You know, I’m feeling a little guilty. I had nothing to say about former Senator Manny Aragon’s send off to prison. Maybe, I’m just feeling Manny Aragon fatigue. We’re going on three years since I first started talking about, at the time, Manny’s pending indictment.
I guess if I wasn’t so thoroughly tired of the subject, I might have noticed what a blogger looking from the outside in noticed about the reporting on Manny’s sentencing:
Manny Aragon was one of New Mexico’s most powerful law makers and power brokers. A former Senate president, Aragon was this week convicted and given a 67 month sentence for lining his pockets and that of his co-conspiritors with millions in fraudulently billed state contracting money.
While his “iconic” status is mentioned and his long standing position as a “Senate leader” is dutifully chronicled, his status as a Democrat doesn’t seem to make the cut of a large portion of the stories on his sentencing. This is a common practice of the Old Media. The word “Democrat” never seems to escape the editor’s cut in a story about a criminal Democrat.
The Associated Press misses the fact in two versions of the story (here and here), so does the New Mexico Independent. KRQE News 13 doesn’t mention the party of Agagon or his co-conspiritor Raul Parra. The Albuquerque Journal also skips party mention in this story of reactions to the sentencing.
I must be losing my edge.
Update: Mark Bralley sent over a note to let me know that it’s wrong to criticize the AP for the decision of local media editors.
A quick review of a news outlet that used the AP story without editing it greatly would have seen that “Democrat” played prominently in the second paragraph.
My apologies to Heather Clark at the Associated Press.