November 21, 2006
Vote for America's worst newspaper
REPOST: The Powerline Blog has now posted its poll: "Which is the worst newspaper in the country?" Two of the 15 nominees are WA state papers: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Olympian. The explanatory blog post is here. The poll is in the right sidebar here.
UPDATE: The P-I is leading in the poll, but the Palm Beach Post is quickly gaining. Who even knew Palm Beach had a newspaper? (I suspect a robot or perhaps a King County Elections official who wants to protect their favorite propaganda outlet is behind this). Cast your vote here (right sidebar).
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 21, 2006
01:13 PM | Email This
1. In 1941, H.L. Mencken, himself a newspaperman most of his life, wrote: "To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse - 10 times as ignorant, 10 times as unfair and tyrannical, 10 times as complaisant and pusillanimous, and 10 times as devious, hypocritical, disingenuous, deceitful, pharisaical, Pecksniffian, fraudulent, slippery, unscrupulous, perfidious, lewd and dishonest."
2. Chalk up one vote for the PI.
3. Seattle Newspapers are recognized by national media people as being out of touch with reality.
4. Can we still vote? I'd love to nme the P.I (Phe-uw ) as rge verrrrrrrrrry worst.
5. Is it fair to include the PI in this poll? I thought it was just a newsletter...
6. What's the criteria? Absorbancy? Two or three ply? Does it keep the fish fresh longer? Large enough Sunday edition to line the whole can? What?
7. Just voted, and noticed afterward that the P.I. and Olympian are now numbers two and three in the nation for worst papers. Woohoo, we're famous in Washington!
8. It's in the pee-yew, I mean the PI.
9. KEEP voting folks, the PI is in the lead to nobodys surprise
10. The Washington Times, for telling Usama bin Laden that the United States was listening to his telephone calls (1998). The 9/11 Commission's Report cites this as one of our worst moments in the fight against Al-Qa'eda.
11. I voted for the Olympian. Today they printed a piece about a website where people can wish Fidel Castro a get well. A few days ago on the cover of the local section, they pretty much ran a PR for the Green Party in attempt to get as many kooks as possible to a city council meeting to encourage the city council to pass an anti-war in Iraq measure. The Olympian is really, really, awful.
12. Stiff competition.
I wouldn't use the P-I to help change the oil in my car, because even used motor oil deserves something more.
13. I wrote to PowerLine to suggest that even though the Seahawks came up short in the last Super Bowl, Seattle can rightly boast of a newspaper with an "offensive line" second to none!
14. This is grossly unfair.
Our votes are being divided. Without the Olympian, the PI would be the hands down winner (loser)
Florida and California have more than one paper represented.
Everyone pile on the PI.
15. It's really for second worst newspaper as they have eliminated the New York Times from competition to make it fair.
16. Where is the New York times in this poll?
17. P-I...Olympian...P-I....Olympian. Can't vote for the Boston Globe because at least they still have a great sports section.
P-I...Olympian...LA Times...Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Isn't it nice to have an election where we have some real choices? The Olympian has to be flattering itself that it made the list.
What I like about The Olympian is that you read the whole thing in about 12 seconds. So, I'm voting for the P-I.
18. I must disagree. As a Spokanite, I cast my ballot for the Spokane Spokesman-Review, which not only posted sensational (and false) accusations of child abuse against Jim West, but whipped up a recall campaign to torture and destroy him WHILE HE WAS DYING OF CANCER, and all because he had pinned the Democrats' ears back as Republican majority leader of the state senate for all those years...no wait, it was because he was a closeted homosexual. No wait, it was because he was creepy-looking. No wait, it was because Steve Smith needed some street creds.
Why, the S/R even has an amateur "humor" columnist named Doug Clark (a kind of pudgy Dave Barry wannabe who lacks only the intelligence and wit to vault him to stardom in Boise or Elko) who was classy enough to write yet another insulting attack on West just last week, following Frontline's expose of the S/R's reprehensible smear campaign against West.
So while the P-I may be politically reprehensible and dishonest, the S/R is morally corrupt and ghoulish.
Thus, Steve Smith and his band of yellow muckrakers get my vote. (Twice! What the heck, I voted by mail with an original and a xerox copy of the ballot.)
19. As much as I think the P-I stinks, at least Seattle is a two paper town. Imagine if the P-I had a monopoly. Oh wait--you don't have to imagine it. Just move to Portland and subscribe the Oregonian, which is even worse. Not only do they have the same blinkered partisanship and shoddy news coverage designed to drive political agendas, but (unlike the P-I) they even have crappy sports coverage and comics! If the P-I had the same sort of relationship with the sports teams here as the Oregonian has with the Blazers (they are virtually on non-speaking terms of late), you'd be halfway there.
Yes, I hate the P-I, but they are proof that no matter how stupid and partisan you want to be in your rag, competition still makes you better (even if just by a little).
20. Definitely the New York Times. They garnered that honor when they published national defense secrets, thus aiding our mortal enemy, Islam.
21. So AP, did the big O also have a feature back when where readers could wish Hitler a big "Hi, how are ya'?"
22. I am going to vote for the Bellingham Herald out of local patriotism. Even though their single minded liberalism make them really bad to me, they will never make the worst list because no one up here really cares if they are bad or not.
Wally
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23. This poll must be run by King County, as you can vote multiple times for the PI. Vote early and often. Maybe the former King County head of elections new job is conducting this poll!!!
Brad
24. I voted for the Olympian. Today they have a commentary up about how we can NOT ignore the new English Al Jazeera Tv channel..........
The Olympian has been running some extreme left-wing opinion pieces from around the country lately.
It would be interesting to know the ownership of each of the newspapers in the poll.
25. A little shout-out to Marc:
Hey, you're dead right about the Oregonian and its crappy sports coverage.
My favorite memory of that rag was during the World Series a few years ago between the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians, when the Oregonian in its wisdom decided that both team names were "insensitive" and COVERED THE ENTIRE WORLD SERIES WITHOUT MENTIONING EITHER TEAM'S NAME.
What an Orwellian hoot!
26. This is the paper that took the courageous stand that it didn't matter if John Kerry had botched a joke...It was true either way. What a rag!
27. The Olympian!
For all the real news they don't print, and for their unstinting promotion of Rachel "Flat-wrong" Corrie, and the Ehren "Desert-first" Wataba slash Code Pink fund-raising effort.
Also, for over using the phrase "Be afraid - be very afraid" in their editorials during the campaign season, and especially for cluelessly using the phrase while accusing Republicans of fear mongering.
Also, because their circulation manager is registered to vote at 111 Bethel St., where only the Olympian goes to bed.
I voted twice! So sue me. I'd like to see the poll results weighed by circulation. I bet the Olympian would win that hands down.
28. Have to vote for the olympian. Probably the only time I ever chose them over another paper. They consistently misquote people I've known. I subscribe to TNT even though I live in Olympia.
29. The only reason I voted for the PI over the Olympian (not only are they bad, they're overpriced) is that the Olympian sent one of their guys (part of a reporter/photog pairing with a guy from the TNT-not sure which was which) to Iraq to embed with the 3/2 Stryker troops from Ft Lewis.
To the best of my knowledge, neither Seattle paper has sent any of their people to embed in either Iraq or Afghanistan, despite the large number of soldiers/sailors/airmen deployed from local bases.
30. I like the PI's business plan. If they stay on track, they will be broke and out of business by 2010.