The Statesman covers the races in CD31 with Mary Beth Harrell and Ted Ankrum. The Star Telegram picks up an AP story on the CD14 race between Shane Sklar and Ron Paul. Waco Tribune columnist John Young writes about the Texas Parent PAC and one of its many fine candidates, HD 127’s Diane Trautman.
Note that none of these stories came from the Chronicle. The Chron did some decent profiles on the statewide candidates and races, and they’ve done stories on the high profile local races, most prominently CD22 and HD134, with an HD149 profile thrown in for good measure. And they’ve seen fit to give a profile of CD23, and admittedly important race but one that doesn’t come within 100 miles of Houston and wouldn’t exist without the combined Chron/Express News Texas bureau, and a story on the Alabama Governor’s race, which features the famous Libertarian cleavage candidate. But Ankrum and Sklar and Trautman and all the other not-as-high-profile local candidates? Forget it. Oh, there’s a blog post about Trautman calling for her opponent to debate, and they did name Henley the Optimist of the Year in their Ultimate Houston contest. Not a word about the hot open seat HD133 race between Kristi Thibaut and Jim Murphy. Not a peep about Sherrie Matula and HD129, where multiple ethics charges have been filed against incumbent Rep. John Davis. Nothing about Mark McDavid or Chad Khan or Dot Nelson-Turnier, all of whom the Chron endorsed. Will someone please explain to me why that is?
And then we see the lead piece in today’s Chron saying that a Democratic win will lessen Texas influence in the next congress.
Garbage journalism.
Since you mentioned Loretta Nall, you may be interested in what she thinks of the “cleavage candidate” angle – see here.