Is there a handy zoom tool that I’m missing? The map is crazy crowded in spots.
Thanks again!
MarkJ October 26, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Interesting, but here’s my question:
By 2012, given current economic and industry trends, how many of the newspapers listed will have merged with other papers, will just be barely hanging on, or have completely folded?
Here’s my prognostication: a lot more than you’d think. In sum, I suspect the Dinosaur Media is too afraid to look up, because, if it did, it knows it would see the asteroid streaking in.”
New version of an old joke:
“Say, friend, who will the New York Times endorse for President in 2012?”
“Your question is irrelevant, old man, because there will be no New York Times in 2012.”
What about the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah? I was as surprised as anyone when the Tribune went with Obama–but there is a more conservative paper in SLC to offset.
Ed October 26, 2008 at 1:57 am
Minnesota’s paper’s are endorsing… startribune.com/opinion
Alexa October 26, 2008 at 1:10 am
Thanks so much for this – definitely makes the info way more accessible, as noted by another commenter.
Re your ‘market effect’ comment concerning red papers in blue states: totally on target as least as far as the Baltimore Examiner goes. The paper came to be solely to cater to what it considered an under-served market of affluent and relatively conservative households in the Baltimore area.
Also, the circulation number is a sore point for many Baltimoreans (or Baltimorons, wev). The paper is free, and automatically delivered to homes in wealthier zip codes. It is such a pain to get them to stop delivering, in fact, that some households have taken to using little “No to the Examiner!” lawn signs to deter the delivery person.
@Mary – This is actually due to the map program. Because of the map projection used there’s some lateral error in the center of the country, where lies four of the five states I’ve never visited. I’ve tweaked the projection, hopefully without messing anything else up, to make Fargo, Omaha and KC line up right. Thanks!
Mary October 25, 2008 at 6:18 pm
One of your “mismatches” is due to your map being wrong. The Fargo Forum (red) is located in North Dakota (red…although possibly turning blue at this point in time), not Minnesota (blue).
I suppose we’re waiting for #2, the Wall Street Journal, to come out for John McCain/Snowbilly Palin and then perhaps you could graph the language of the editorial endorsements. That would be interesting. See how many use the word “terrorism” and “Bush” and “tax cuts” and “William Ayers.” What’s more interesting to me are the smaller, red states with Obama endorsements. I suppose the NY Post (a Murdoch property) isn’t a surprise, but New Yorkers are very much for an Obama presidency.
Are TV stations also going to issue endorsements? Could also provide an interesting tracking interactive.
@jason Good catch. They changed the notation for ‘none’ from ‘N/A’ to ‘N’ and then the parser frammis ran up against the jimjam straightener and … yeah. It’s fixed now.
james October 24, 2008 at 3:10 pm
That is an amazing amount of information and presented in a terrific format.
Thank you very much for the time and effort you put into this.
IMO, McCain has run such a terrible campaign that I am sincerely surpised that no one is accusing him of deliberately trying to loose.
Short of deciding not to pick his nose in public (that photo after the last debate was close to being as ridiculous though), every other decision he has made seems to have been a deliberate attempt to sabotage his own campaign. Amazing.
Nice, nice map — I like the visualization of the data this way, it’s *much* more accessible.
One question: you list eight newspapers in the “2008 McCain endorsement, 2004 Kerry endorsement” list, but only four of them appear to have endorsed Kerry in 2004. The DC Examiner, Baltimore Examiner, Wichita Falls Times Record News, and Chambersburg Public Opinion are all in your list with “(none)” for their 2004 endorsements, and the E&P list agrees with this. Shouldn’t they be moved into the “2008 McCain, 2004 Bush or none” list?
I should have been more specific about that, because I’m using the term loosely. I’m referring to the easy-to-remember stat that about 50% of the population lives within the boundaries of the top-50 metro areas (which is right around the 1M population mark): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
All of the Metropolitan areas are tautologically Urban, but at right about #50 you go from cities like Austin and Richmond and Salt Lake City to cities like Bethlehem/Allentown PA and Fresno, CA and Tulsa, OK.
I see a subjective but clear cultural demarcation between the cities well below that #50 (50%, 1M pop) line from those above. Agree? Disagree?
===
I will make a better case for the second claim — brb with a listing of top-100-papers-by-circulation vs. population-rank-of-metro-area.
The map is fantastic, but I wonder about your conclusion about “50% of the country is urban, 50% rural, but newspapers are located exclusively in urban areas.”
I’m fairly certain that this isn’t necessarily true. Maybe the first part is true given a strict definition of “urban” and “rural” and the second part is true for your inclusion criteria (“newspapers tracked by editor & publisher”), but I think that this assertion needs clarification.
John Forrest Tomlinson October 24, 2008 at 1:16 pm
“50% of the country is urban, 50% rural”
What does this mean? By population, 80% of the the US is urban or nearby suburban. 20% is rural.
Half of the country is urban, and half rural? Not in terms of land – that skews far toward rural areas – and not in terms of population. Most Americans live in urban areas.
The 2000 Census put 80.3% of the US population in cities and suburbs.
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The New Orleans Times-Picayune endorsed Obama in yesterday’s paper: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1225117809301070.xml&coll=1
They endorsed Bush in ’04.
St Pete Times endorsed Obama:
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article870039.ece
San Mateo, CA is in the SF Bay Area (just south of SF), not in the LA area. Probably confused with San Marino by whomever created the map.
The Baltimore Sun endorses Obama. ‘Bout time. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.endorse26oct26,0,725660.story
Is there a handy zoom tool that I’m missing? The map is crazy crowded in spots.
Thanks again!
Interesting, but here’s my question:
By 2012, given current economic and industry trends, how many of the newspapers listed will have merged with other papers, will just be barely hanging on, or have completely folded?
Here’s my prognostication: a lot more than you’d think. In sum, I suspect the Dinosaur Media is too afraid to look up, because, if it did, it knows it would see the asteroid streaking in.”
New version of an old joke:
“Say, friend, who will the New York Times endorse for President in 2012?”
“Your question is irrelevant, old man, because there will be no New York Times in 2012.”
Anchorage Daily News endorses Obama.
http://www.adn.com/opinion/view/story/567867.html
Pingback: A qué candidato apoyan los medios de EEUU | Sicrono
@Alexa — hilarious… I have another fun infographic coming expanding on this point.
@Jeff, @Ed — thanks! There are a heap of others coming down the pipe:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003877935
I am going to spend the day at my favorite candidate’s vol. office, so I probably won’t update the map until E&P releases their full list on Monday.
@Jane — I can’t find the Deseret News’ endorsement. Linkplz?
Don’t forget to add the Anchorage Daily News’ endorsement of Obama: http://www.adn.com/opinion/view/story/567867.html
What about the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah? I was as surprised as anyone when the Tribune went with Obama–but there is a more conservative paper in SLC to offset.
Minnesota’s paper’s are endorsing… startribune.com/opinion
Thanks so much for this – definitely makes the info way more accessible, as noted by another commenter.
Re your ‘market effect’ comment concerning red papers in blue states: totally on target as least as far as the Baltimore Examiner goes. The paper came to be solely to cater to what it considered an under-served market of affluent and relatively conservative households in the Baltimore area.
Also, the circulation number is a sore point for many Baltimoreans (or Baltimorons, wev). The paper is free, and automatically delivered to homes in wealthier zip codes. It is such a pain to get them to stop delivering, in fact, that some households have taken to using little “No to the Examiner!” lawn signs to deter the delivery person.
@Mary – This is actually due to the map program. Because of the map projection used there’s some lateral error in the center of the country, where lies four of the five states I’ve never visited. I’ve tweaked the projection, hopefully without messing anything else up, to make Fargo, Omaha and KC line up right. Thanks!
One of your “mismatches” is due to your map being wrong. The Fargo Forum (red) is located in North Dakota (red…although possibly turning blue at this point in time), not Minnesota (blue).
I suppose we’re waiting for #2, the Wall Street Journal, to come out for John McCain/Snowbilly Palin and then perhaps you could graph the language of the editorial endorsements. That would be interesting. See how many use the word “terrorism” and “Bush” and “tax cuts” and “William Ayers.” What’s more interesting to me are the smaller, red states with Obama endorsements. I suppose the NY Post (a Murdoch property) isn’t a surprise, but New Yorkers are very much for an Obama presidency.
Are TV stations also going to issue endorsements? Could also provide an interesting tracking interactive.
MR / Paris, France
Pingback: [graphic] Interactive geographical map of newspaper endorsements : Writes Like She Talks
You have totally fed my obsession w/newspaper endorsements!! THANK YOU. :)
@jason Good catch. They changed the notation for ‘none’ from ‘N/A’ to ‘N’ and then the parser frammis ran up against the jimjam straightener and … yeah. It’s fixed now.
That is an amazing amount of information and presented in a terrific format.
Thank you very much for the time and effort you put into this.
IMO, McCain has run such a terrible campaign that I am sincerely surpised that no one is accusing him of deliberately trying to loose.
Short of deciding not to pick his nose in public (that photo after the last debate was close to being as ridiculous though), every other decision he has made seems to have been a deliberate attempt to sabotage his own campaign. Amazing.
J.
Nice, nice map — I like the visualization of the data this way, it’s *much* more accessible.
One question: you list eight newspapers in the “2008 McCain endorsement, 2004 Kerry endorsement” list, but only four of them appear to have endorsed Kerry in 2004. The DC Examiner, Baltimore Examiner, Wichita Falls Times Record News, and Chambersburg Public Opinion are all in your list with “(none)” for their 2004 endorsements, and the E&P list agrees with this. Shouldn’t they be moved into the “2008 McCain, 2004 Bush or none” list?
I should have been more specific about that, because I’m using the term loosely. I’m referring to the easy-to-remember stat that about 50% of the population lives within the boundaries of the top-50 metro areas (which is right around the 1M population mark):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
All of the Metropolitan areas are tautologically Urban, but at right about #50 you go from cities like Austin and Richmond and Salt Lake City to cities like Bethlehem/Allentown PA and Fresno, CA and Tulsa, OK.
I see a subjective but clear cultural demarcation between the cities well below that #50 (50%, 1M pop) line from those above. Agree? Disagree?
===
I will make a better case for the second claim — brb with a listing of top-100-papers-by-circulation vs. population-rank-of-metro-area.
The map is fantastic, but I wonder about your conclusion about “50% of the country is urban, 50% rural, but newspapers are located exclusively in urban areas.”
I’m fairly certain that this isn’t necessarily true. Maybe the first part is true given a strict definition of “urban” and “rural” and the second part is true for your inclusion criteria (“newspapers tracked by editor & publisher”), but I think that this assertion needs clarification.
“50% of the country is urban, 50% rural”
What does this mean? By population, 80% of the the US is urban or nearby suburban. 20% is rural.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-P1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-format=US-1
It’s not 50-50 urban-rural. It’s 80-20 urban-rural.
Half of the country is urban, and half rural? Not in terms of land – that skews far toward rural areas – and not in terms of population. Most Americans live in urban areas.
The 2000 Census put 80.3% of the US population in cities and suburbs.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/censr-4.pdf