PressEthic

Does an objective news source have a responsibility to provide equal coverage on candidates for elected positions? It is a question that I have pondered for the last couple days since the New York Times announced its endorsement of Mayor Bloomberg for re-election.

Though I think it was in bad taste, I do not want to argue that it was wrong for the Times' editorial board to endorse a candidate, but I do question the balance in coverage provided by the Times in the supposed objective sections of the paper. For example, on October 18th, the Times ran this article profiling the mayor’s time in office. The 3,842-word article was well written and balanced with the opinions of the mayor’s critics. In the end, it praised the mayor, but maybe he deserved the praise. It was not this specific article I questioned. However, and perhaps I am naïve to expect this, I hoped to find a similar profile in the weeks surrounding the Bloomberg article about Ferrer’s accomplishments. I thought, certainly the Times will provide a similar profile of Ferrer’s work to balance the piece on the mayor. I was wrong. The closest the Times came was this article about the mystery of Ferrer’s middle name. It was a nice, entertaining article, but it failed to inform me on anything substantial about the candidate’s work and/or leadership qualities. Not to mention that it was on the front page of the Metro section while an article about Ferrer’s first major policy plan was on the third page. Not necessarily a bad place for the article, but I think it should have taken precedence over a soft news story about Ferrer’s middle name.

This is just one example, but I think it reflects the entire coverage in the Times of these two candidates to this point. I understand that the Times made their choice for this election clear, but doesn’t Ferrer at least deserve the same type of coverage in the objective sections of the paper?