Amy Sullivan’s piece on the 2010 census has a big picture of Judd Gregg at the top and begins:
When Republican Senator Judd Gregg announced on Thursday that he no longer wished to be the Commerce Secretary nominee, he said that the decision was based in part on serious disagreements with the Obama White House over the 2010 census.
It ends:
And Gregg himself backed off the issue in a news conference after he announced his withdrawal, insisting that his concerns over the census were “slight” and refusing to address it further. Nonetheless, the experience has reminded partisans on the left and the right of their investment in the census. The fight to determine how it happens and what the consequences will be has only just begun.
Shorter Amy Sullivan:
The role of the census issue in Gregg’s withdrawl is a red herring and I admit it. Nonetheless, I decided to lede lead with it to sex up a boring he-said, she-said column about a statistical issue I don’t understand.
This really, really bothers me. If the census wasn’t an issue for Gregg, then why the fuck do you lede lead by suggesting it was? How is that not the kind of thing that would get you an “F” in Journalism 101? And why did her editors let it in and then make things worse by putting a big picture of Gregg biting his lip at the top of the article?