Chronicle's Enron covered excelled

Houston Chronicle reader representative James Campbell is gloating, as are readers, about the paper’s coverage of the recently concluded Enron trial in his Sunday column.

Campbell writes, “Leading up to the trial, the Chronicle was criticized by some readers, who believed our stories about Lay and Skilling were soft and self-serving. Deputy managing editor George Haj explained at the time that our coverage of Lay and Skilling was to take the two men beyond caricature and to remind readers of the known facts in this case, not play judge and jury and convict Lay and Skilling in our stories.

“Regarding our trial coverage, to describe it as ‘comprehensive’ would be understatement. To be precise, from jury selection to trial’s end, we published nearly 200 staff-written Lay-Skilling stories in Section A or the Business section. This does not include columns by Loren Steffy and Rick Casey, editorials, op-eds, letters and wire stories about the trial.

“And let us not forget the hundreds of photos and graphics that provided among other things, a breakdown of all the players — the judge, jurors, prosecutors, defense lawyers, evidence and witnesses.

“OK, I’ve often been accused of being a Chronicle ‘homer.’ In this case, I’m going to plead guilty as charged.

“I believe our coverage both in the print edition and on chron.com was thorough and incisive. Our stories and graphics were unambiguous and easily understood.”

Read more here.