Yesterday afternoon the office of President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was raided by federal agents. Documents were seized, and the president reacted angrily. The Associated Press’ first stories on the seizure appear to have gone out shortly after 4 PM. (Here is an early version.) Later that hour, local television news began to cover it (here, for example) and it was the top story on all of the network newscasts later last night.

This morning’s Wheeling Intelligencer had no coverage of this important national story.

I’ll suggest two possible reasons: cheapness and/or bias. Given their business plan of “news-on-the-cheap,” perhaps today’s paper needed to be ready to print (except for the sports scores) by 4 PM. Including this story would have meant that someone would have had to work overtime. Or more likely, as they’ve done in the past, they needed to wait for the Republican talking points on how this story should be handled. Regardless of the reason, this is inexcusable.

Hey, aren’t we due for another one of those Ogden what-a-great-job-we-do-serving-you editorials?

By the way, the most important story on this morning’s front page was

There’s a New Sheriff in the Village of Bethesda

which took up over half of the available news space, had the largest headline, and included two pictures. (For those outside the region, Bethesda’s population is estimated to be 1,246 and it is located in Ohio not West Virginia.)

It should also be noted that the Intelligencer has finally decided to give some space to the Democrats running against Republican David McKinley. At the bottom of the page is an article on one of McKinley’s possible opponents and a notice of a debate among the Democratic candidates at the Wetzel County 4H Camp tonight. The article is about candidate Kendra Fershee’s views on the opioid epidemic and it is the first article (beyond ballot listings) on Fershee since October 18 of last year. The views of her primary opponents have not been discussed since December 1 in Ralph Baxter’s case and never in Tom Payne’s case.

Afternoon News-Register update

Buried on page 6 of the afternoon Wheeling News-Register is a much-shortened version of a later AP report on the raid of Michael Cohen's office. The longer AP report found elsewhere runs about 1,000 words while the News-Register's version is around 250 words. (Note -- the News-Register's version is not available online.) If you are interested comparing the two, the News-Register's final paragraph begins "The raid created" after which the AP report's final 19 paragraphs are dropped.

And the News-Register balances the mention of one of David McKinley's opponents with yet another editorial praising McKinley. As documented in a front page article last Saturday, the local Republican representative discussed some possible approaches to student debt in the course of answering a student's question about the repayment of student loans. Talk is cheap; couldn't the paper at least wait until McKinley sponsors an actual bill?