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December 16, 2008

Why the Blagojevich story didn't make page A1

I received several phone calls from readers last week asking about the way the Post played the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The story appeared on our Nation & World page, inside the C section. The callers thought the story merited page A1.

We certainly discussed how to present Blagojevich's arrest and finally settled on a prominent top-of-the-page "tease" -- including photo -- to the story inside. One argument for it making page A1 was that it might resonate with Connecticut readers who remember what happened to Gov. John Rowland and Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim.

But with our philosophy of putting on page A1 news of import to the region -- and considering that CNN and other cable channels blasted the story all day -- we opted for inside coverage.

We know you don't always agree with us -- heck, at our own news meetings we sometimes disagree on how to play a story -- but we always try to consider all sides of the story and what it means to readers.

In the end, the Blagojevich story lost out to a Stratford fire chief in hot water over the bidding process for a firetruck, area Muslims marking the annual observance of Eid-ul-Adha and a fatal crash on the Merritt Parkway, among others. Those were all stories you couldn't get anywhere else.

Posted by Ted Tompkins on 4:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack