Two conventions, one strategy

I was reminded of those words over the last two weeks, as Republicans gathered in Tampa and later, the Democrats in Charlotte.

With back-to-back conventions, it wouldn’t be difficult for readers to uncover bias in our coverage: Did we play the photo of one candidate larger than the other? Did one party’s convention result in more front-page stories? What about our headlines? Were they told in a straightforward manner, or did we allow “loaded” words to slip by? Did they take a point of view?

Truth be told, it didn’t help that on the same week the Republicans gathered in Tampa, Hurricane Isaac began its slow crawl across Louisiana. And on the very night Ann Romney spoke about her husband of 43 years and declared him “the man America needs,” Gov. Nathan Deal made some news of his own in Tampa.

During an interview at the convention, Deal announced he would not expand the Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act because it would be too expensive, a development that touched the lives of some 650,000 lower-income Georgians.

With two big stories, we were forced to rethink our convention coverage – all the while remaining mindful of the fact that what we did for the Republicans, we would do for the Democrats.

And so, on the night of Ann Romney’s address, we led our newspaper with the Medicaid developments and used her speech as a secondary story. One week later, when First lady Michelle Obama spoke about her husband and characterized him as a “man we can trust,” we followed that same exact layout – right down to the size of the photo.

Did we overthink it?

Perhaps.

On the night Michelle Obama spoke, we didn’t have the benefit of a big breaking news story – one that touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of Georgians. What we had instead was an important story on Democrats approving a platform that supports gay marriage.

That created some debate at our morning critique, where our editors meet to discuss that day’s newspaper and try to assess how we did. As always, the topic of bias was a big part of that discussion. In our effort to be identical, some wondered, did we overplay the gay marriage story?

The answer, of course, is open to interpretation.

But that story, written by our own Aaron Gould Sheinin and Lynn Hulsey, a reporter with the Dayton Daily News, underscored the commitment we made earlier this year to provide readers with in-depth coverage of the conventions.

When the Republicans gathered in Tampa, journalists from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Daniel Malloy, Kyle Wingfield and our Political Insider, Jim Galloway – were there, too. A week later, Galloway and Sheinin arrived in Charlotte.

Their mission: To bring you those Georgia-specific stories you couldn’t get from TV.

Galloway, for instance, captured the buzz surrounding Glenn Richardson, the former Georgia Speaker of the House, who, nearly two years after an attempted suicide followed by scandal and resignation, announced his intentions to run for the state Senate.

And when others found themselves locked out of some of the meetings, Galloway got to the bottom of it, telling readers exactly what Georgia’s delegates were up to.

Back home, Susan Abramson, our political editor, helped those in the field sift through the chaos and confusion and the breakneck pace that comes with such events, and she and others pulled it all together so that it made sense and enlightened us when the paper reached our doorsteps the next morning.

Finally, as the conventions came to a close, we made a calculated decision to present the acceptance speeches by Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama in an identical way, again, right down to similarly sized photos and headlines.

Now that the conventions have drawn to a close, and with the candidates heading back on the campaign trail, we’ll use that same deliberate thinking as we move closer to November.

Of course, we’d like to hear how we’re doing along the way.