TALK BACK TO THE MEDIA.(Commentary/Editorial)

Election coverage very poor this year

The Rocky Mountain News election coverage on Nov. 3 was probably the poorest coverage in the history of the paper, both in terms of format, presentation of the facts and bias.

Most important, why was the "red-blue" national map and the state-by-state scorecard buried on Page 47A? This should have been either on the paper's front page or on the first inside page. The national roundup on 44A and 45A for some reason was devoid of much actual post-election data.

Now, as far as the first few pages, the News successfully buried all the truly pertinent facts on the presidential race and U.S. Senate and House races in its futile attempt to cast the election as another Florida:

* The vote count for Ohio was nowhere to be found (besides the 47A table).

* The popular vote tally was nowhere to be found (again, aside from the 47A table).

* The fact that Bush garnered more votes numerically than any presidential candidate in history and more than 50 percent of the popular vote for the first time in many years was obscured.

The issue here is the contrast between coverage in every past election in recent memory (which has been very good) and this year's exceptionally poor coverage.

Daniel Morse

Aurora

News ill-treats local Marine's sacrifice

I was saddened to read about the death of a local teenager in Iraq, and particularly dismayed that the News gave this story such insignificant coverage ("Northglenn Marine, 19, killed in action in Iraq," Nov. 2).

I had a son serve in Iraq for a year, and was fortunate to have him return safely. If he had been killed, I wouldn't want to see the coverage of his death sandwiched between a story about a gruesome murder and one about an assault, tucked away where it was hardly noticeable.

I find it particularly disturbing that the News didn't consider his life story worthy enough to provide some depth by sending a News writer to report on it. Could it be because his untimely death occurred right before the election and might not reflect positively on the president?

Shame on the News. His family and friends deserve so much more.

Maxine Newmark

Thornton

Media column slips

I am extremely disappointed to see the News' weekly On The Media column degenerate from what was originally a thoughtful, nonpartisan critique of factual errors and outright bias exhibited by the local media into nothing more than a highly biased caricature of itself.

Authored by left-of-Michael Moore-liberal journalism professor Michael Tracey, the latest column ("Truth matters not to Bush backers," Oct. 30) is nothing more than blatant Bush-bashing, while at the same time implying that Bush supporters are self-delusional.

Tracey has no business writing a column that purports to provide balance to media inaccuracies and distortions; perhaps when he writes it, the On the Media column could be retitled On the (Far) Left.

I could even suggest a motto: "We distort, you decide."

Mark Herzfeld

Denver

A repugnant smirk

What was the News' objective in placing a particularly repugnant photograph of a smirking George Bush accepting victory on the front page of its Nov. 4 issue (" 'America has spoken' ")?

To make the 52 million-plus people who voted against the "Great Divider" even more angry and more frustrated?

Or was it the News' way of saying, "Good morning, America! Welcome to four more years of Iraq, four more years of countless additional deaths, four more years of record deficits, and four more years of lies about everything from WMD to Halliburton"?

Or perhaps, the likeness of the sneering Bush was really saying, "Good morning, America! Looks like Karl, Dick, and the rest of us righteous churchgoers got you suckers again."

J. Stafford

Arvada

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Whoever chose the picture of our president for the front page of the Nov. 4 News (" 'America has spoken' ") reflects the mindset of the mainstream media.

We aren't dummies. We understand the News' subtleties.

We know when the paper leaves something out of a news story or, worse, doesn't print it at all. That is precisely why newspapers are losing readership and television network news is losing viewers.

The mainstream media will not realize their folly until it is too late. Take a look at some of the blogs. We Internet surfers find lots of information there. And it isn't tinfoil-hat stuff; it's hard news with no spin or interpretation.

Go back to Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. No more "journalistic narrative"! Be a newspaper we can read and trust.

Fern Rossi

Lakewood

*

Shame on the News for its Nov. 4 front-page picture of our re-elected president (" 'America has spoken' ").

John Kerry himself could not have chosen a more unflattering, atypical one.

Catherine Gemmill

Englewood