The whys and whens of (D) and (R)

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The front-page article on Feb. 8 about the shooting at a city council meeting in Kirkwood, Mo., included a reference to the state governor that reader Roslyn Lothridge questioned. ‘I would like to know why you felt it was necessary to write the following: ‘Republican Gov. Matt Blunt called the tragedy a ‘senseless and horrific crime.’’ Yes it was a horrific crime, but what does Gov. Blunt’s choice of his political party have to do with the article? I noticed that you did not point out any one else’s political party. What was your point in doing so?’

It’s not the first time a question has been raised on when and why party affiliations are made a part of the story.

Editors think that providing the party affiliation of elected officials is useful for readers. As chief of copy desks Clark Stevens puts it, “Besides the basic information it provides, it gives us uniformity, consistency and, presumably, even-handedness.” But it’s less policy than practice, as Lothridge noted in her e-mail and as other stories show.

The gray area between a policy and a rule of thumb in the case of the Feb. 8 article led to an e-mail exchange among editors. Copy editor Jennifer Karmon’s note back to the reporter and editor, who asked why she had added the party identification, reflected her thoughtfulness about the job she does. She wrote, ‘I couldn’t agree more that the party isn’t relevant, but my understanding is that we try to insert a politician’s party whenever we know it.… We do that already for senators and U.S. representatives, mentioning their parties in every instance no matter how (ir)relevant. By inserting it all the time as a policy, we don’t invite questions about why we did it in X instance (who maybe happened to be a Republican) and not in Y instance (when maybe Y was a Democrat).’

In fact there are two recent examples in which party wasn’t necessarily relevant to the story, yet was included with the thinking that many people would see it as at least peripherally pertinent. In even those cases, however, the inclusion of party affiliation wasn’t consistent. The Jan. 29 report on Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s text-message affair didn’t include his party; the Jan. 30 wire story did say that he was a Democrat. The Nov. 2 story about the former mayor of Atlantic City pleading guilty to lying to enhance his veterans benefits said Robert Levy was a Democrat; the Oct. 7 piece did as well, but the Oct. 11 story did not.

Such inconsistency can sometimes look biased, depending on what the story is and which party isn’t being named. For example, a correction published on May 15, 2004, said, ‘An article in Friday’s Section A about former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt’s recently revealed sexual relationship with an underage girl in the 1970s said that his admission had shocked Democrats as well as Republicans. It should have added that Goldschmidt was a Democrat.’

The reader whose question led to that correction assumed bias in the omission.

In the e-mail exchange among editors about whether a hard and fast rule was in place or should be, Karmon pointed out the possible problem: “If instead we try to make judgment calls about when it’s relevant, we’re probably going to wind up mentioning it primarily in negative circumstances, which would make readers wonder why we weren’t mentioning it in more ‘positive’ circumstances — such as when a governor is expressing sympathy in a tragedy.’

National Editor Scott Kraft weighed in with some thoughts on when party affiliation is relevant or necessary: “I think, generally, we should identify the political parties of officeholders who have been elected as the nominees of a party. (The City Council in Kirkwood may well have been elected on a nonpartisan slate, as many are, so no political party would be necessary there.)”

If party affiliation is not mentioned, wrote Kraft, “It looks as if we’re trying to hide it and it’s better to just have one policy. When an officeholder gets into trouble, such as Detroit’s mayor’s recent woes, I do think it’s important to say what his party is (if party affiliation was part of the election process). But when an officeholder is just giving comforting words in the face of tragedy, as Missouri’s governor was doing, I wonder if it’s really necessary.’

So what about making a policy?

According to Stevens, who was also a part of the back and forth: “The best I can offer is that you follow the rules, but let your judgment guide you in deciding when to break them. Judgment calls, of course, open up a wider arena of disagreement and misjudgment, so you have to accept an element of risk. There’s safety in the rules, greater glory, perhaps, in bypassing them. Overall, I’m willing to take a chance on our colleagues’ judgment and live with the occasional misstep. But I’d sure like it to be easier.”