Who wants to cover the race? Part I

Back on September 21 we ran this post, Why is the Politicker not covering this race in which we outlined a concern that the only competitive congressional race was being ignored for the most part. The Politicker is the political blog of the New York Observer. After reaching out to the staff I had a rather positive response and acknowledgement that more coverage would be beneficial. I am not changing my perspective until I see a continued effort by the NYC political media to do some reporting. The following is a basic outline of posts relating to either Fossella or Harrison since January 2006. Stephen Harrison was not solidified as the Democratic candidate until the very end of January.

The Politicker

Jan 13; Fossella went to UPenn
Feb 3, 2006; Vito to Face Harrison
Feb 6; Vito to have fund raiser at Bloomberg's
Feb 24, 2006; Bloomberg fund raiser for Fossella
March 14, 2006; DeBlasio in SI
March 21, 2006; DeBlasio and DCCC
March 24, 2006; DeBlasio
April 6, 2006; Rep. Rangel on DeBlasio
April 10, 2006; DeBlasio drops out
April 17, 2006; Vito fund raising
May 31, 2006; NY Sun on Fossella tax credit
June 16, 2006; Fossella on 9/11 health effects
June 27, 2006; NYDaily News coverage of Vito corruption
Aug 16, 2006; WFP endorsements
Aug 24, 2006; Harrison fund raiser at Ozzies
Sept 19, 2006; Vito and Diane Savino, homeless speech
Sept 22, 2006; Upcoming Harrison interview
Sept 25, 2006; Debates announced
Sept 26, 2006; Harrison interview

total:
19 - posts (2 are duplicates mentioning future posts)
5 - on DeBlasio
5 - on Harrison

Of those 5 Harrison references, 1 is a generic listing of every WFP endorsement statewide, 1 is an announcement of an upcoming interview (not the interview) and 1 is a one sentence mention of a fund raiser. DeBlasio was a potential Democratic candidate for about a month. To put that in perspective KT McFarland (Republican Senate candidate runner up) got 11 mentions, Alan Hevesi (NY Comptroller) got 4, Rep. Weiner (who doesn't have a big race until 2009) got 5.

To further show the lack of basic coverage the months of February, March and April all had three NY13 related posts while two months out from the election, the month of September only has four, one as we mentioned is just an announcement of an upcoming post, the result of our questioning their lack of coverage. Without that post, they would only be at 2 posts for the month.

Next up: The Daily Politics