Earlier today, a grand jury convicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, on 17 of 20 counts of corruption. 11 of of the guilty verdicts related to attempts to profit from the “sale” of the U.S. Senate seat Barack Obama vacated when he became president.
At USA Today’s On Deadline blog (as of its 5:33 p.m. update), Michael Winter failed to identify Blagojevich or any other politician involved as a Democrat. Neither did the video found at Winter’s article. This is not surprising, because the video came from the “see no evil Democrat” Associated Press.
In six items all carrying today’s date found at the AP’s main site in a search on the former governor’s last name at 8:15 p.m. ET, the wire service not only failed to tag Blago as a Democrat, it failed to tag anyone as Democrat. Here’s the list:
Related links are here, here, here, here, here, and here. They are saved at my web host for fair use, future reference and discussion purposes here, here, here, here, here, and here.
In the second-most blatant example in the AP’s string of “Name That Party” failures (though the competition was fierce; wait until you see the most blatant example found in a seventh story which was not carried nationally), the item containing others’ comments on the verdict carries the following quotes from Illinois Senator Mark Kirk and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn:
