The Democratic and Republican conventions are over but a little post mortem is in order to explain how we covered these events and what we did to be scrupulously fair to both parties.

We knew we would be devoting substantial space to both conventions and we also knew that readers would be looking carefully at the substance of the headlines, the size of the photos, the placement of the stories and just about every sentence written.

The start of the Democratic National Convention coincided with the return of the Waipi'o Little League champs from Williamsport, Pa., so we gave the largest picture on Page One to our baseball heroes. Michelle Obama's speech took top billing on the front page on Aug. 26, accompanied by Advertiser reporter Derrick DePledge's story from the scene. On the following day, Hillary Clinton's speech was the centerpiece while DePledge had the second Page One story.

Some staffers and readers were buzzing about a Washington Post piece by David Maraniss about Obama's youth in Hawai'i and suggested we run it. Though the story would take four full pages to display, we decided it was important and interesting enough to fill our Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday papers. The first piece ran inside the paper while three convention stories — Joe Biden's speech, an appearance by Tammy Duckworth and the Hawai'i delegate vote — ran on the front page.

The story of Obama's speech before 84,000 at Denver's Invesco Field was displayed with a large, six-column photo of Obama including the quote headline, "It's time ... to change" and took up the top half of the Friday, Aug. 29, newspaper. We again ran three stories on the front page, including a sidebar from DePledge and a local story from Honolulu about a viewing party for the Obama speech. The coverage covered three full pages inside the paper, including the second part of the Post series.

Readers were watching closely to see if John McCain would be getting equal treatment. One Honolulu woman wrote: "I am sure this paper doesn't want to be accused of prejudice. We have been subjected to days on end of almost full-page articles with the biography of Barack Hussein Obama. I am really looking forward to the same coverage of the life and adventures of Sen. John McCain."

We already were on the hunt for a similar-length biography of McCain and we found one, also from the Washington Post, by staffer Michael Leahy. It began Wednesday, Sept. 3, and ran through Saturday, Sept. 6, detailing McCain's military upbringing.

But before that series started, and while DePledge was still in Denver, McCain was making news by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The four-column story and photo dominated the front page of the Saturday, Aug. 30, newspaper and DePledge's accompanying story noted Gov. Linda Lingle's endorsement of Palin. The next day, DePledge was in St. Paul, Minn., and wrote his first story about the Republican National Convention.

With Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast, it looked like the schedule of RNC events might be altered but nothing serious materialized. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we ran local and national stories about the convention across the top of the front page. We were mindful that the coverage should mirror what we did for the DNC, down to the front page package of three Democratic photos (Obama-Biden, Duckworth and convention delegates) on Aug. 28 versus the GOP trio (McCain-Palin, Lingle and convention delegates) on Sept. 4.

McCain's speech, like Obama's, ran six columns across the front page with the headline "Change is coming" accompanied by three stories — a wire piece about the speech, reaction from local convention delegates and a Honolulu viewing party at the GOP headquarters.

We must have gotten it right because nobody called to criticize the coverage. It seemed like supporters of both parties were satisfied that we gave maximum effort to being fair and balanced.

Mark Platte is senior vice president/editor of The Advertiser. Reach him at 525-8080.