In over 1600 words the latest Time magazine couldn’t find room to inform its readers of Gary Condit’s party affiliation, not even in any one of several photo captions. Last week, a short item up front in the magazine also failed to identify him as a Democrat.
In fact, the word Democrat only appeared once in the July 23 edition piece by Karen Tumulty headlined, “Sex, Lies, And Polygraphs: As the Chandra Levy frenzy intensifies, GARY CONDIT fights back and submits to a lie-detector test. But does it come too late to save his career?” The term popped up in the fourth paragraph:
“Even if Condit had nothing to do with Chandra Levy's disappearance — police continue to insist that he's not a suspect — his painstakingly tended image has been shattered and his political career declared dead. Democrats and Republicans are already scheming how to carve his conservative district to maximum advantage, or reapportion it out of existence. ‘If he's smart, he won't even run for re-election,’ says A.G. Block, executive editor of California Journal, a magazine on state politics.”
To see for yourself how Time refused to list Condit’s party, check out the article, Time’s only piece this week on the case: Time.
This week’s U.S. News & World Report waited until the 16th paragraph of a 18 paragraph story to identify Condit’s party, but then with the caveat that he’s a “conservative Democrat.” In that paragraph of the story headlined, “Chasing Chandra: A summer sex scandal has a woman missing and a congressman on the run,” Michael Schaffer of U.S. News wrote:
“Condit, who took office in a 1989 special election after scandal-plagued House Democratic Whip Tony Coehlo resigned, played the role of provincial politician brilliantly. Though his district supported President Bush in last fall's election, Condit — a conservative Democrat — won re-election by a 2-to-1 margin.”
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center
