Say you write for or edit the metro section of a major metropolitan newspaper and you have a juicy story of a local ex-mayor who was arrested for running a brothel. It's right on the heels of the Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) prostitution scandal and the politician in the local story in question was once a sheriff's deputy, clearly no stranger to anti-prostitution laws.
Party affiliation is just one more tidbit of information that couldn't hurt your readers, right?
Not for the Washington Post.
Seventy-two year old former Dumfries Mayor Melvin Bray was "charged with running a brothel out of a sports therapy clinic in a roadside strip mall" in Prince William County, Va., reported Post staff writer Nick Miroff. But Bray's party affiliation, Democratic, was not included in the story.
A quick Google search confirmed that Bray, who lost his reelection bid last year in the historically nonpartisan mayoral contest, is a self-described "lifelong Democrat."
