One Protester = 61 Square Inches of Newspaper Space?
The New York Times' Marc Lacey reported from Phoenix Thursday on Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ousting the woman in charge of redrawing the state's political boundaries. But the bias was in the photography selection.
A decision by Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona's Senate to oust the chairwoman of the citizens' commission redrawing the state's political boundaries prompted legal challenges on Wednesday as critics of the move accused Republicans of meddling in a redistricting process that voters sought to insulate from politics.
Following the recommendation of Ms. Brewer, a Republican, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 21 to 6 on Tuesday night to remove Colleen C. Mathis, chairwoman of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Lawyers raced to court in a long-shot effort to overturn the decision.
'I will not sit idly by while Arizona's Congressional and legislative boundaries are drawn in a fashion that is anything but constitutional and proper,' said Ms. Brewer, who has condemned the maps proposed by the commission as biased toward Democrats.
The story was inoffensive, but as if in compensation the choice of accompanying picture was strange and slanted: A huge version of an Associated Press photo of a single protester. At 9.5 inches long and 6.5 inches high, it tied for the second-largest photo in Thursday's paper (only a photo of Herman Cain talking to reporters was larger).
