Coverage of the recent Tea Party rallies provided another obstacle course for the media to navigate. I first heard about the event in the Media Critics section of roguecurrent.com, where one of the posters said he'd be surprised if the media would cover the event. I told the poster we were interested in covering it and that if he could put us in touch with organizers, we would do just that. He did and we did, running a front page story the day before the event and a front page story the day after, plus stories, photos and videos on mailtribune.com.

The first comment we got back from the advance story was that we were obviously biased against the event. Huh? OK, I admit I was confused. Turns out that an editor (me) changed the words "national politicians" into "President Barack Obama and Congress." I thought I was making the story clearer, because I had seen other coverage (yes, even on Fox News) that showed the message was aimed at the White House and Congress. I was wrong, though, to make that assumption, as I told the woman whose paraphrased words (not direct quotes) I had changed. An innocent mistake on my part, but in her view part of the media conspiracy to distort the news.

Turns out the organizers were making a very concerted effort to portray this as a non-partisan event, even if most of the creators and participants were Republican and/or conservative (Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Michael Steele, Newt Gingrich, Fox News, etc.) I had unknowingly stepped in the middle of that.

With that auspicious start, we set off to cover the event. Our reporter, Damian Mann, was greeted with numerous comments or questions about his impartiality. He did his job, covered the story in a very straight-forward manner and, in the end, received compliments from some of the organizers and participants. He did say, however, that he got some criticism from non-conservatives that the coverage was "excessive." Can't keep everybody happy.

I clearly made a mistake in changing the wording in Damian's story. Even if I didn't really believe this was a strictly non-partisan effort, a sentiment we expressed in an editorial on Wednesday, my editing changed the comments made by the event supporter, even if they were only paraphrased comments.  Lesson learned.

But as to the comments that it was an evidence of biased coverage, I say not guilty. Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake.