Capital Coverage of Mayor’s Arrest Has Something EXTRA

If only for a day, the nation’s capital had an afternoon newspaper Friday.

“BUSTED,” said the 2 1/2-inch headline above the lead stories in a special edition of the Washington Times that chronicled the arrest of District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry on drug charges. Most of the 24-page edition was devoted to Barry’s arrest at a downtown hotel Thursday night.

Not since the Washington Star folded in 1981 had residents of the area seen a local afternoon newspaper.

The “EXTRA!” was sold by hawkers outside the rival Washington Post; the District Building, Washington’s city hall; the Vista International Hotel, where Barry was arrested, and at downtown subway stations, said Linda Clark, a spokeswoman for the Times, a morning paper published Monday through Friday.

The lead stories outlined how Barry was apprehended as part of an FBI sting operation, contained information concerning his arraignment and had comments from a news conference held by U.S. Atty. Jay B. Stephens.

Also, the special edition contained comments from elementary school students and residents of the city along with an editorial and a column on Barry’s arrest.

The newspaper called its afternoon edition “Special Report: The Barry Crackup.”

Meanwhile, the news of Barry’s arrest made the front pages Friday of all major newspapers in Bogota, Colombia, the center of the world cocaine trade.

El Espectador, a newspaper that has long crusaded against the drug trade and was bombed by traffickers several months ago, ran a photograph of Barry at the top of its front page with the caption: “Drug-Addict Mayor.”

Another photo inside showed Barry along with former New York Mayor Edward I. Koch and Bogota Mayor Andres Pastrana at an anti-drug mayors’ meeting last June.

The other major Bogota daily, El Tiempo, ran a front-page story under the headline: “Black mayor of Washington arrested buying cocaine.”