Every 10 years Maryland state government goes through two
redistricting cycles, one for Congressional redistricting and
one for General Assembly redistricting. The Congressional cycle
came first and was completed on Oct. 20, 2011. The General
Assembly redistricting was completed on Feb. 24, 2012. A
striking difference between the two redistricting cylcles is
that the Congressional gerrymanders got a lot more attention in
the Maryland press than the legislative ones. A reasonable
inference to make from this discrepancy would be that the
Congressional gerrymanders were a greater affront to democratic
values. Unfortunately, that would be a faulty inference. To
understand why this might be the case, one first has to
understand press incentives. The press prefers to cover
political stories that are controversial. By this is meant
disagreement among official sources, especially partisan ones.
Relying on official sources on regular newsbeats for news
sources provides instant credibility for a newspaper while
reducin