The Annenberg School has been all over both conventions, teaming up with Politico to host a few panel discussions. We caught the tail end of one at the Minnesota Public Radio building in downtown St. Paul. The panel’s title was “Bridging the Political Divide in the 2008 Election. Professor, Dean Emeritus, Geoffrey Cowan welcomed the panel which included an assortment of heavyweight political journos, including Catalina Camia, of USA Today, Nina Easton, editor at Fortune magazine, and Politico’s Roger Simon.

It appeared that there had been a debate over whether or not the media was biased—and one audience member questioned the (non) coverage of John Edwards scandal in the mainstream press. Simon posed another question, in an age when a rumor makes it onto big internet sites in less than 24 hours, (see Sarah Palin, Down’s Syndrome, not really her baby rumor) do you just “put everything out?” The instructive answer is the New York Times‘ prematurely published John McCain investigation, which Simon said tried to make the case that McCain “allegedly, maybe, had an affair,” with an attractive female lobbyist.

In this sense, the Times and other papers are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.