Somehow I Missed This

On November 12, Reuters reported that Chad Castagana had been arrested in California for "mailing threatening letters containing a suspicious white powder to celebrities and U.S. politicians," including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), talk show host David Letterman, Comedy Central's Daily Show host Jon Stewart, and MSNBC's Countdown host Keith Olbermann. The day after, the weblog Sadly, No! noted that Castagana was a contributor to the conservative website FreeRepublic.com and provided a link that it said was to Castagana's biography. However, the link leads to a FreeRepublic.com page that says, "This account has been banned or suspended." But despite the Associated Press' reporting on November 13 that Castagana faced "a two-count complaint of sending threats and ... hoaxes by mail," only six media outlets noted Castagana's arrest: Reuters, the AP, the Los Angeles Times, Roll Call (subscription required), USA Today, and Countdown. Moreover, in reporting on Castagana's arrest, only the AP, Roll Call and Countdown noted that, as the AP reported, "FBI agent Mary Hogan said in the affidavit that Castagana 'described himself as a compulsive voter who votes Republican, and he said that he sent the letters to specific individuals because he did not like their liberal politics.' " Neither Reuters, the Times, nor USA Today mentioned any possible motivation for Castagana's actions and none of the media reports mentioned Castagana's reported ties to FreeRepublic.com. All reports noted that the white powder was tested and found to be nonhazardous.

This is just part of it. The rest of the article goes on to compare the lack of news coverage with the feeding frenzy here:

Numerous media outlets reported that, at a campaign stop in Charlottesville, Virginia, University of Virginia law student Mike Stark, a blogger for Calling All Wingnuts, was tackled when he asked Sen. George F. Allen (R-VA), who lost his re-election bid to former Navy Secretary Jim Webb, whether he had spit on his first wife. A Media Matters for America review* of the three days following the incident found 14 different reports which labeled Stark a "liberal" -- including articles in the Los Angeles Times, the AP, the Chicago Tribune, and reports on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, and ABC's Good Morning America. One of the four articles printed about the incident in the Richmond Times-Dispatch cited an Allen campaign press release, which stated that "Stark has a history of violent outbursts on the Daily Kos, a left-wing Web site."

So sending a suspicious white powder through the mail isn't newsworthy but asking the soon to be former Senator from Virginia a question is? I wonder if George Allen did spit on his ex-wife. I suppose we'll never know.

The rest of the Media Matters article can be found here.