How did media affect Ballard’s win?

Election Day was no high point in the annals of Indianapolis media. How could we have missed such a big story, that Greg Ballard
was about to upset incumbent Mayor Bart Peterson?

Local news organizations treated Ballard as an afterthought until a poll released late last month showed him closing in on
Peterson, and as recently as last night Ballard still was such an unknown that WTHR-Channel 13 felt compelled to introduced
us to his wife, Winnie, and tell us they were homebodies.

We at IBJ have no grounds for throwing so much as a pebble. Our archives have just one article mentioning Ballard,
and it wasnâ??t even a profile. He was among three sources quoted in a story about Petersonâ??s push last summer to fund the
police
and fire pension shortfalls with an income tax increase. (Ballard preferred making sure enough cops were on the street before
dealing with the pensions.)

The easy excuse is that Ballard was so under funded and ignored by his own Republican party that it wasnâ??t worth throwing
precious resources at covering him.

Did a lack of media scrutiny of Ballard change the result of the election?