Nuvo Election Coverage Disappoints

Indy's alternative weekly newspaper, Nuvo, has all the appearances from its cover of having good local election coverage, but its looks are deceiving. As for the candidates, Nuvo's Kyle McClurg discusses only the three congressional races all the mainstream media have been discussing ad nauseum since the beginning of this election year--the 2nd, 8th and 9th Districts. He writes, "And with three congressional districts . . . projected to be tight races, all eyes are on Indiana." His discussion of the candidates in these three races is nothing but a regurgitation of what has been written countless times before. His complete failure to acknowledge the tight race in Indianapolis' 7th District is completely inexcusable. Afterall, 90% of Nuvo's readers live in the 7th, and nobody in those other three districts reads the publication. Has Nuvo forgotten what an alternative newspaper is all about?

The weekly redeems itself somewhat with Laura McPhee's story about "Sex and the Statehouse", which draws attention to the fact that who controls the Indiana General Assembly will have a major impact over the next two years on the extent of government regulation of our sex lives. McPhee provides a good rundown of what's at stake, including efffort to outlaw abortion (constitutional or not), artificial reproductive choices, same-sex marriage and sex education, to name just a few. She does not, however, discuss the candidates involved in several hotly contested Marion County legislative races which will help decide which view will prevail, such as Orentlicher v. Densborn, Buell v. Barnes, Bosma v. Fuldauer and Merritt v. Brown.

In a separate article, Michael Snodgrass focuses on "New Nativism"--the push for anti-immigrant legislation. The inclusion in the story's headline of "The Republican answer to immigration" is misleading, because it is hardly a straight Republican v. Democrat issue, which even Snodgrass acknowledges. In fact, President Bush and a number of moderate Republicans led by Sen. John McCain, have led the push to provide a path to citizenship for the more than 12 million illegal aliens in the country, along with tougher enforcement--a fact Snodgrass concedes in his article. Democratic congressional candidate Brad Ellsworth has been trying to run to the right of Rep. John Hostettler (R) on the immigration issue, and that takes some effort given Hostettler's hardline view and attention he's given to the issue. Again, though, the article fails to tie where the respective candidates stand on the issue to be instructive to its readers.