'OK, but I get to be on top!'

Albany Paper Runs Two Front Pages: One Starring Bush, One Starring Kerry

By Jennifer Saba
Published: October 27, 2004 5:50 PM EDT update 8:00 PM

NEW YORK Well, they won't try that again any time soon. "Yes, I wish we hadn't done it," the editor told E&P.

But with so many accusations flying around of media bias, it's no wonder newspaper editors across the country are bending over backward to seem fair and balanced.

Indeed, at the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., editors went so far as to customize its front page on Tuesday, printing two editions of the paper with two different A1s.

Editor Rex Smith said that in Monday's editorial meeting he was presented with two horizontal photos of equal size for Page 1. One photo featured Kerry and Bill Clinton, the other included Bush and Rudolph Giuliani. His dilemma: Who gets the top?

Newspaper editors are only too aware that readers increasingly analyze each front page -- and especially photo selection -- for bias. James G. Wright, assistant managing editor for local news, said that people get most worked up over pictures. "If it's perceived as being just a little bit racy, people call," he explained.

So Smith decided to stage two press runs, swapping the positions of photos halfway through, with Bush on top in one run and Kerry in top placement in another.

"I just felt it was worthwhile to make the extra effort in the interest of fairness. I didn't want readers to perceive any bias in our photo selection," Smith said. "We go through all kinds of machinations to convince our readers that we're fair."

With a circulation of 99,957, the Times Union produces five editions, four county editions and a zoned-advertising edition.

The Kerry-dominant editions, as it happened, went out to the Democratic stronghold of Albany County. Was this by design, with Bush-friendly editions circulating in Republican enclaves? Smith dismissed the conspiracy theory with a laugh: "Now that would be a story!" The Bush/Giuliani version was sent to Schenectady, Saratoga, and Rensselaer Counties.

Smith insisted he did not gerrymander distribution: "It was a convenience thing. It was really an effort to be fair, not to target pro-Bush coverage to Republican counties."

He points out that Schenectady county, which leans Democratic, received the Bush edition: "That theory wouldn't work there."

Readers, apparently, were indifferent. Wright, who also serves as the paper's ombudsman for the month, said he got zero phone calls about the two editions, or the photo placement.

Which raises the thought: If no one complained, and some Bush fans got Kerry-on-top copies, and vice versa, was it worth doing at all?

Apparently Smith now thinks, no. He told E&P late Wednesday that it upset a lot of people in the newsroom, who may not have understood his reasoning. "I'm afraid it's given the impression that we are kowtowing to overly sensitive partisan readers," he said.

Realizing it was a mistake, he now plans to write a memo to staff on Thursday, and possibly a column.

Jennifer Saba (jsaba@editorandpublisher.com) is associate editor at E&P.