Where's the Candidate?

Congressional Representative Marilyn Musgrave came to Longmont on Wednesday to talk to constituents in the 4th District. Musgrave worked for and talked with the voters by pumping gas for them at a gas station on Ken Pratt Blvd.

The Times-Call ran a nice photo of Musgrave on the front page of Thursday's edition. The photo, a nice image, took 6 inches of newspaper space (2 columns x 3 inches= 6 column inches.)

Musgrave's opponent came to Prospect on Wednesday, as if on cue, and her photo occupied 27.75 inches of space (3 columns x 9.25 inches = 27.75 column inches). It is an overhead shot and the candidate's image is so small that we would find it hard to pick her out of a police lineup but there is a lot of space around her in the photo, which is above the the fold on the front page.

Musgrave's photo is positioned below the fold in the bottom half of the front page and would be easy to miss while the non-photo dominates the page.

The news story itself runs about 130 lines of copy. The copy devoted to the Congressional Representative runs about 50 lines.

In a sidebar, Musgrave's opponent was allowed to criticize nearly every component of Musgrave's Energy Policy, but Musgrave was not allowed to question any of the opponent's policies.

So goes the news.