction on bribery and other charges.”
The brief went on to mention Nagin’s 20-count conviction in February that included bribery, fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. However, the former mayor’s party ID was nowhere to be found.
This news brief was actually a shortened version of a longer Associated Press story on Nagin, published on the AP’s website Tuesday at 5:14 p.m. Eastern. The writer of that story did, in fact, identify Nagin as a Democrat. It appears that the Post chopped off a few paragraphs to make the story fit into their digest. That’s understandable – newspapers have limited space, but one would think a politician’s party label would always be worth a mention.
