Once again, let's Name That Party!

Once again, the mainstream media displays their party prefernce, as it is another edition of Name That Party! In this instance, as reported by CBS television station KDKA Channel 2, Pennsylvania State Representative Frank LaGrotta stands accused of two criminal counts of conflict of interst. Strangely, though the story discusses LaGrotta's purported transgressions in detail, his party affiliation is somehow neglected!

As KDKA reported on the case,

LaGrotta was arraigned last week in Harrisburg on two criminal counts of conflict of interest.

He is accused by the State Attorney General Tom Corbett of hiring two relatives for his office payroll who allegedly did nothing for their state pay check.

But the real focus has been on whether LaGrotta is helping state investigators finger top legislative leaders whom the Attorney General thinks may have used tax dollars to pay their staff for political work.

KDKA Political Editor Jon Delano asked LaGrotta's attorney to answer that question.

"Certainly he has been cooperative," said LaGrotta's attorney Stephen Colafella. " He's attempted to address not only the issues with his case, but some of the more general questions about things that may have gone on."

Colafella stopped short of saying that LaGrotta's testimony would hurt House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese or former House Whip Mike Veon.

Now the story mentions possible wrongdoing by three elected officials in Pennsylvania. One would think that somewhere in the story, the party affiliation of said elected officials might be mentioned. However, a quick Google search finds that of the three, Frank LaGrotta, Mike Veon and Bill DeWeese, all are members of the Democratic Party.

Hmmm. Interesting that of the three, all are Democrats, and yet the CBS station KDKA managed to completely avoid mentioning the party affiliations of any of the three in this story that ostensiblyt is to discuss an elected official accused of criminal conflict of interest. And in fact, this is a possibility that there is an even bigger corruption story. yet somehow the three eleceted officials named all manage to have their party affiliation ignored by KDKA. I won't waste my time hypothesizing if a Republican who was even marginally linked to such a story would have his party affiliation similarly left out of the resulting story. I think we all know that answer. Hat tip to NewsBusters reader Mike Costarell. Cross-posted at NewsBusters.

CNN Neglects Accused Politician's Party- Again

It's time for yet another edition of Name That Party! Disgraced Newark, New Jersey mayor Sharpe James' trial for abusing his powers for favoritism and corruption began today in federal court. According to the prosecutor the former mayor,

...abused his office by steering discounted city property to a girlfriend who then sold the parcels for large profits, a prosecutor told jurors Monday at James' fraud trial. Former Newark, New Jersey, mayor Sharpe James going on trial for federal corruption charges. "This case is about fraud, favoritism and concealment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Kwon said in his opening statement. James got romance while co-defendant Tamika Riley made profits by quickly selling the land instead of redeveloping it as required, Kwon said. "The only people who didn't benefit from these land deals were the people of Newark," Kwon told the jury.

Yet in the entirety of the article on CNN's site, the party affiliation of Mayor James was never mentioned. Not once. Surprised? Not when one discovers that James is a Democrat. It seems that for CNN, if an accused person is a Republican, that is news-worthy, but when the principal is a Democrat, the party is something that readers simply don't need to know. Wouldn't it be nice if the media treated parties the same when it came to reporting allegations? However, if they did, they wouldn't be the mainstream media- partisan, subjective and thoroughly untrustworthy. Hat tip to NewsBusters reader grumpybb. Cross-posted at NewsBusters.