Talk:Newspaper endorsements in the 2008 United States presidential election

Examine papers?

Does anyone else find it sketchy to list the three Examiner papers as three endorsements for McCain when it's pretty clear it's one endorsement published by one owner in three properties. (See the Baltimore Examiner page, especially, for the editorial line put forward by Philip Anschutz. David (talk) 21:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree; I edited the page to clarify that this is under one media umbrella. Still, do you think it should be listed as one endorsement rather than three? The Editor and Publisher, which keeps a list of all newspaper endorsements, considers them separate endorsements, see here.--The lorax (talk) 23:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the wonderful world of media consolidation. As you can see, I was forced to break this up in order to get this into table form. Having the circulation numbers I think will help in these situations, since these quasi-local papers tend to have lower circulations than the papers with local editorial boards. -- RobLa (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Another one to add: The State (Columbia, SC) for McCain: http://www.thestate.com/endorsements/story/565250.html Circulation info: "The State newspaper has an average daily circulation of 107,153 and an average Sunday circulation of 139,521." http://www.thestate.com/about/ I didn't want to mess up the tables so I'm putting this here for someone else to add. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.211.51.83 (talk) 15:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Adding a "state" column as well

After doing some poking around, I read this column asking the question about whether endorsements matter. He makes an interesting point about breaking things up by state, which I think will be a really interesting tool for this race. -- RobLa (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Interface ideas

This is my first time involving myself into the Wikipedia project. As such, please, be gentle with me. I am an Obama supporter. Let's get that right out of the way. I'm only on here because I was having trouble finding a rebuttal to New Yorker's Obama endorsement editorial "The Choice."

Here's a dude that came up on Google with similar frustration. Never mind his spelling.

The New Yorker wrote a scathing proObama editorial this week. I would like to read an equally impassioned article by a mccain supporter. I believe there are two sides to every argument and I want to hear them. The new yorker was quiet persuasive buy I do not have the skills to critically evaluate every stat or claim they make. I would like to here a rebuttal of sorts. Otherwise I cannot vote intelligently. I am not convinced that the Republicans are the cause of all the evils we face. I am not convinced that a wide open democratic highway between the congress and the whitehouse all the way to the supreme court is actually a safe nor desireable state of affairs. I worry for my freedoms under an unrestrained left leaning governent as much as from a right leaning governement. Too much power is no good. Is Obama too mysterious to so easily walk away with such power. Somebody please help me understand the issues better. thanks

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/pol/875917544.html

I'm wondering if someone could color the Bush boxes Republican red and the Kerry boxes Democrat blue.

Hoping that I went about this properly,

Ted Wheeland (talk) 23:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Solved! Ted Wheeland (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Title change

It's me again.

How about "Media Endorsements: United States Presidential Election, 2008"?

Why are the words "endorsements","presidential", and "election" not capitalized? This isn't the Economist. I haven't read the manual on style though.

Let me know,

Ted Wheeland (talk) 23:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a newspaper, but an encyclopedia. As such, we tend not to capitalize unnecessarily. 143.89.188.6 (talk) 10:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Ted Wheeland (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Another column to add?

RobLa suggests adding a state column, I like that idea. I'd also be curious to see a "date of endorsement" or other publication date. I also suppose it is possible that a paper may want to change its endorsement, how would that be handled? 64.2.2.203 (talk) 17:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The publication date isn't all that critical; the norm is to do endorsements in the last couple of weeks before the election. As for changing an endorsement, that virtually never happens. If it did, we would just change the relevant entry in the table. We would certainly add a footnote about the change; if we wanted to highlight it further, we could add a visible "Note" just below the table where that particular newspaper appeared. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Could we add 1,2,3... column on the left side? I'm noticing that endorsements are added to the table and not to the counter up top. It would make it easier to detect a mismatch. Arcaheradel (talk) 18:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, to bring back my original suggestion, it looks like people are adding papers in random locations, so it becomes harder to track when papers are added without going to the history page and running diffs. Date added/date of endorsement would make it easier to keep track of what's changed.64.2.2.203 (talk) 18:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Date added would help to track things; "date of endorsement" would not necessarily, but (a) "date added" is not particularly encyclopedic (readers don't care), and (b) we can't assume that editors will actually add this date, correctly. So I think it's best left off. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a Political sounding board.

In the interest of keeping Wikipedia as accurate, and "above the fray" as possible, posting of political articles needs to be limited to registered, respected posters, and or disabled completely for the time being. There has been far too much in the way of cyber vandalism lately with political articles being modified in a non-factual manner to paint a candidate in a more positive/negative light. Wiki is better than this. 03:29, 15 October 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.30.107.23 (talk • contribs)

First, this is Wikipedia, not Wiki. Second, if you want to complain about articles in general, or make a suggestion that editing be restricted (good luck on that), you should post at the village pump, not here. This page is intended solely for the purpose of improving the related article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Foreign media

The Times (UK) published an endorsement this week, and more endorsements from non-US media may well be forthcoming. Separate table? Add them in with the rest? What are your thoughts? Goodnewsfortheinsane (talk) 17:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

A separate table makes sense to me. I don't think the circulation figures should be included.64.2.2.203 (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it should be included. Some from the U.S. do read the Times (as is evident by comments on the Times UK website), but it's influence on the U.S. election is minimal. If it doesn't matter to the election, it shouldn't be included. 143.89.188.6 (talk) 10:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I think some of the foreign papers should be included, for example the big five dailies and The Economist from Britain, and their equivalent from other leading countries. In The Economist's article endorsing Kerry in 2004[1], they make they point that their American readership outnumbers their home figure. William Quill (talk) 22:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I dont know if one fo the big five British Dailys is the Financial times but they endorse Obama today [2]. I would make this table but it is beyond my capacity. --Paxuscalta (talk) 16:08, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Real time database

I'm discussing this article because I want an authoritative, real-time database of who endorsed who and why. It's a research tool first. It's a voting tool second. What's Wikipedia's policy on that? If the metric for inclusion on this page is "influence on the U.S. election" should Mountain Valley News, Gunnison Country Times, Ouray County Plaindealer, Storm Lake Times, and Southwest News-Herald, papers with less than 5k circulation be included? The design of the election prevents much of the endorsements from influence in the first place. The New Yorker endorsed Obama? Yawn. I'm not sure that influenced any notable amount of Republicans or Independents. The Chicago Tribune which endorsed Bush in '04 has endorsed Obama in '08 - a switch in a swing state. That would seem more notable but there is not consensus that endorsements have much influence in the first place. If "influence on the U.S. election" is too difficult to agree on, let's provide the reader, writer, or researcher an authoritative resource brimming with useful meta-data to make their own decision. Ted Wheeland (talk) 18:47, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Illinois is not, by any reasonable definition, a swing state. Certainly not when a Senator for Illinois is running. However I'd agree the Tribune is a reliably Republican paper that likely has many swing-state subscribers.--T. Anthony (talk) 03:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:NOT, Wikipedia is not a directory, and I don't think it is intended to be a real-time database either. It's an encyclopedia; it's supposed to provide an overview for readers. If in fact there was a single authoritative source that had the same date (E&P comes close, but not close enough), a good argument could be made that the details in this article should be omitted. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Paid or free?

What is it exactly that this column means? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.24.206 (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Some newspapers - for example, The Washington Examiner, are given out for free; 100% of revenues comes from advertising. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:04, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Newsweek?

I am new to this but I am pretty sure Newsweek endorsed Obama, in case someone wants to add it. MWWOhioMWWOhio (talk) 16:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Must be wrong, just a columnist.MWWOhio (talk) 16:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

No Endorsement Section?

While the vast majority of papers are placing their chips behind Obama or McCain, occasionally a newspaper chooses to pointedly make no endorsement at all. I just ran across the first in this election cycle today, at the Waco Tribune: http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2008/10/19/10192008waceditorial.html

How about adding a new section to this wikipedia entry for newspapers that make explicit no-endorsements and/or third-party candidates? 24.155.117.205 (talk) 23:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. On another matter "The Jackson Sun" being a switcher is something I can source. Editor & Publisher andUSA Today.--T. Anthony (talk) 06:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's another newspaper that made a specific point of not endorsing either candidate: The Barstow Desert Dispatch: http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/candidate_4590___article.html/nationally_way.html 24.155.117.205 (talk) 05:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I added the section and the Waco paper to it. I might add this paper at a later date, but they seem to be saying they never endorse candidates as a rule. As such it might be a different thing.--T. Anthony (talk) 07:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Circulation?

When it comes to the circulation, what are we going by? Rvk41 (talk) 04:48, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The title heading says "Largest Reported Circulation", so that's what I'm going by. I was originally inclined to use the "average daily circulation", but upon further reflection, using the the circulation figure that offers the broadest reach makes more sense. If the purpose of providing the circulation figures is to indicate the importance of the newspaper, then it makes sense to the figure that shows the furthest extent of the newspaper's influence, IMHO.24.155.117.205 (talk) 16:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Which means using Sunday subscription figures - but I think a lot of the counts are in fact for the weekday subscription number. Related to that - if we are using figures from Editor & Publisher online articles for circulation counts, we should see if they are using the same approach. If not, we need to do something else, for consistency, rather than use their figures - or we need to switch to their system, and do that consistently. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Online Newspapers?

Would it be worthwhile considering totally online 'newspapers', or are we only tallying print edition newspapers? For example, here's the Senior Courier's endorsement: http://www.pr.com/press-release/112372 24.155.117.205 (talk) 16:59, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

No way to get circulation figures for on-line newspapers, and problematical to find them all. I think we should stick to printed newspapers for this election, and re-evaluate this in 2012. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Sort function failure on tables

I was happy to see that these tables could be sorted by the different columns, specifically by circulation numbers. Unfortunately, this sort function is malfunctioning. When you sort by circulation for McCain, you do not get the New York Post at the top, but instead papers with 80K circulation (the NYP is over 700K). It appears that this broken sort function is using the size of first digits, rather than the actual value of the number. If someone could fix this, it would improve this function. It is beyond my capacity. Thanks for all your hard work in this. --Paxuscalta (talk) 21:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem appears to occur when the number at the top of the list you want sorted contains a footnote. Constan69 (talk) 02:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it is related to the footnote at all. I think what is going on is the list is being sorted alphabetically, as if the cell contents were strings rather than numbers. The commas in the strings make the pattern look strange, but indeed that is what is going on. I'll look into a fix to this, but I suspect it may require the removal of the commas, or the conversion of the strings to numbers at some stage. Tjcrone (talk) 17:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you are right, it does have something to do with the footnotes. But it's weird. The table gets sorted alphabetically when there are footnotes, but numerically when there are not. If there is a mixture of refs and non-ref entries, the pattern is bizarre, with the order changing when the list is sorted in ascending vs. descending order. Very strange. I'll keep working on it. Tjcrone (talk) 17:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I figured it out. The only way I know of to solve this problem is to use Template:Nts for all the numerical entries. I think this requires that all of the commas be removed. As an example, I fixed the "Magazines and other publications" section for Obama, but I don't have time to fix them all right now. Tjcrone (talk) 20:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems that contributors are adding items to tables without Template:Nts, even when other items in the column have the tag. This breaks the sorting function. Perhaps there is a better way to make this work? Something that works for the entire table or the entire column? I could add Template:Nts to every item, but one deviation and sorting is broken. Does anyone have any ideas? Tjcrone (talk) 22:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Repeats

Did anyone else notice some Newspapers like the one from Naples Florida appear twice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.140.84.121 (talk) 23:13, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops. That one is my fault. All These Things (talk) 02:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. - All These Things (talk) 02:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The Financial Times was also a duplicated entry, in both the Obama "Daily Newspapers" section (with just the US circulation figure) and "Magazines" section (with the worldwide circulation figure). Since the publication is in a newspaper format and published daily, I deleted the magazine entry.24.155.116.157 (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

someone add

the journal and courier in lafayette, IN endorses obama

http://www.jconline.com/article/20081026/OPINION01/810260326/1098/OPINION —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.211.192.212 (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Cannot find endorsement editorial

Editor and Publisher Magazine lists two newspapers that have endorsed Obama, yet I cannot find the actual endorsement for confirmation.
First, Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal appears to share its website with several newspapers, including the Lancaster New Era (which endorsed McCain on the 20th)
Second, Honolulu Advertiser is also in the Obama column, but I cannot find an editorial on the website. There is a special section about Obama (but not an editorial), and DemConWatch links to an op-ed piece (but not an official endorsement)
If anyone can confirm endorsements for these two papers, please add them or post the link here. But until they are confirmed, they cannot be added to the list.24.155.116.157 (talk) 19:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Three more papers (mentioned by Editor and Publisher, but I cannot find the endorsement) to add to the list: Ashland Daily Tidings, Norman Transcript, and Greenfield Recorder.24.155.116.157 (talk) 20:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

College and University Newspapers

Right now I am adding collegiate newspapers to the daily and weekly sections (depending on their frequency), and making a note of which school they belong to. DemConWatch is not listing college papers, while Editor and Publisher is putting them in the "misc/other" section. I am wondering if there should be a separate section just for college papers, instead of being lumped in with the general circulation papers. If others out there are amenable to the idea, I'll go ahead and create the new section and migrate the papers to that section as appropriate. If not, I'll just leave things as they are. Until then, I'll just continue to add these papers to the daily/weekly sections.24.155.116.157 (talk) 21:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how to add an element to a table, but if anyone wants to, the Daily Tar Heel just endorsed Obama today. They are very influential in chapel hill, carrboro, and most of orange county NC. http://www.dailytarheel.com/opinion/obama_for_president Mnpeter (talk) 18:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Another

The Daily Progress: http://www.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/opinion/op_ed/article/preserving_our_liberties/30570/

Thanks. --198.185.18.207 (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Splitting up this page into different pages

This page is now so large (over 200K) that it is regularly "timing out" and erroring whenever I try to make an update. Looks like it is going to have to be split into smaller pages. I recommend keeping this page, which would contain the summary, links to other pages, the "not endorsing section". Then creating two more pages -- "Newspaper endorsements in the United States presidential election, 2008 for Barack Obama" and "for John McCain" -- which would contain the tables for those candidates, and would be linked from this (the main) page. If no one objects, I'll see if I can do that later tonight (unless someone else does it first, or has other suggestions).Mlhradio (talk) 20:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC) Okay - I went ahead and chopped up this page into three pages. The tables for Obama and McCain endorsements are now on separate pages. Now everyone won't keep getting repeated "error" messages when trying to update the pages.Mlhradio (talk) 00:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

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