I just now caught up with outgoing N&R editor John Robinson’s post stating his paper’s coverage of the Greensboro City Council election was fair.
At first I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this exchange between Robinson and Dr. Guarino regarding the tight District 4 race between incumbent Mary Rakestraw and challenger Cindy Hoffman:
Joe Guarino
November 11, 2011 – 9:58 am ESTMary Rakestraw’s race was pretty close. She was hurt by biased coverage.
For the record, I think that Greensboro’s longstanding tradition of racial bloc voting was, by far, the biggest factor in this election. But I also think media bias played an important role.
John Robinson
November 11, 2011 – 10:49 am ESTThanks, Joe. I would like to hear your specific thoughts on how we hurt Mary and helped Nancy. We didn’t write much about that race.
I scrolled through the thread looking –maybe I missed it— for any sign of sarcasm in Robinson’s comment. But the best I can tell the editor of local paper of record is admitting straight-faced that his newspaper didn’t write much about a tight race involving a controversial conservative council member and a liberal challenger whose campaign spent twice as much money.
Rakestraw ended up losing by 350 votes. One can’t help but think that if the N&R had covered the race —fairly, of course—- perhaps Rakestraw could have made up those extra votes.
One could also argue that Rakestraw lost in spite of Guarino’s extensive coverage. Whatever— I still give Joe thanks for doing the job the local paper should be doing.