The big three broadcast networks have gone out of their way to avoid labeling scandal-scarred New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a "Democrat." An examination of the fifteen ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows through Wednesday night finds Spitzer was called a Democrat just 20 percent of the time -- twice on CBS, once on ABC, and never on NBC. So, how do the networks treat Republicans involved in sex scandals? Always, always as "Republicans." Looking at the ABC, CBS, NBC morning and evening shows in the days after the most recent scandals broke, Republican Senators David Vitter (July) and Larry Craig (August) were labeled "Republican" on every show (100 percent). Yet for Democrat Spitzer, four out of five news programs (80 percent) have skipped his party identification....
A Google search for "Kwame Kilpatrick is a democrat" yields 6 - SIX - results.
A Google search for "Larry Craig is a republican" yields 12,000 results.
If the search is changed to something more likely to appear in print:
"Democrat Kwame Kilpatrick" - we get 341 results.
"Republican Larry Craig" - we get 10,400 results.
What does this prove? One, the actions of a US Senator are more newsworthy than the actions of the mayor of the 11th largest city in the US*. A city, by the way, that has been beset with economic woes, shrinking population, and rampant crime. So, I suppose that scandal, corruption, and criminal activity by the mayor isn't really surprising. Two, when a Republican does something wrong, his party label follows him like a shadow, almost becoming part of his name. However, when a Democrat is accused of all sorts of debauchery, the party affiliation is treated like a non-essential piece of information.
In the Eliot Spitzer vs. Larry Craig Google News watch, a Google News search for Eliot Spitzer still yields over 35,000 results and Larry Craig yields about 2,800. The Spitzer searches may be inflated some as many hits yield stories about the woman involved too. I tried to filter those out by inserting "-call" "-girl" and still get about 17,000. I am sure Google will fix this problem by late summer (there is an election this year) and make sure the Larry Craig stories outnumber Spitzer ones. As for Kilpatrick, he hits about 5,300 now on Google News so he'll be below the Craig number much sooner.
*Unless, of course, if Kilpatrick were Republican and Craig a Democrat, the question would be "Larry who?"
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