The Loss of a Liberal Lion

I was saddened to hear of the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, aged 77, earlier this week. However,whenever a single event pushes all other news items off of the front page for several days running, the average newshound finds this exasperating.

The day after Senator Kennedy's passing the New York Times devoted the entire top fold of the paper to his obituary (pre-written, in case you didn't know), including photographs and other tributes. The bottom fold had only two other news items.

When President Lyndon Johnson died in 1973 he was only awarded a single narrow top-of-the-fold column in the NYT. The reason is that he died on the same day the Roe v. Wade abortion decision was handed down. Therefore LBJ had to share the front page with that momentous Supreme Court decision and with other things too.

LBJ's death was reported in the paper on January 23, 1973. In that day and age, The New York Times, The Washington Post and most other U.S. papers had more actual news than do today's newspapers. Up until the last five years U.S, newspapers employed their own reporters, manned a Washington news bureau or at least hada correspondent stationed in DC. Many of the larger papers also operated their own foreign news bureaus. Tragically (for our Republic) many newspapers have shut down completely or they rely on excerpts from other news services or share resources with outfits that formerly were their competition. To beef up content daily papers add a lot of local sports coverage, especially at the high school level. (Which they already excelled at.)

Further crabby remark: and if I hear the phrase "Liberal Lion," just one more time...or any variation of it (Lion of the Senate), or if I hear any more references about the lionization of Ted Kennedy, then....

[Okay, it just happened: at approximately 7:20pm this evening, a FOX news reader just said, "The Liberal Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy...."]