The Tampa Bay Times has responded after Florida Politics noticed that one of their stories focusing on the criminal records of some candidates for St. Petersburg City Council “highlighted black candidates’ arrests, but ignored the white.”

In a post titled “The Tampa Bay Times and their (hopefully) accidental racist post,” FlaPol publisher Peter Schorsch claimed that the original Times article showed racial bias and left out information about a leading candidate before the article was updated after FlaPol pointed out the editorial oversight.

He claims that the photo that first accompanied the article pictured three black candidates: District 7 City Council incumbent Lisa Wheeler-Bowman, Eritha “Akile” Cainion and Chico Cromartie.

Cromartie is the Trump-supporting longshot, and Cainion is the Uhuru candidate who’s drawn attention after a recent round of fundraising.

“The first draft went to the presses with only three black candidates pictured — and with no mention of one of the white candidate’s transgressions,” Schorsch wrote. “Yet of the seven candidates who have past records or arrests, four — a majority, for those keeping track — are white.”

A social media post that was still appearing in news feeds on Sunday supports Schorsch’s claim about the original photo featuring three black candidates.

Schorsch added that the Times article was laser focused on indiscretions from candidates who are either not campaigning actively or have not raised funds to indicate a viable campaign. He does point out that the accused hit and run accident by a white candidate — Robert Blackmon, who is running for the District 1 seat — was not “mentioned until the story was three hours old.”

On Tuesday, Times Executive Editor Mark Katches responded to an inquiry about the article.

"Our story started with a focus on the District 7 race because of the significance of Chico Cromartie’s prison history and because of the fact that three of the four candidates for that seat have criminal histories. We originally published the story with photos of the three candidates with criminal pasts,” Katches wrote to CL. “When we learned later that District 1 candidate Robert Blackmon once faced a criminal charge, we changed the story to reflect a broader trend among candidates for City Council."

Oh look, the @TB_Times added white people to this story after @Fla_Pol called it out. https://t.co/UQBYehuNRO
— Peter Schorsch (@PeterSchorschFL) August 8, 2019

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