. . . brings out the absolute worst in the . . .
. . . Houston Chronicle.
Old-fashioned political bias -- except for the standard low-grade kind that infects almost all reporters -- is less a problem at the Chronicle these days than understaffing and, on occasion, incompetence.
This morning, however, our local newspaper reverted to the the form that blossomed during the early days of the Cohen regime -- full-throated editorializing in a major news story.
The front-page lede headline said, "DeLAY 'CLEARED' IN ABRAMOFF CASE." The scare quotes were in the original. He was "cleared," you see, as in "he said he was cleared." That's as distinct from being really, really cleared in a fashion satisfactory to the Chronicle.
The first paragraph by R.G. Ratcliffe was a masterpiece of submerging what, to the Chronicle, was clearly unhappy news.
Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Monday put the 5-year-old federal investigation into his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff behind him and turned his attention to an impending trial on Texas ethics issues.
What's missing? Compare this from the lede paragraph at The Hill:
The Justice Department has ended a six-year investigation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), his attorney Richard Cullen said Monday.
The Chronicle, you see, reported in the first graf only that Mr. DeLay had put the investigation behind him, but left it to readers to guess why. And while readers were puzzling out what "behind him" might possibly mean, raised the flag of "an impending trial on Texas ethics issues."
The big news -- that the federal investigation had ended without charges -- was put off until the second paragraph so the Chronicle could squeeze in the breathless small news about Mr. DeLay's impending Texas case.
Other newspapers also managed something the Chronicle either could or would not do, which is confirm from Justice Department sources that the investigation had, in fact, been dropped.
And only in the fourth paragraph did the Chronicle permit Mr. DeLay to speak on his own behalf. After all the grief of the last five or six years (take your pick) and hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees, the guy deserved his say, and higher in the story.
The Washington Post in fact led with his reaction: "both defiant and ebullient on Monday after hearing that the Justice Department had dropped [not 'dropped'] its six-year investigation" of his case. Paragraph two: "'I always knew this day would come,' DeLay said . . . ."
Mr. DeLay's interview also made useful points about the criminalization of politics, given special resonance by his good batting average, so far, against the charges of criminality that led to his departure from Congress.
The headline on the Chronicle's Web version of the story doesn't even mentioned that Mr. DeLay has been "cleared" of federal charges. It says, "DeLay says he's ready to fight state ethics charges."
The Chronicle is too heavily invested in DeLay-bashing to treat him fairly, even when (and especially when) things go his way. Given the history of bad blood between the newspaper and Mr. DeLay, the story called for strict professionalism and a bit of grace. It received neither.
* * *
The conventional journalistic defense of the Chronicle's treatment of Mr. DeLay's victory is that it was, by the time it appeared in print, a second-day story. Everyone already knew what had happened, so it was okay to use a forward-looking ("impending trial") rather than a backward-looking lede.
That might be worth taking more seriously if the Chronicle had written a fair story on the Web on the day it happened, followed by a second-day lede. But that's not what happened. The story was misported from the start.
It's also wrong to us a second-day lede to obscure Mr. DeLay's legal victory. Doing so is a species of the old -- often valid -- complaint about the indictment being on page one and the acquittal on page 32.
As is so often the case when the Chronicle deals with Mr. DeLay, the paper was unprofessional and ungracious.
In this case Mr. DeLay got page one, but the Chronicle did its best to treat the story as if it belonged on page 32.
UPDATE: John Hinderaker says, "There is zero chance that the politically-motivated [read political motivated] Texas case will ever be brought to trial."
We'll see. I would have said there is little chance the prosecution will win. But juries are strange creatures, and Travis County juries are stranger than most.
But Mr. Hinderaker is dead right about this:
Tom DeLay exemplifies a thoroughly modern phenomenon: a public figure whose career -- and, one suspects, who life -- has been ruined by the prosecutorial/media/political complex. After six years of headlines, DeLay's persecutors have nothing to show for their efforts. Except, of course, that they ruined the former Majority Leader of the House of Representatives. No doubt they consider that an accomplishment. But the rest of us should wonder whether we have entrusted too much unfettered power to prosecutors and their natural allies in the media and the political class.
"Prosecutors and their natural allies in the media and the political class" means the same thing as "Clever People" (in Unca D's vernacular) or the "ruling class" (in the language of Anthony M. Codavilla).
The chief local mouthpieces for "prosecutors and their natural allies in the media and the political class" are the Houston Chronicle's editorial board and, to a lesser (but still significant) extent, the Houston Chronicle's news editors and reporters.
UPDATE: Thanks for the link from bloghouston.
Once he gained some seniority in the House, Mr.DeLay practiced a particularly overt style of bare-knuckled politics, and openly admitted it. He was brought down by opponents playing the same game, and that includes the execs at the Hou Chron. Why you would place DeLay, the quintessential insider for over a decade in DC, outside Codavilla's "ruling class" is puzzling.
UNCA D replies: You make a useful point, but my criticism of the Chronicle is not intended as a defense of Mr. DeLay. And I certainly didn't intend to place him outside Mr. Codavilla's "ruling class." In his prime, however, Mr. DeLay was an important and interesting public figure. The Chronicle never could suppress its own antipathy long enough to give us a rounded portrait of the man.
Posted by: IHB2 | August 19, 2010 at 11:21 AM