Cover stories

Press Association debate strengthened by third-party candidates
by Don Corrigan
     The issue of what the news media should do with third-party candidates has always posed a quandary. Should marginal candidates be included in debates? Should the views of such candidates get the same amount of ink and broadcast time as those of Democrats and Republicans?
     While third-party candidates are often inarticulate and unpolished, they also can appear at times to be the most principled and the most genuine. This is one major argument for their inclusion in the political process…
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Homies
by Don Corrigan
     There's a distinctly local flavor to the 2006 battle for the United States Senate seat from Missouri. All four of the candidates are St. Louis County residents…
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Feature stories

Political ad-dollar windfall for media: Too bad bloggers, amateurs offer best access to candidates
by Dan Hellinger
     Two years ago, Missouri's broadcast media were licking their chops, anticipating a deluge of political advertising aimed at swing-state voters. Then Kerry conceded the state. Rival campaigns lost incentive to spend big in Missouri's large media markets.      This year local media can expect brisk business up to Election Day. The outcome of the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Jim Talent and Democratic challenger and State Auditor Claire McCaskill is one of a handful of closely contested races that will determine which political party controls the Senate.

Theater criticism doesn't have a Voice
by Joe Pollack
     St. Louis' smaller theater groups, both amateur and semi-professional, have seen local coverage dwindle in the past few years, and they have complained in letters to editors and on various Web sites about both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Riverfront Times in terms of quality and quantity of coverage.
     But if what happened recently at the Village Voice is an indication of what will occur at its sister paper, the Riverfront Times, the dwindling has only just begun.

The Steve Edwards Cartoon

Columns

Off the Record:
     Tuft hangs tough; New M.E. at Post; We can't handle the truth (Newsweek covers)

Advertising/Public Relations:
by Rick Stoff
     Fighting the Swiftboaters: Nooooooooooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Monty Python used to tell us. This fall, on the other hand, "Eeeeeeverybody expects the Swiftboating."
     The 2004 presidential campaign left the term Swiftboating to describe a highly evolved communications strategy involving enormous expenditures - by insulated front groups - on television ads containing audacious attacks sure to be covered by the news media. Especially certain "friendly" news media.
Channels:
by Tripp Frohlichstein
     Mr. Smith goes to St. Louis: A Q&A with KTVI's (Channel 2) Kingsley Smith, who joined the station from Dallas last summer, replacing long-time news director Brad Remington who moved to Denver.

Sports & Media:
by Joe Pollack
     Post backs off: Where have you gone, Bernie Miklasz and Bryan Burwell?
     Scott Linehan and the St. Louis Rams declare war on the media - and you disappear from the scene, probably off to your cozy bunkers on radio and television. Jim Thomas, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's fine football writer, wrote in late July that the Rams were planning to bar the media from attending daily practice sessions.      And they did.

Radio History:
by Frank Absher
     From Brown Shoe to the White House: It was his first day on the job as the voice of Buster Brown on KMOX in 1926. No one, not even Bryson Rash himself, envisioned that day as the beginning of a career that would lead him to the job of a network White House correspondent.

AM/FM:
by Joe Sonderman
      Retooling radio: Faced with competition from iPods, satellite radio and the Internet, corporate commercial radio is finally starting to change its tune. Two St. Louis stations made dramatic announcements in September in hopes of luring more listeners.

Late Edition:
Edited and excerpted by Charles L. Klotzer
      Only the polluted tip of the iceberg: More marginalized stories of 2005-2006:
     In the last issue we published the 10 most marginalized stories of 2005-2006. In this issue we offer four more of the 25 reports collected by faculty and students of Sangranon (Ca.) College for "Project Censored" under the direction of Peter Phillips.

People:
     News about St. Louis media personnel, awards and accomplishments