Kennedy and Chappaquiddick--in the Obits

It's always fascinating to see where obituaries first bring up what might be called the biggest (sometimes single) black mark on a notable person's life.  Just last week we looked at when news outlets first mentioned the Plame case in covering the death of Robert Novak.  So where did leading outlets place the first mention of the Chappaquiddick accident in their obits of Ted Kennedy?  E&P's Sam Chamberlain provides the following count.  The liberal Boston Globe mentioned it much earlier than the conservative Boston Herald. 

NY Daily News- 13^th graf

Associated Press- 7^th graf

Boston Herald-  10^th graf

Boston Globe-  5^th graf             

NY Times- 14^th graf

NY Post- 14^th graf

Washington Post-  9^th graf

Wall Street Journal-  6^th graf

LA Times-  12^th graf

Chicago Tribune-  12^th graf (same obit as LA Times)

Miami Herald-  10^th graf

Reuters- 18^th graf

USA Today- 19th graf

Politico- 24th graf

The Hill-NO MENTION

Roll Call-25th graf

National Journal-11th graf

Times of London- 8^th graf

Comments

[Mike]

This would have worked better as an infographic, perhaps a sort of bar graph thing with the newspaper logos positioned at the hight that their mentions appeared within the obit.

[Mike]

By the way, infographics work really well as linkbait, which will raise the Google rankings of a site in general.

[SpencerG]

What would be really helpful would be to know how long the obit was as well as where the first negative reference took place.

For instance, if all three of the NY papers listed put the Chappaquidick incident in the 13th or 14th paragraph, that really doesn't tell us much unless we also know how many paragraphs the obit took up total. 13th out of 56 is much more prominent than 14th out of 26.

[Becky]

One of the best parts about being a progressive/liberal is that we understand that humans make mistakes. We DO NOT hate Bush because he made mistakes. We hate him because he has not owned up to them or done anything to correct them. Teddy's accident haunted him everyday of his life. So he spend everyday of his life atoning for that sin by sticking up for the underdog and truly caring about the American people....even when they made mistakes.

[largebill]

Becky,

I hope that was satire.

[NZ Mike]

Kennedy "used this country for his ego and hobby along with disrespect for woman , dynasty is over , it never existed in rational americans.

[Bob B]

SpencerG, you should not be joking after someone just died.

[DBL]

SpencerG - I guess one of the other best parts about being a liberal/progressive is having no principles at all. I offer as evidence the rush in Massachusetts - a rush that was initiated by Sen. Kennedy a few weeks ago - to amend the law to allow the Democratic Governor to appoint his successor until an election can be held, notwithstanding that just five years ago, the Democrats amended the law to prevent the Republican Governor (then Mitt Rommney) from being appointing a temporary successor to Sen. Kerry had Kerry won the presidential election. I guess if you are a progressive/liberal, keeping power is all that matters.

[SteveC]

I think we all -- conservative and liberal alike -- know that the Kennedy fortune was in part based upon the criminal activity of the patriarch while on Wall Street (insider trading) and (ahem) importing scotch (when importing was against the law).

And we all know that any of the rest of us would have done hard jail time had we driven off that bridge.

And we all know that the current generation of the family's "stars" are nowhere near as shiny as the generation that's passed.

So maybe, just maybe, it's time to close the Kennedy book once and for all and admit that the net contribution of the Kennedy family (taking into account ALL they did, both positive AND negative), was at best zero?

[DBL]

Spencer, my apologies, I think I was responding to Becky's comment.

[Joyce W]

spencer g, please tell me when Ted actually ever owned up to leaving the woman in the sinking car just so he could save himself. How can you know that Teddy's "accident", which I call willful neglect, haunted him the rest of his life? The best way he could have atoned would have been to admit he did what everyone, including you, know he did. To me his legacy will always be that the rich have one set of laws and the rest of us have another. BTW, I thinks libs hated George W. Bush because they hate themselves so much. I didn't hate Ted Kennedy, I felt sorry for him. A person who starts his public life off by cheating his way through school and lies about all his faults will always be a cheater and liar.

[Mille]

SpencerG:

TK never owned up to leaving Mary Jo alone to die. He continued to lie (in the inquest, to the press) and had his family clean up his mess (once again).

As for Bush, you hate him because you're a hater. It's as simple as that. You make your excuses and because you're a progressive/liberal, those excuses seem to make perfect sense to you.

Thank you for playing though.

[Alene Campbell, Angleton, Tx]

Death I respect for what it is, however I cannot have respect for someone that has no clue what it is to be poor and use family wealth and fame to abuse the legal system. If this had happened to the regular "Joe the plummer", what do you think would happen?

[Alene Campbell, Angleton, Tx]

I am so there for closing the book on this name.

[Rob Stumpf]

I love when Becky says she only hates George Bush because he didn't correct the mistakes she says he made. Becky will LOVE you if you do whatever she says, I guess.

I have an idea...how about not hating anyone at all?

[baslimthecripple]

As DBL figured out, the ditzy comment was from Becky, not SpencerG. The Kennedys are a national Rorschach test. What you see tells more about you than about the ink blot - and a blot they are. I have never bothered hating the Kennedys. The only real thing that bothered me about them was the slobbering sycophancy given them by the national press. About the best of them seems to have been John Jr. and even he was, ultimately, a crummy pilot who killed himself, his wife, and his sister-in-law. Finally, I really don't give a damn about Chappaquiddick. The issue as a girl named Mary Jo Kopechne. She wasn't an incident or a personal error of Ted Kennedy, she was a person. Who perhaps, as I read yesterday, has just been summoned for jury duty.

[Joyce]

OOPS! My reply should have been directed to Becky who posted at 8:20 A.M. I guess I'm just another one of the old folks who can't see too well but the poster's name should be inside the line of his (or her) post.

[Doc]

spencerg.
Would you then say that TK consorting with the KGB to undermine Reagan's 1984 re-election bid was part of his atonement for leaving the scene of the accident to sober up and craft his excuse?

[Doc]

Correction,
I re-direct my post to Becky.
My apologies to SpencerG.

[Joe Crnkovich]

Ted Became an extreme Liberal because he had to sell his political Soul to the International left to survive and thrive in politics after the Mary Jo Kopechne episode.

[CopyEditor]

I agree with SpencerG that we needed to know how long the obits were.

Also, this is a very interesting study in graphic design. The dotted line/signature combo is popular, yet it has created a bunch of confusion here.

[gfb]

The liberals seem to think that the conservatives held it against TK for having the accident and killing the lady. What we have had a problem with through the years was not the accident per se but the fact that he made every effort to see if he could cover it up and making sure he waited long enough to pass a soberiety test prior to making an official notification. This lapse very well could have been what proved fatal for Mary Jo.