Wanted: Republicans
Who doesn’t like a good election?
As The Jewish Chronicle is now in full swing with its election coverage, some of our readers are wondering one thing: Why aren’t there more the stories about Republicans?
We recognize that the coverage of the campaign of Sen. John McCain has not kept up with that of Sen. Barack Obama’s, but it’s not for lack of trying.
Over a month ago, we contacted the press offices for McCain and Obama with a simple request: Let us know when your high-profile political supporters are in our area, those worth interviewing on pertinent Jewish issues regarding the November election.
We sent the same request to each campaign. We followed up on those requests, speaking personally with campaign representatives.
While we have yet to hear anything from the Republican side (until this week), we have been offered an interview from the Democrats. Whether it be Dennis Ross, Anthony Lake or Carl Levin — all of whom are newsmakers in their own right, people whom we would write about if they were visiting Pittsburgh for any other reason.
What Jewish media journalist would turn down an interview with any of these men?
We have hardly accepted all of the Obama campaign’s offers. Still, the reason for the gap between the McCain and Obama coverage is clear — access. Obama’s campaign has let us in; McCain’s has unfortunately left us in the dark.
So we again put the invitation out to both Democrats and Republicans, as we did yet again to the McCain campaign this week: Do you have someone of interest for us to interview for a story? Don’t hesitate; let us know. We genuinely hope to hear from McCain’s people.
While we can’t promise an interview or story to everyone, it never hurts to at least make contact with a newspaper that reaches thousands of Jewish voters every week.
We refuse to play favorites in this upcoming election or let our personal opinions affect our coverage (as always, The Chronicle will make no endorsements).
However, we will not refrain from covering one side of this election because the other, for whatever reason, has chosen not to seek coverage in our pages. Both sides have a story to tell. We will try to tell those stories to the best of our abilities.
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