question regarding newspapers in small/ medium-sized towns

[progressiverealist]

I live in a smaller western Wisconsin city (total pop. in the area ~80,000) and our local rag is nothing more than a republican propaganda sheet with headlines straight from Rove's talking points and a bunch of local interest/ sports stories. Moreover, I've noticed that every other newspaper in Wisconsin that is located in a similarly-sized or smaller community has the same slant. As an example, our paper carried nothing regarding the 9/11 commission's findings that were critical of Bush, yet they had a front-page story today on Rumsfeld's and Powell's rebuttal of said findings.

Is this the same in other communities of this size? If so, why? I personally think this is one of the main reasons Wisconsin is in some danger of turning into a red state.

[BOSSHOG]

1. I think the paper in my small South Mississippi Community

has a direct link to rove's office. It does a good job of covering the local stuff but the editorial page is pure unadulterated christian conservative moral absolutism.

[Westegg]

2. I get your point, but, alas, most people don't read anything!

[progressiverealist]

3. no, they just read the headlines, if that... see that Bush is still God

and check to see if West Salem won their goddamned football game.

[TX-RAT]

4. 29000

Same here. They seem to worry more about who's buying the ads than who buys the paper.

[Newsjock]

5. It's often ignorance, not hostility

Smaller newspapers are notorious for paying horrible wages (less than teachers, at some places!). While many good journalists have gotten their start at smaller newspapers, those papers also tend to attract people who don't know much about the world around them. They know only what Fox News and the AP wire tell them -- and they often lack the critical thinking skills to do the interpretation and analysis on their own.

Newspaper management, of course, doesn't feel the need to change the situation, since they've learned that they can make at leats as much profit with a mediocre newspaper as they can with a well-done one.

[Mari333]

6. here too all right wing crap

.

[markus]

7. Who owns the paper?

I used to work for a property much like the one you describe. Is it part of a chain (even a local one, it doesn't have to be a Gannett or Newhouse or COX or other big chain).

Also, in a smaller paper, they're just ripping the wires (figuratively; QuarkXpress makes no sounds when you flow in an AP story, but it would be cool if it did), and stuffing them into a likely very small newshole.

Now if the editor or publisher is a knee-jerk, right-wing type (as they likely are, being small business people or the top manager of a small business person), they can actually have the free time to peek over people shoulders and suggest certain paragraphs come out to make it fit.

Or the editors involved have learned that he way not to get yelled at is to pull out certain paragraphs to make it fit.

Strangely enough, the people who are working there in a non-management capacity are liable to be more liberal than you think.

When I started in small newspapering, I was making in the high four figures. No, that's not a typo. And that included my weekly car allowance to cover use of my vehicle.

You do that sort of work because you believe you're going to make the world a better place. There are two sorts of people with this belief. Good, old-fashioned Confort the Afflicted and Afflict the Comfortable journalists, and evangelical christians.

There weren't a lot of the latter in the small town newspaper business in the early 1980s, but maybe that's changed.

The bottom line is: at a smaller property, the management is 1) constrained by a very tight news hole and 2) freer to look over the shoulders of editors and reporters and make (questionable) editorial judgements.

[progressiverealist]

12. Thanks for the insider's perspective.

I found your answer very informative.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. Albany Times Union (NY) a great liberal paper ....thank god

[progressiverealist]

13. but not that surprising... you're in the state capital.

[Sandpiper]

9. Most small town news papers

Have been bought up by giant newspaper corporations. I would think it a safe bet that your local paper is owned by a Bush-friendly newspaper giant.

If you want to check and see, here's a link to Columbia Journalism Review's database of who owns what in mass media.

http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/

[KT2000]

10. RW Rag - 20,000

Had to quit the paper because it is a RW-Free market rag. Owned by Horvitz which owns many papers in small towns.

[scottws]

11. fake journalism

A problem around here is boilerplate stories sent out by corporations and industry groups. They just run them as news with no attribution - often they're thinly-disguised infomercials. And DON'T get me started about small-market TV "News" - Around here, it's "Meth Madness," car accidents and "Faith and Family" segments.

[progressiverealist]

14. yeah... our TV news is even worse!

Any time they need an expert on a religious issue they go to the pastor of the local fundie "mega-church."

The local "news" anchors are so pro-Bush you'd expect them to drop to their knees instinctively were they ever to meet *.

[Westegg]

15. Pittsburgh (my hometown) used to be a great newspaper town...

Despite a relatively small population (which peaked at about 600,000 in the late '50s; it's under 400,000 now). Several great independent papers were published there, including the Pittsburgh-Courier, perhaps the most significant African-American paper in the country, back in the 1940s. Anyway, long story short, by the '80s there were only two papers left: The Post Gazette (Scripps-Howard) and the Pittsburgh Press. During a newspaper strike, the Press went bankrupt and folded, leaving only the P-G. But not for long, since along came Dick Scaife, Mellon-family scion and notorious right-winger. He started the Tribune-Review, which is going strong to this day. I don't know circulation numbers (I haven't lived there in years), but my sense is that more Pittsburghers get their news these days from Scaife's rag. Sad.

Remember Homestead!

[noonwitch]

16. The Grand Rapids Press is basically a GOP rag, with the exception of one

columnist. John Douglas is pretty liberal for a very conservative paper. He also writes the best movie reviews. I grew up in GR and it has always been that way.
I read the Detroit Free Press, and I read it in high school and in college. It is not the quality paper it used to be, ever since Ed Meese approved the joint-operating agreement with the News.