I’ve been trying to order The New York Times Nov 5th edition for a few days now. Each time I hit the site’s store, there’s so much traffic, they can’t complete my order. Maybe I should consider buying these 7 newspapers, which would undoubtedly be a helluva lot easier to score. As you’ll see in the screenshots, the announcement of Obama’s victory is either buried beneath the fold of the paper, or otherwise marginalized at the header, in a sidebar, or accompanied by a photo so small, you could easily mistake it for any other front-page story.
Have a look at these (you can click each newspaper image for a larger version):
1. Lake Sun Leader, published in Camdenton, MO – Ahhh, the Lake Sun Leader, where cleavage trumps all. (click image to enlarge)
2. Highlands Today, published in Sebring, FLA – Talk about a slap in the ballot box. Looks like Sherriff Benton is the bigger story in this town. (click image to enlarge)
3. Rockdale Citizen, published in Conyers, GA Nothing against Richard Oden, who might have made history in Georgia (though I really doubt it), but don’t you think the Obama story below the fold at least deserves a photo? A thumbnail? Lo-res? B&W even? Geez. (click image to enlarge)
4. The Courier, published in Russellville, AR – Snap! Obama loses another face off to a local Sherriff, who gets the prime real estate. (click image to enlarge)
5. The Appeal-Democrat, published in Marysville, CA – Okay, by a show of comments, who thinks the woman pictured is somehow related to the publisher? Yikes. Even the photo in the advertisement at the bottom of the page is larger than that of Obama. (click image to enlarge)
6. Bemidji Pioneer, published in Bemidji, MN – I don’t know folks, for a progressive college town with strong technology and art influences, you’d think Bemidji could come up with a better photo of the preceding evening’s historic events. (click image to enlarge)
7. The Mississippi Press from Pascagoula, MS – The only mention of the election is the talking crab at the bottom of the page that says, “Thank goodness the election is over. I thought the dadburn campaigning would never end. Think I’ll vote absenting ballot next time.” (FYI: dadburn is a polite way of saying the impolite version of goshdarnit.) (click image to enlarge)
Maybe compare what the same papers did back in 2004 when Bush won?
posted by Robert on 11-10-2008 at 9:40 am
Does anyone read a paper version anymore?
I think people tend to get their national news from other sources and use their daily paper for local information.
Our local paper focused more on local elections as well.
posted by Karen on 11-10-2008 at 10:07 am
Look at the areas that these papers are from. They are majority Republican and McCain won in those areas. I would do the same thing.
posted by Dianna on 11-10-2008 at 10:26 am
Hi. I’m actually from Russellville…or at least I go to school here. The election for sheriff was quite a big deal as I understand it. Anyway, things are kind of slow here, and local matters trump most things. heh
posted by cave_fatuam on 11-10-2008 at 10:32 am
Bear in mind that the papers you are showing are local papers, not the majors. For example, the major newspapers in Florida are the Orlando Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune, St Pete Times and several in Miami. Of course it makes more sense for the Sebring newspaper to spotlight the results of local elections – anyone who subscribes to it likely also gets a major newspaper too.
I’d get your point if you were talking about the Boston Globe, New York Times, et al, but I don’t think you can compare these little regional papers to the majors. People only read them to get the info on local events and interests and to read the obituaries.
posted by Joe on 11-10-2008 at 10:39 am
In the front page of every newspaper, should appear the most important news. Doesn’t matter if they are local or not, but of course you would have to put in big letters and with the better pictures the events that affect in a bigger scope. In this case in particular, it would be the national elections. Of course, you have to consider that even though a black president was elected for the very first time in the US, there is still a lot of racism in the country. Won’t you agree on that?
posted by Yessika on 11-10-2008 at 10:42 am
Yessika, I don’t agree with you.
As Joe stated, these are local papers with a very specific audience. They most likely also get a paper for a major city or get their state and national news from television or internet. The ONLY place that is going to write about the important elections going on in these small towns are these small town newspapers. That’s why they exist! For some of these small towns, the election of the local sheriff or mayor is to a certain extent as or more important than the presidential election.
If you want to see a lot more front pages from last Wednesday, click the link on my name. The Newseum in Washington, D.C., archived 730 front pages from 66 countries.
posted by Lindsey on 11-10-2008 at 11:00 am
Of course the Presidential race is the major national race but local offices almost always have a more immediate and substantial impact on our lives. Some areas have figured that out I guess. Its funny to watch how different areas represent the news though.
posted by Jim on 11-10-2008 at 11:15 am
A lot of little local dailies and semi-weeklies don’t even have anyone staffed to cover national issues, so whatever coverage they would give to the Obama win would likely be wire copy.
It’s not like there’s are a bunch of people who only read the Lake Sun Leader and were counting on it to provide news of the Presidential race — but you can bet that the NY Times isn’t offering extensive coverage of the Camden sheriff race or Congressional District 155. I think it’s great that local papers with a focus on local issues exist, and that they give local issues prominence.
posted by Jacquilynne on 11-10-2008 at 11:18 am
I skipped the papers and stocked up on Obama campaign merchandise. My wife said I should get the buttons since that is worth something in time. I say unused bumper stickers as a keepsake. If it is used, you can’t get it off, making them pretty unique and special.
posted by Marty on 11-10-2008 at 11:24 am
My local paper had the presidential election in a sidebar on the front page. The big story was a statewide race (which McConnell won -barely)
posted by Miss Cellania on 11-10-2008 at 11:52 am
Hooray! My local hometown paper continues to not get the point!
For the record, here in Rockdale County, Georgia, home of Lost Children, we’re only half an hour from Atlanta. The Citizen boxes battle with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution boxes for real estate. However, the AJC didn’t cover that horrific dog attack.
posted by Mark on 11-10-2008 at 11:53 am
I’m really disappointed in David.
In the Pascagoula, MS market there are two newspapers published by the same owners: the Press-Register, Mississippi Edition and the Mississippi Press.
The Mississippi Press covers local events almost exclusively. The Press-Register is the more traditional news-centered newspaper.
Consider the Press-Register’s cover for Wednesday: http://www.gulflive.com/mississippipress/pageone/pr-wednesday.pdf
Now since the Mississippi Press and the Press-Register post their cover pages at the same site, and the Press-Register cover page mentions the focus of the Mississippi Press lede, an intelligent person should be able to figure out what’s going on.
So David, were just trying to make a ha-ha at backwards Mississippi’s expense or were you being intellectually dishonest? As a long time fan of mental_floss, I expected better.
posted by Tom on 11-10-2008 at 11:59 am
Thanks Tom, didn’t know there were two papers involved. Good of you to point that out. I’d be curious to know how the two papers covered other events that changed the course of history.
posted by David K. Israel on 11-10-2008 at 12:07 pm
I love Mental Floss, but am very disappointed in the tone of this piece. I work for a suburban newspaper – and as I scrolled down this page, I grew more and more worried that our front page would be featured here.
After the election, we were barraged with calls – all from older, African-American ladies who were very, very angry with us, insisting that we were prejudiced for not putting Obama’s picture on the front page and that we only covered white politicians. It was very upsetting to all of us who took those calls – especially since the vast majority of the office supported Obama.
Yes, we only cover local news. A small-town newspaper would look silly trying to cover larger stories. Plus, the big paper in our city was sold a few years ago to an out-of-state conglomerate and since then, the amount of local coverage has dwindled enormously. Our readers still have the big paper (and TV news and the internet) for national and international stories, but they turn to us to know what’s happening in their hometown. It’s not a racial thing or a political thing – it’s simply our purpose in the community.
posted by KCM on 11-10-2008 at 12:49 pm
KCM: I’m sorry you feel let down by the tone of the piece. That wasn’t my intention. However, I don’t see how the election of the first black president in a country built on slavery wouldn’t be considered local news, whether you have 1,000 black locals or 0, whether you’re right or left leaning. To miss this story, by my way of thinking, is like missing Pearl Harbor, or 9/11, or JFK’s assassination, or putting a man on the moon. These are events that affect every small town in the country.
posted by David K. Israel on 11-10-2008 at 1:02 pm
I work for a small-town newspaper as well, and we were forbidden by our corporate overlords to even mention Obama or McCain in the weeks running up to the election, thinking that people would only care about the local races. It is DEFINITELY the trend to revert back to smaller, community-based papers that deliver “ultra-local” coverage to readers. It is believed that people can get the big national coverage from the internet or a major urban daily but get their local government covered in their hometown papers.
On the other hand, I am NOT AT ALL surprised by the paper that gave over its front page to picture of kids in Halloween costumes. We could run nothing but pictures of peoples’ kids in the paper and it would be our biggest selling issue ever.
posted by bedhead on 11-10-2008 at 1:16 pm
I’m not dumping on you, David, I understand where you’re coming from but just know that this is definitely the direction print journalism is heading in to keep up with the Internet and people not reading newspapers anymore.
posted by bedhead on 11-10-2008 at 1:19 pm
bedhead: they can head that way all they want, and it makes sense to me. but not on nov 5th, if they’re a daily. let them run pics of kids in costumes, but somehow loop that back to the bigger story just this one day, because for sure, every family who went out on halloween had the upcoming election on the brain. they all talked about it, lived it, probably voted in it, and maybe even saw someone out on halloween in an obama or mccain mask. again, nothing wrong with the direction the papers are going, but there are exceptions and obligations every 10 or 20 years.
posted by David K. Israel on 11-10-2008 at 1:26 pm
I’ve got to add my vote to the people that are disappointed by this one. I’d argue that these papers absolutely did not “miss the point”–they aren’t there to cover national news, as others have pointed out. People who live in large cities and read large newspapers, once again, fail to appreciate the vantage point of the less-populated areas. It’s not racism, it’s not bitter Republican-ness. It’s a local paper reporting local news. It would be interesting to see if the same thing happened in 2004–I’m willing to bet there was a similar trend. Do you think the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is going to cover who won the school board elections in Small County Georgia? Heck no. But do you think the citizens of Small County might care about that race? I think they probably do. My local paper comes out once a week–it will be published tomorrow. I’ll be really surprised if the word Obama appears in it at all. Why write a story that everyone already knows and is already covered in every other type of media outlet and has been for the past week? It’s not what they’re focusing on, and that’s ok.
Chances are good that those who are buying these small papers are also getting a larger-market paper too, or they’re watching CNN or using an internet source. For you to just assume that those running these papers or those reading them are simply ignorant or ill-informed is, well, ignorant and ill-informed, and shows a real lack of understanding of small community life.
I’m sorry to add to the fire on this article David, because usually I think that you and all of the fine folks on this site do a great job, and I appreciate that you are dialoguing in the comments. But I think there is a real (often deliberate) misunderstanding of non-metropolitan areas in this country, and it really fires me up to see it perpetuated.
posted by kate on 11-10-2008 at 1:38 pm
Wow, I can’t believe how many readers are piling on you for this David!
I don’t always have time to read the comments on articles posted here, but of the ones I have read, I don’t recall ever seeing so many mental floss readers so upset. I guess you’ve struck a nerve…
I thought this was a great article, and I would absolutely LOVE to see another article, as the first commenter, Robert, suggested, comparing the coverage these same papers did four years ago. I think that’s a fantastic idea, David, please consider it?
reCAPTCHA: Writer powerful (no kidding!)
posted by Michigan Mom on 11-10-2008 at 2:35 pm
thanks michigan mom. you should read the comments here more often! we do have some very smart readers offering very smart advice/opinions most of the time. as for a piece about the election four years ago, i don’t really see how that one mattered in the grand scheme of things. not that it wasn’t an important election, but i’m not sure it was one that i’d expect small town papers to cover. for me, this post has nothing to do with right vs. left, it has to do with breaking down racial walls and giving people who aren’t white a reason to believe that they, too, can become president one day.
the face of the country is changing/has changed. not sure that 2004 made the same point, but i will consider a post on the subject because it could be fun to look at those front-pages too. (for other reasons.)
posted by David K. Israel on 11-10-2008 at 2:50 pm
I think most people who commented on here got it right. I’m a huge Obama supporter and attended the Election Night rally in Chicago. But I don’t take any offense to the story or his photo not appearing on the cover of these community publications. These newspapers pride themselves on local coverage and that’s how they sell papers over the “big dogs.” I think everyone who is crying “racist” should seriously calm down stop overreacting (which America is very good at doing).
posted by BMS on 11-10-2008 at 3:17 pm
As someone who actually went to college in Bemidji, MN, I checked who won the election in Beltrami county, and yeah it was Obama. So it’s not like it was a slight or anything. It looks like they decided to devote space to raw voter data. Besides, who else is going to cover the local elections? And what picture can they possibly get that no one else will have seen already?
posted by Erin on 11-10-2008 at 3:38 pm
with the exception of the Halloween costumes edition (why do adults go mushy for a kid in a pumpkin outfit?!), i don’t see anything wrong with these papers’ front pages.
posted by the creature on 11-10-2008 at 4:02 pm
All politics are local. Sorry but our small town local papers have and probably will always show which ever local race is close or most interesting over the national. Hometown News comes first. By the time these papers actually hit the stands it was old news.
posted by Kev in GA on 11-10-2008 at 4:18 pm
I would have to agree with all who are not upset with these newspapers. These appear to all be local papers…I bet most of their subscribers get another larger newspaper too. In the Cleveland area the Sun Press did the exact same thing. The Plain Dealer ran the full page spread on Obama and a commemorative section for the Sunday newspaper, and the Sun Press focused on the local elections.
The commemorative section is just great, it has a wide angle photo of the Chicago rally with the whole speech written beneath…takes up the two middle pages of the section.
posted by Jamie on 11-10-2008 at 4:28 pm
I do not understand this; it is a local papers job to cover local issues. If you wanted to know the results of the presidential election, and were relying on your local paper, I invite you to come out from under that rock you are living under.
Secondly I want to say that although most of you find this to important news, if you live in a small town the local news is more important. I also invite you try small town life it is great.
posted by MarvinTheMartian on 11-10-2008 at 5:12 pm
Most of the papers you highlight are community newspapers, whose primary focus is what the industry calls “hyperlocal.” Therefore, all news, including stories with a national or worldwide focus (such as the presidential election) is going to be presented with an emphasis to how it relates to the paper’s local subscribers. And, by the way, the Appeal-Democrat hasn’t had a publisher for months, and no immediate prospects for hiring a replacement publisher, so no, the woman in the picture isn’t related to our publisher. (We don’t have one!) Nor is she related to our chief editor, or to anyone else on our staff, for that matter.
posted by Susan on 11-10-2008 at 6:19 pm
For comparison, I’d like to see if any of these papers covered 9/11 – as it wasn’t ‘local’ news, but yet a huge impact on the country. I think that would be very telling.
I get ya, David, and I’m with ya. All the way over her in New Zealand, and both the national paper AND the local (Wellington) paper had Obama as the entire front page. We’re not even IN America!
posted by Logan on 11-10-2008 at 6:34 pm
I worked for one of the papers listed above, and I know all about their “hyper local” focus. Our editor often shook his head at all the big papers who “didn’t get it.” He (and perhaps others) believe local focus is the only way newspapers will survive the digital age.
I’ll be willing to bet that the next day they “localized” the national election by asking people around town what they thought. Or they got lucky and discovered that Obama’s barber’s cousin lives in town and interviewed him. And the photographer took a picture of him holding a picture of his barber cousin shaking hands with Obama.
It’s not the election coverage by my former paper that I criticize as much as the coverage every other day of the year. This entry gives me hope that other people are looking at the front page news and saying “does anyone care about this crap?”
I feel panicky just thinking about the type of stories I had to do. It makes me glad I don’t work there anymore. (And amazed I lasted as long as I did.)
In their defense, some of these paper’s are up against their own lack of resources and early deadlines. I’m willing to bet the “crab” paper went to print before Tuesday. And many who don’t have the funds to get wire content won’t have pictures of Obama.
I can’t speak for the others, but my former paper is sure they are giving the readers what they want. If their assumption is wrong, the readers need to tell them.
posted by Ex-Reporter on 11-10-2008 at 7:02 pm
I think the comparison to “Pearl Harbor, or 9/11, or JFK’s assassination, or putting a man on the moon” is a little off. Those events, especially the first three, were shocking, surprising, and (especially the first two) dramatically and immediately changed the world in a completely unexpected way. Obama’s election is important because of his color, sure, but it wasn’t exactly shocking and doesn’t shift the course of the nation the way a foreign attack does.
posted by Sara on 11-11-2008 at 3:17 am
Most of these local papers do include coverage of the presidential election, even if they don’t have a photo (and probably can’t afford to buy one, as Ex-Reporter mentioned). In fact, only the bottom one with all the kids in costumes has no mention of the election, and as Tom mentioned, that paper is a local counterpart to a paper that covers national stuff. So I’m not sure what the problem is — was the headline supposed to be bigger? (The one with Obama “below the fold” really looks more like lousy design than anything else.)
This piece smacks of the “look how stupid these small town hicks are” type of attitude that seems to be all the rage. I mean, sure, I understand the importance of the election — who doesn’t? It’s the leader of the free world! But the guy in charge of the local police, or the guy on the committee deciding whether a Wal-Mart is being built down the street, those elections really DO matter more to many people.
This seems like one of those articles that someone thought would be funny or interesting but ended up not actually finding enough material to MAKE it funny or interesting.
posted by Aaron on 11-11-2008 at 8:56 am
1. Is Obama’s victory any less historic because a local paper didn’t publish his picture? It seems that there are some in this country who are worried this election might signal an actual step forward in race relations. MLK’s dream was that his children would be judged not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character. How is focusing on Obama’s skin color going to contribute to King’s dream? In fact, wasn’t it his dream that we would be talking about the election of another president and NOT the election of “the first black president?” (Apologies to WJ Clinton, but you aren’t really black.)
2. Local papers generate sales by differentiating themselves from the larger papers. The New Braunfel’s (TX) Herald Zeitung covers local high school basketball before it covers the San Antonio Spurs. Why? Because in every driveway with a Zeitung, there’s a SA Express-News sitting right next to it. These papers represent economics in action, not antiquated racism.
3. Very good article, David. I don’t believe it was your intention to rekindle the Rodney King riots here. It seems your only mistake was failing to give these papers the benefit of the doubt and posit an alternate motivation for the Obama “snubs.”
posted by mathman32503 on 11-11-2008 at 9:15 am
Sorry, David. I, too, think you probably misunderstood. (And for the record I consider myself to the left of Obama.)
It might actually indicate something if we could see these papers coverage of the 2004 election (assuming they were run the same as they are now.)
I would also like to know the extent of your experience in the newspaper business.
Several people who have that experience have commented here, and I am more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on this matter than you.
posted by BassMan on 11-11-2008 at 12:49 pm
I, like many here already, disagree with several of your assertions here, David.
1. These local papers did not miss the boat. They cater to their strengths and to reader’s interest base. Our local paper, innundated with letters to the editors at election time, put out a statement that the letters they chose to publish would be prioritized based on their relevance to local issues and elections.
2. They would have nothing significant to report on about the presidential election that the larger area paper would not already have. They would likely just print whatever the AP came up with.
3. In most aspects of your daily life, what goes on with your local government affects you far more than state or federal, so for some, the outcome of of these elections had way for significance than the presidential election that everyone could call the winner of months ago.
4. This election, while significant, is not on par with Pearl Harbor, or 9/11, or JFK’s assassination, or putting a man on the moon. And even then, because of these paper’s focus, it is not the most significant thing they have to report.
posted by Admiral Byrd on 11-12-2008 at 12:42 pm
David, do you want some cheese to go with that whine? Come on people I mean was it really even news to anyone? I didn’t even vote for Obama and was 99% sure he was going to win. Comparing this to 9/11 is ridiculous. Everyone says we have taken a step forward but it looks like we have just taken more steps backward with all this crying over the race card. One day people will realize that racism is no longer about the color of skin, it’s about the culture in which you live.
posted by Neatoman on 11-13-2008 at 8:48 am
Wow… I was trying to avoid studying for a final when I came upon this article. I laughed out loud when I saw my hometown newspaper included! (Highlands Today- Sebring, FL) I’ve always joked about coming from a backwoods town, but this just made my day! While the Highlands Today is often bundled with the Tampa Tribune in Sebring, I have no doubt that my friends and family will get a kick out of this too!
posted by AJ on 11-17-2008 at 2:01 pm
Great article, but with reference to no.1 “Lake Sun” – you’re being very generous to the young lady on the cover – cleavage? She may as well be a man.
posted by Mat on 11-25-2008 at 4:43 am