Newspapers’ voice still carries out
Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on January 15, 2007 at 10:12 AM
John Nichols, political blogger and columnist for The Nation magazine, tells how a few local newspapers changed a Senate vote in just a few days. Newspapers haven’t lost the power of their voice.
Last November, the Montana Senate race between democrat candidate Jon Tester and Republican incumbent Conrad Burns seemed already played out. Vice President Cheney and President Bush both had made the trip to Montana to endorse Burns, thus seemingly winning it for him.
But five local newspapers fought back, backing Tester’s campaign, sending e-mails, urging people to print leaflets, and so on.
Tester won by approximately 2,800 votes.
Contrarily to what was thought during the campaign, “it could fairly be argued--and indeed it was--that endorsements from local papers had tipped the seat to Tester and the Senate to the Democrats,” wrote Nichols.
Although newspapers may be dinosaur-like in some ways, according to Nichols, “the dinosaurs still have enough life in them to guide--and perhaps even define--our politics.”
Especially at local and stave levels, “daily newspapers remain essential arbiters of what passes for news and what Americans think about it.”
Nichols admits that newspapers may not be as influential as they were fifty years ago, and that newer media have their own share of impact, but he has a point. Newspapers can still make the difference they were initially designed to make, as not simply the purveyors of news, but instead as the trusted arbiters of better change.
Source: The Nation
But five local newspapers fought back, backing Tester’s campaign, sending e-mails, urging people to print leaflets, and so on.
Tester won by approximately 2,800 votes.
Contrarily to what was thought during the campaign, “it could fairly be argued--and indeed it was--that endorsements from local papers had tipped the seat to Tester and the Senate to the Democrats,” wrote Nichols.
Although newspapers may be dinosaur-like in some ways, according to Nichols, “the dinosaurs still have enough life in them to guide--and perhaps even define--our politics.”
Especially at local and stave levels, “daily newspapers remain essential arbiters of what passes for news and what Americans think about it.”
Nichols admits that newspapers may not be as influential as they were fifty years ago, and that newer media have their own share of impact, but he has a point. Newspapers can still make the difference they were initially designed to make, as not simply the purveyors of news, but instead as the trusted arbiters of better change.
Source: The Nation
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