A couple readers called today to ask why the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ignored the death of former Congressman Jack Kemp.  We didn’t.  Word of his death first came on Saturday evening as the Post-Dispatch neared its first-edition deadline.

Here’s Sunday Editor Ron Wade’s description of events:

“…then we got a final little adrenaline rush for (page designer) Elizabeth Baird, working her last Saturday night shift before she winds down with us next week. A one-sentence alert moved right after 9 p.m. that former congressman and football star Jack Kemp had died. Elizabeth and photo editor Stephanie Cordle scrambled and got a mug and we got a picture and blurb on A1. The rest of the story was slow in coming, so for that first edition, we just had the 1A blurb. For the second edition, the main home delivery, we added a good-sized story on the obits page and turned our 1A blurb it into a refer to the obit page.” (Page A18)

The two readers who called me today said the missing obit was evidence of liberal bias. If Barney Frank died, one said, we’d run his obituary on Page One, not just a blurb sending readers to an inside story.

Because the obituary didn’t appear in all editions Sunday, today’s Post-Dispatch should have run a follow or remembrance story of some sort.