How Houston Chronicle fed perception of bias on Kerry story

James Campbell, Chronicle Reader Representative:

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Last Wednesday on Page One, we decided to give Chronicle readers what we thought they "ought to have" whether they wanted it or not. What readers wanted to have on Page One was the story about Sen. John Kerry's controversial remarks made to a group of California students on Tuesday. Kerry said that "people who don't study hard and do their homework would likely "get stuck in Iraq." The Houston Chronicle played the story, the hottest in the country, on A10.

Kerry's remarks quickly became a talking point for Republicans, and a source of embarrassment for Democrats. The story dominated most newspaper Web sites, including Chron.com, blogs and radio and television news and talk shows on Wednesday.

We decided to go with Page One stories about federal investigators recommending new safety measures for the refining industry; NASA's decision to repair the Hubble Space Telescope; DNA evidence clearing a man imprisoned 25 years for rape; Texas losing its committee clout if the Democrats take control of Congress; and a former University of Houston professor fulfilling a dream of growing pecans trees in France.

Of course, our readers noticed our decision to play the Kerry story inside. When I informed Chronicle editors of the dozens of readers' calls and e-mails charging a bias, I did not receive a good answer (if there was one) as to why we opted to play it inside.

We richly deserved every complaint we received.

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By not putting the Kerry story on Page One, we fed the perception, if not the belief, that we play favorites — that we're harder on Republicans than we are on Democrats. The evidence was clear Wednesday.

This is a story that bias could not hide. Blogs like this one and others directed people to the story where ever the media tried to hide it. Some in the media, such as at CNN, openly hoped the story would go away. Kerry did not cooperate with their desires and his initial refusal to apologize and his later none apology kept the story in the news. His initial insult laded response to complaints about his original insult was as big a story and also deserved page one treatment.