Critic: "You weren't fair to Republicans!"

Arroyo Grande resident and longtime reader Harvey Zimmerman called me yesterday with an observation -- and question: "Why did you give the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate greater visibility than you did the Republican presidential candidates’ debate? I think you folks try to be fair. But in this case I don’t think you did."

Here is what I shared with him:
It is our intent to treat both campaigns equally. The stories we published on the debates were the same length. But I can understand your conclusion, given that we published the Democratic debate on page 3 of the A section with three photos, whereas the Republicans’ debate story appeared on page 6 of the A section with one smaller photo.
That occurred because the Democratic debate was on a Sunday when there was little other top news competing for our space (typical for a Sunday). By comparison, Tuesday yielded a great deal of news, from President Bush’s speech confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the possibility of a parole for former White House aide Lewis “Scooter’’ Libby to the anniversary of D-Day.
Looking ahead, it appears that both Democrats and Republicans plan to take advantage of the slow Sunday news cycle. Each has scheduled three presidential debates on Sundays through the rest of this year.
-- Sandy Duerr