Oops!

John Edwards and John Kerry may be smiling in the photo on the front of The Washington Post's special Democratic Convention Section, but the newspaper's editors frowned when they saw the page with "Election 2000" dominating the top. The very obvious glitch appeared yesterday in the paper distributed around the convention press center. "It's a great issue and the masthead shows we're committed to recycling," cracked Boisfeuillet Jones , publisher of the Post.

Bias Watch

Boston media relied heavily on a think tank called the Beacon Hill Institute in reporting before the Democratic convention that its impact would hurt Boston's economy. The BHI, housed at Suffolk University, is depicted by its Executive Director, David G. Tuerck, as a "free-market think tank." In fact, Tuerck told the Newton Republican Party in a published 2003 interview that "I happen to be a Republican." Democratic Party officials pointed out to reporters that Republicans might cast aspersions on the convention, but this did not stem the flood of anti-convention stories based on BHI research. Ironically The Boston Herald, a feisty tabloid that doesn't try to hide its disdain for liberals, attempted to blow the whistle on what it called the Institute's "sloppy and unpersuasive" research.

On the Web

Wonder where that great groundbreaking online coverage of the 1996 Democratic and Republican conventions disappeared to? If you've searched up and down the Web without success or come up with dead pages, try visiting http://www.archive.org.

CORRECTION

Media Nation misidentified Bill Walczak, executive director of the Codman Square Health Center and frequent Dorchester Reporter source, he is not an employee of the Reporter.